Raphael Orlove and Bill Petrow just survived a nightmare that just about every driver has had before: Powering up a winding mountain road, spinning out of control and launching off the side of a mountain like some sort of hellish dreidel.
The two were starting the second day of practice on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, when Petrow's Nissan 240SX lost control. After the beginning corners, Orlove wrote on Jalopnik that he started to hear the car slide. Something had snapped the wheel studs on the inside rear wheel, and the car was now completely out of control.
Orlove recalled staring out his window as the two plummeted off the course and watching a huge boulder attempt to keep pace with the car. He didn't realize until after the crash, but that boulder was heading directly towards his window and could have easily killed him if it had just a little more momentum.
Thanks to what must have been a fortune's worth of safety equipment in Petrow's car, the two came out unhurt. On top of it all, the car was deemed safe to race the next day, with only a few relatively minor repairs.
In true Cinderella-story fashion, the two came back the next day and ended up finished second in class.
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