On 5/19/20 6:55 PM, Mike Harmuth wrote:
> What the H can you hit there? There's not even a turn.
> Darwin at work
There are a few gentle turns and some elevation changes along the route
we picked out. My friend Rich was the main man, I was his assistant.Â
We spent quite a few hours scouting the rural roads of Utah to find this
spot. And doing a couple of test passes in a Utah Highway Patrol Crown
Vic along the route seemed fine. But we never went over 100 - 110 mph.
The morning of the event there were many drivers ready to give it a go.Â
About 5th out was this bright orange Camaro, heavily modified. It
finished up at the end of the run clocked at 195 mph. The event was a
fundraiser for the UHP, with the money going into the Fallen Heroes Fund
or whatever it was actually called, which provided financial assistance
to families of troopers who were killed in the line of duty. The kicker
on this event was that the drivers would pay a "fine" of $1 per mph
clocked at the finish. After already shelling out something like 5
grand for the entry fee.
Anyway, a few cars after that Bitchin' Camaro the jeweler's son took off
in the Enzo. We had spotters along the route at many of the mileposts,
and they would radio in a quick word when a car passed there station. A
rough guess based on the time between spotters calling in the Ferrari's
position was that it was closing in on 200 mph. The spotter who saw it
at the end said it hit a small rise in the road, got airborne and when
the front wheels hit the ground they were pointed in a different
direction than the rest of the car. So it went sideways and rolled 6 -
7 times. At 200 mph. The car disintegrated, leaving major chunks
scattered along the side of the road for about a mile and a half. Left
rear quarter over there, engine and gearbox there, and so on. But as
you can see from the picture, the passenger compartment, the carbon
fiber roll cage, was intact and in one piece. Some fine engineering.Â
Driver was banged up and bruised, but not as badly as one might expect
given the details of the mishap.
And over a period of the next few years a local shop pieced the car back
together, making some changes and the driver ended up setting a land
speed record in the car out at the Salt Flats.
And oddly enough, Rich and I were not contacted about assisting with the
event the following year.
mjb.
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