I was supposed to be at Goodwood, but had to return early for medical reasons of the stupid variety. I’m basically fine now and everything is okay, and even though my Goodwood experience was cut off before it began, frustratingly, I’m still pretty sure I’m having a better Goodwood experience than whoever was driving Lotus’ $2.3 million all-electric Lotus Evija X hypercar and crashed it almost immediately off the start line at the Goodwood Hill Climb, like a Charger losing control exiting a Dayton-area Cars & Coffee. Ugh.
The Evija X is no joke, with about 2,000 horsepower from four motors, one powering each wheel via, shockingly, a standard bicycle chain (just kidding, that bit about the bike chain is very much Not True). It’s a track-only car, and just recently set the Nürburgring’s third-fastest lap time of 6:24, after the Volkswagen ID.R (6:05) and the Porsche 919 Evo (5:19). Lotus likes to remind us that the Evija X has a production-car chassis, which would make it the fastest lap time for something based on a production car.
All of this is just to say that the car is an absolute beast, and the very fact that it can ever be wrestled into going in the direction a frail, juicy human wants it to go is nothing short of incredible.
Yesterday, though, that didn’t really happen. This is what happened:
Lotus instantly crashed their $2.3 million Evija X Prototype at the start line during the Goodwood Festival Of Speed
EV torque for you 😅 pic.twitter.com/k0CQtVkfvQ
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) July 11, 2024
Oh crap. Right at the start line! Oh, I can feel the pain there! It looks like everything went wrong pretty much immediately, with tons of tire smoke suggesting none of those wheels were getting any sort of grip at all, until maybe one did, just enough to launch the car into the haybales.
Here’s another view of the incredibly short lap:
Now the good news is that this really doesn’t seem to be the fault of the driver, but more of a software issue, where the motor control software was not able to keep up with the intense, multi-wheel burnout. This seems to be at least partially confirmed by a statement from Lotus given to Road and Track:
“The Evija X took part in a hill run at Goodwood Festival of Speed on Thursday, 11th July, where it was involved in an incident at the start line. Following a formal evaluation by both Goodwood and Lotus, asymmetric grip caused by overcorrection during rapid acceleration at the start line was determined to be the cause. Driver was unharmed in the incident and there was minimal damage to the car.”
Hmm, okay, maybe not that confirmed. Lotus seems to be blaming an “overcorrection” which I guess lays this at the poor driver’s feet. Though, really, I suspect that both human and machine had at least roughly equal roles in this fiasco.
I can’t help but wonder what I’d be thinking were it me in that remarkable and wild Lotus, my mind still reeling from the clash of the initial pre-start adrenalin and self-pep-talking and the near-immediate reality that I’d just pranged the car horribly into a big cube of hay. What would I do, confronted with such a rapid and colossal fuck-up, my fault or otherwise? He’re a few ideas that popped into my sympathetically-panicked mind:
1. Hide
Yes, hide. Take advantage of all that smoke, get that five-point harness off and try to cram myself behind the seat or something like that. When they open up the car, and they don’t see me there, maybe they’ll just assume they forgot to put me in there in the first place? Seems worth a try.
2. I Meant To Do That
This is a classic, and either never fails or never works; I can’t quite recall which one here, but I’m just about positive it’s one of these results. Confidence is key here, and a certain feigned confusion that you really have to sell: “I’m sorry, isn’t that what we wanted to do? A quick hay bale crash test, right at the start? That’s what we said, right? And it went great! Why’s everyone acting so weird?”
Even better, I could have a specific thing in mind I was “testing,” like I come out saying “hay bale attraction system test is a complete success! The system works! It works, people, it works!”
3. Play Dead
Look, it works for possums, it should work for racing drivers, too. Just go limp and when they toss me onto the pile of stuff they need to deal with later, I wait for darkness and sneak away to start a new life under an assumed name, maybe something like Tony deLaser or Randy Bumblenuts.
4. Get Out of Car While the Air Is Still Full of Smoke, Mix Into Crowd, Act As Surprised As Anyone
The key here is to ditch the helmet, and get in a position where you can be seen looking at all the carnage nice and confused, saying things like “wow” and “holy shit” and “I hope everyone is okay!” [Ed note: Like so!]
5. Pretend Like A Portal Opened And I’m From A Parallel Universe
This one requires that a critical mass of people around me subscribe to some sort of quantum multiverse theory, but thanks to the popularity this concept has had in mass media and entertainment, I bet that should be a reasonably safe bet. I’ll just claim that the incredible power created by the Evija X under full acceleration was enough to open a rift in the fabric of spacetime, and it swapped me, Torch from an alternate universe where Lotus was the largest, most successful carmaker but Goodwood happens in, um, Lansing, Michigan, for the Torch that was supposed to be driving this car, and, well, everything went to shit from there. This one requires making up a lot of flattering lies about alternate-universe Lotus to answer questions I’ll invariably get asked, but I think I can do that.
Also, in the universe I say I came from, Hanomag is still a major player in the automotive space, and they now own the rights to the Mustang.
6. Just Pee In the Seat, Generously and, Yes, Lavishly
I mean, I may as well, everything else has gone absolutely to hell as it is, right? No reason not to just really let go and absolutely flood that crumpled interior with my redolent post-fuck-up-pee.
7. Come Out Blaming Someone Specific
For this to work, I think I’d need a very specific scapegoat. Ideally, someone who has it coming, but if not, maybe some summer intern with rich parents who’ll land on his feet no matter what? I’d have to come out screaming the name of my targeted chump, and ideally have some sort of vague explanation about what happened. Something like “Dammit, Kyle, what did I tell you about messing with the throttle return spring!” or “What the fuck, Cassie, you spilled kombucha all over the pedals?” Something like that.
8. Feign Amnesia
Yep, just like getting hit on the head with a cartoon mallet. Open that door, loudly ask “where am I?” and then just play dumb until all the shit blows over! Easy!
9. Blame It On The Car Being Too Woke/Too MAGA
The key here is being able to read the crowd; which one will get me more sympathy? This may be tricky to pull off in the heat of the moment, so it may just come down to a gut-level crapshoot. Either way, I’m going to have about half the crowd against me and half willing to defend me, without the burden of evidence, which is what I’ll need.
10. Ask For A Do-Over
The trick here is to immediately exit the car screaming “Hold up, hold up, that didn’t count, I get a do-over” and then desperately try and shove the wrecked car back into place, likely ineffectually, until security drags me off, screaming and sobbing. The key here is I kept my dignity.
