Okay, How Do I Put This?

On Sat. afternoon Mr. Bigglesworth and I were playing "Extreme Irresponsible Driver" on a local back road we often drive irresponsibly on.... Yep. You already know the rest! For the curious...

Somehow the back end lost traction and spun a 180, finally slamming into a curb on the other side of the road at about 70mph. It managed to hop off the street, over the curb, and into a dirt field.
No humans or curbs were hurt. Mr. B on the other hand...

The uninvertible MINI remained upright where other cars probably would have flipped over. There













is almost no body damage that the average person would notice ( (front right a-panel, plastic body moulding, front right fender, rear right fender... *I* notice!); The curb took a chunk out of the rear rim and severely tweaked the front one; alignment is non-existent. All passenger side plastic body trim sustained damage.

The rear tire is rubbing against the frame so hard it made a pile of "rubber dust". The hit was strong enough that the wiper fluid reservoir apparently cracked upon impact. The jack stand support and who knows what other under-carriage bits got torn off and flew into the dirt. I didn't take inventory. I got home before my non-runflats went flat!

It got towed to the body shop recommended by the insurance company this afternoon. I'm fully covered (or so they say). While mild and a yawner in comparison to other recent MINI-crashes, my instincts tell me it's going to end up much worse than my untrained eye can see. I don't have a repair timeline yet. My fingers are crossed.

Here is an opportunity to share a learned lesson: Even in one of the best handling cars on the market, there is no excuse for driving like an idiot. Please spare the sympathy. It was totally my fault and a blatant reminder that the world is not a race track.

At the expense of my reputation as a good driver, I'll be chronicling these events for posterity on my blog and gallery at irieman.com/mymini.

PS: I apologize to the MINI community for contributing to higher insurance rates.