I think I know how this happened.

Hard on the throttle in 1st, high rpms, take the turn, quick shift into 2nd (knee jerk reaction b/c you hear the motor wanting to shift), foot is back on the gas, rear end brakes traction very abruptly sending you into a spin. Absolutely worse time to shift is in a turn a sharp turn at high rpms.

I did this at my 4th autoX in my car and after owning for about 4 months. I had pretty fresh Kuhmo XS tires. It was embarrassing but I definitely learned what not to do! My car was in a controlled environment so nothing was hurt but my pride for a day though.

 

Majority of us can pretty much guess what happened. Doesn't take a genius to see he had too much throttle and who knows what condition his tires or even the road was in. Just young and inexperienced IMO. No need to push the OP to tell us in detail. The most important thing here is that hopefully the OP learned from this mistake. And I will stress, you need to learn from this mistake or you might become a statistic.

OP, it sounds like your already planning on getting a new S, read through some info on this forum. Alot of tips to take when it comes to this car. Especially with the AP1s, very unforgiving cars. Your 3 months experience with the S is not enough for you to be trying to push the S on the streets unless you had some track/autocross time with it. Even then, I dont recommend pushing the S on the streets at all.

Anyways, sorry about your loss. Glad you are unharmed and good luck with your search for a new S. Alot of the other members have covered already what you should do insurance wise.

 

Think he's already in another S (think AP2) hope he learned and will learn more about this car in a more positive experience.

 

Have not been in this part of the fourm in a while, sorry guys, I thought thread had died and I'm busy with dealing with a 1500 mile roadtrip/move. So far I picked up a ap2 for around same price, I'm easy on the throttle on this car, I did try a give it a bit of gas on a turn and my ap2 does Not want to fish tail(I'm glad for m safty) but the reason why. I think because of the tire diffrence. My ap1 had shitty hankook tires and my ap2 has 18" rims wrapped with star specs all around, the tires grip awesome

 

. Please do not over trust better tires for doing the job of the brain, feet and hands.. . tires don't save you from spinning around if your car setup and skills are not in tune with eachother, they only delay the action of.. .

 

The reality is unless your s2000 is mechanically very unsound you have to try to spin one - which I have done on several occasions. Each one being squarely my fault and not the cars. This mystical juju about the ap1 being dangerous is BS people are just driving beyond there limit the car. It isn't an under steering fwd civic.

 

Always astounded to hear all the people who think that spins happen due to getting on the gas. Getting *off* the gas (or on the brakes) is what causes spins. You might get the back end a little loose on the gas, but what you do next determines whether you spin or not. And the natural instict of the inexperienced driver to abruptly get out of the throttle is exactly the wrong thing to do...

And the AP1 is worse than the AP2 and most other cars in this regard, as when the uninitiated driver LIFTS off the gas the instant the back end starts to feel loose, not only are the rears unloaded which naturally gives more oversteer, but the outside rear toes relatively OUT, giving a big additional dose of oversteer. Instant spin.

I love the AP1, but rear-toe-change-with-bump has never been a good idea. No upside for the experienced driver, huge downsides to the uninitiated.

 

Well said!!

I think the S2 is initiating a lot of young FWD drivers to the realities of rear wheel drive, and as you've said, an AP1 is one of the tougher rear wheel drive cars to drive, let alone learn on. Seems lots of folks are moving up from their FWD Civics now that used S2ks are within their budget. Too bad it's a costly mistake for them.

(i bought my 16 year old son a rear wheel drive pickup--- he's almost 18 now and can drive that thing pretty well in our winter snowstorms (not wrecked it yet) so he's had to learn the nuances of RWD. While its not a high performance car by any definition, learning how to drive a rear wheel drive vehicle with a light back end on slippery surfaces is something i want him to know how to do.) my wife and I both have AWD SUVs for our daily drivers but he has to learn how to control a RWD before he "moves up",

Driving a FWD is almost a mindless experience compared to a RWD---everybody should understand that before they go out and buy a car like an S2k--- especially an AP1 if it's their first RWD

 

I generally agree. At low speeds though I've not had the rear end break loose due to lift off.

However a spinning rear end could have snapped him around. Wouldn't have taken much if he didn't react. It's all speculation at my end here. I'm thinking heavy throttle, rear end broke, he either tried to save it or couldnt. The result was hitting something that didnt move. I can EASILY get my rear end to break loose on a 90 degree turn at the top of first. So consistently too.

I'm giving the OP a hard time, largely because I'm tired of kids racing these cars on the street.

 

I came from driving a fwd Civic (Still do drive it)

And I have NEVER broke the rear end loose on the S2k without doing it intentionally.

I am sorry to say, but the S2k does not have that much power where you can accidentally break the rear loose.

If you break the rear loose on a car like this you are up there in the rpms and quite frankly know whats going to happen next.

Just my .02