Going to Infineon turned out to be a bad idea. Or maybe practicing for a month on Gran Turismo 4 was the bad idea. Regardless, long story short, during my third session on the track, brimming with overconfidence and an overambitious desire to achieve a low lap time, I "ran out of talent", lost control of the car in turn 8 (the infamous Esses) and stuffed it into a tire wall. Here's how it happened:

Anatomy Of A Crash

Entering turn 8: the problem started here where I tried to carry a bit too much speed into the left-hander; I was going just a few miles per hour faster than a previous lap (black marker/dials) but as it turned out, this made a huge difference.

"Slow in, fast out", a principle that every track driver learns from the outset, and one I would have done well to note here. Still accelerating into the corner, I reached a bit over 95 mph; on the earlier lap I'd leveled out my speed and had already started easing into the left turn (left G-force vector on the black marker).

Mid-corner, sustaining close to 1.1 lateral G's which was as much as the car could manage on the cold track surface. I'd turned in later and was still going faster than the previous lap. Sensing that I was going to go too deep into the turn prior to the right-hander, I tried to tighten the turn a bit either with a bit more steering input or easing off the throttle a bit, which caused a bit of left oversteer in the car—the rear of the car started swinging out to the right. This would have been the last opportunity to correct the problem, by straightening the wheel and braking gently to shed off a lot of speed to regain the correct line.

The added steering effort served only to cause the car to oversteer and start sliding sideways, rather than tightening the turn. The added speed and later turn-in left me very deep into the turn, near the right edge of the track which was the wrong place to be prior to the right-hand section of the turn (8A). (Notice that in the earlier lap I'd already completed the left-hand turn and was already transitioning into a right turn.) I'd let the car oversteer hoping to regain the correct line but had let it go too far, and by now I was realizing I couldn't get the tail back and was in trouble as the car went from a left oversteer into a slow left spin.

By now I was merely a passenger with no control of the car. I went "both feet in", jamming the brakes, sliding sideways and bleeding off speed as I left the track surface and went onto the grass at about 65 mph. I watched helplessly as the car slid quickly towards the wall...

... Hitting it at close to 50 mph. I reflexively closed my eyes the moment before impact. I felt a hard impact and my head flung forward (I was glad to the HANS device on) as the car went nose first into the tire barrier and quickly spun and hit the tires again with the right side.

Opening my eyes I knew I was all right, completely unscathed in fact, though the same could not be said about the car. I immediately turned off the master switch, cutting all electrical power, then took down my window net and gave a thumbs-up sign to the nearby corner worker to signal that I was all right. I watched for signs of a fire but luckily did not need to activate the fire system. The emergency workers arrived quickly and within a couple minutes my car was on the flatbed tow and hauled off the track.

Aftermath

The car sustained heavy front-end damage and superficial body panel damage to the right side. Certain parts are obviously irreversibly damaged, notably the front bumper cover, hood, front clip, front fenders, radiator, intercooler, and undertray. The frame is bent forward of the front suspension but the shock towers and engine mount point appear, at least to the naked eye, to still be straight, so it may be possible to repair the car.

With the Evo down until further notice, I was forced to cancel my participation in the following weekend's ARC races. However I did attend the ARC race school in my Miata instead, which I completed without any incident.

As for the Evo, I've not yet had time to further assess the damage. If it's fixable, I'll likely repair it although the repairs will likely take a few months to complete (and fund), if not I'll part out the car and sell the parts to get what money as I can out of it. In the latter case, the Miata will undergo a full race transformation, a prospect that itself has me quite excited... but let's not get ahead of ourselves.