My voice of reason Ferrari thread...

james_woods

For those of you who know me a little from my posting here, I guess you could correctly say that I am a totally committed gearhead. So, this thread will probably come as a shock, because something happened to someone I know that caused me to do a "voice of reason" post on the subject of fast cars in the hands of people with more money than brains.

My current cars are a 1995 Corvette ZR1, a 1996 Porsche 911 Targa, a 2004 Corvette Z06, a Mazda Miata, and a Nissan 240SX, all black on black.

The Porsche is maintained by a local independent dealer who holds the Dallas franchise for the German supertuner RUF. If you do not know this company, on History Channel a while back was a segment on the speed-limitless German Autobahn. That was a RUF Turbo modified 911 they showed doing about 220 MPH down the Autobahn in the middle of the night.

Anyway, my Porsche friend Hans, owner of this dealership, did a promotional event last week in Utah. What this consisted of was essentially a car meet and high speed rally on a closed section of public highway. The local highway patrol shut down the section of road, and then posted a speed radar on the high speed section straightaway. The deal was that you had to pay whatever the traffic ticket would be for your top speed, which was then donated to a charity for survivors of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. Hans and one of his RUF customers took top speed of the day with 206 MPH.

The car to follow was a Ferrari Enzo. This was the same type of car to famously crash on the Pacific Coast Highway in California a couple of months ago. The Enzo was lining up for the long straight, coming through some gentle curves and a couple of little hilltop crests. It was doing an estimated 170 MPH when it topped a crest and got wind underneath the car. It basically "blew up and over" at that point, reportedly rolling over laterally and longitudinally at least 11 times. Needless to say, it was reduced from an $850,000 work of art into about a million pieces of carbon fiber and aluminum alloy. Fortunately, due to it's immensely strong construction, the owner survived - but with many serious injuries. I believe they are now saying multiple broken ribs, several broken vertebra, four broken fingers and a wrist, among other injuries. I will not name the individual publicly, but if you have seen the latest Road & Track, there is an article about him and his car in which a photograph shows it clocking 215 MPH, also on a public highway. He has been generally praised for doing much good work for charity with this car, such as helping kids with terminal cancer, etc.

While I know this was done for a good cause, and I am thankfull that life was not lost, my point of view is right now to wonder if this was all worth the risk and cost. Is it not possible to have fun with our cars without going to such extremes?

James (who has lost two close friends in aerobatic flying accidents, and two more in motor racing)

SixofNine

I'm sure I don't have to tell you, but you don't take a turn, or crest a hill, or whatever, at 170mph if you haven't taken that same hill at 165mph, 155mph, 145mph, and so on. Even Ricky Bobby wouldn't have had this accident ;-)

lost_light06

SWALKER

When your friends are involved in these activities it stands to reason that you're going to lose a few along the way or see them seriously injured....

There was a Bank Executive (from my area) that decided to go "run with the bulls" in Spain, recently. He and his buddies would go do stuff like this around the world....exciting for the most part. This time though, he wasn't too lucky and was gored by a bull, and will be paralyzed for the rest of his life. He was about 30 yrs old and was really just beginning his life....so sad!!!

Swalker

MinisterAmos

Aren't LEO's covered by worker's comp, multiple insurance policies and immediate assistance from the PBO? I'm pretty sure there is no group LESS in need of this sort of assistance than LEO. Heck 10Xs as many GARBAGE MEN suffer fatal OTJ injuries as LEO.

If they want to play with their cars let them rent a track (TX Motorsports?) or ship them to Qatar rather than inventing false charities.

parakeet

***my point of view is right now to wonder if this was all worth the risk and cost. Is it not possible to have fun with our cars without going to such extremes?***

My idea of risk is climbing more than 3 rungs up a ladder, so I don't understand what people get out of this kind of insanity. I think it's extremely selfish to indulge in such high-risk sports for fun; it's unfair of the participants to value their lives so lightly. It's unfair to their families by placing them in constant fear for their safety. It's unfair to society, who often must pay higher insurance premiums so the survivors of these stunts can be kept alive or rehabilitated.
If they're not afraid of dying, why don't they channel their energy into helping researchers find a cure for Ebola or train to rescue people in disaster areas. At least the game would be worth the risk.

restrangled

I will ever forget being on the Audobon in Germany and hearing the sound of a Ferrari come up behind us. It drowned out the radio. There was no ignoring that machine!

I don't think there is anything more thrilling than a fast car. I grew up with gear heads, my father always had sports cars as far back as I can remember. His last was a 1934 Ford Coupe roadster with an exposed engine so low to the ground at the front end I think it was maybe 3 inches off the pavement.

Fast cars are addictive and so is the feeling when you are thrown back into your seat as it takes off. Dangerous yes. Worth the risk? There are plenty of hobbies out there more dangerous in my mind.

Although my car is not the calibre of yours, my 2005 Mustang GT gives me a thrill every time we hit an on ramp onto a major highway, or at an open stop light, with the street wide open in front of you.

Both my brothers were car and Harley fanatics. My middle brother died on a Harley. He was an excellent rider and was asked to check out a friends bike. At 80 the chain snapped and he hit a median in Chicago.

There are risks to any thrill what ever they may be.

If you go out smiling, that may not be so bad.

r.

serendipity

My thoughts are similar to Parakeet's. There are other victims when the thrilling times end disasterously.

james_woods

Thanks, 6of9, lost_light, SWALKER, Minister, parakeet, restrangled, and serendipity - you are all in line with what I was thinking, too.

In particular, restrangled states further a point I wanted to make but actually states it better: This fast car thing is an outgrowth of a personality type of "risk takers" who actually get a rush out of taking everything as close to the limit as possible. Maybe we should call those of us who do this "risk junkies" instead. You will also see these people riding fast motorcycles, skiing impossible slopes on long racing skis, flying aerobatic airplanes, etc...I was one of these myself, and a pretty bad one.

I had a friend (an aeronautical engineer) who went with me when we did our accelerated instrument flying course. He was about my age now, and I was in my 20's. I had just bought a Citabria aerobatic taildragger, and begged him to go fly with me in it. Although he and I had been flying many hours together in instrument training, and each trusted one another, he refused. Afraid of going upside down. Here was his statement to me:

"You know James, you young guys have everything to live for - and sometimes you act like your life means nothing at all. Old guys like me are really close to not being able to do anything anymore, and we are holding on to life like there was no tomorrow! Maybe there is something backwards about all this..."

I went straight on and joined an aerobatics club. Within 10 years, one professional pilot was killed at an airshow, one amateur (my next door neighbor Dave Howard) was killed in a low-altitude practice accident, and another professional pilot (he flew the little mini-jet like that one in the James Bond movie) had quit the profession out of a general feeling of frustration. I decided to quit flying in the late nineties because blood pressure was getting higher and vision was getting lower.

I guess I keep the old road rockets and the old long skis mostly out of nostalgia - but I do run them safely every once in a while.

Parakeet also states (better than I did) another pair of excellent points: Besides the adrenaline rush, there is admittedly an air of "showing off" about this kind of stuff...and even if we "cover it up" by saying it is all for charity, we ignore whether the so-called good really outweighs the effect of an accident on other peoples insurance rates, our own family, etc. I wonder if the proceeds to go to law enforcement (in the event there had been no accident) for that event came to even a small fraction of what the accident ended up costing.

This was all just a "word of warning" (from someone who knows the problem) - for our younger people. It just came to me when I heard about this incident.

James

My voice of reason Ferrari thread...

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