What can you do when your car goes sideways at 270 km/h (168 mph) and a tire blows off? Not much, except try to hold on for dear life. And, at that point, you’re most likely at the mercy of your safety equipment. This is the lesson Mick Mansour wants to discuss after having walked away from a terrifying rollover crash in his Nissan GT-R while attending the 2022 GT-R Challenge held on Australia’s Cootamundra Airport last month—it was the very first accident in the 14-year history of the event.
It all happened during a solo run that saw the 1,500 HP GT-R, a highly modded R32, going slightly sideways while at speed. Mick decided to stay on the gas and, after some opposite lock, Godzilla went sliding the other way, approaching the grass on the side of the runway at a scary pace. The driver once again countersteered, but when the right-rear left-rear tire ended up on the grass, disaster struck.
Mick was left telling the car to just stop as it was flying through the air
By that point, the GT-R was at the speed mentioned in the intro and it went fully sideways. The extreme forces involved caused the right-front tire to explode, at which point the vehicle started rolling. And, as his crew and friends, along with the event organizers and other racers were watching, the vehicle flipped 11 times, after which it landed on its roof.
Fortunately, Mick was still conscious at that point. He managed to unbuckle himself and exit the wrecked Nissan though a side window. Once he was taken to the hospital, the medics couldn’t believe that the man had not sustained any severe injury and so they repeated his MRA scan. And, in what the doctors, who had learned the details of the accident, called a miracle, they were able to confirm that Mick could go home to his family on that very day.
The GT-R had been taken down to 1,500 hp for that event
Mick, who owns a tuning shop, had built the R32 for a customer. And he had the vehicle dialed down for the said event, with the machine going from 2,100 to 1,500 hp. Alas, it seems that the negative feeling Mick had during one of the previous runs he did that day actually meant something.
The driver, who now talks about the nightmares he head following the traumatic experience, wants to stay positive. As such, he talks about the importance of the safety gear to which he probably owes his life. It all starts with the roll cage, while the funny car helmet, the multi-point harness, which he had properly tightened, and the bucket seat and others are also mentioned in the Motive Video below.
Now, Mick’s shop was able to recover quite a few bits from the crashed GT-R, including the engine (the turbo was ejected in the accident, though), transmission, differential, a pair of wheels and many interior bits, nitrous bottle included.
Having handed his personal R32 over to the customer that lent him the car that’s now ruined, Mick is ready to build more cars. In addition, he plans to return to racing later in the season, showing the said positive attitude.
