RIP Paul Walker - killed in a CGT's passenger seat

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by Topless

I'm sure we will find out soon enough. A back-of-a-napkin calculation of the forces required to break off the starter motor and hurl it 120' into a second story office window suggests 100mph+ to me... but I could be wrong.

If we were in fact talking about a standard road car you could say that. When you are talking about a full on carbon fiber racing car, all bets are off. The only thing that is designed not to tear apart and not go flying in pieces into the next county is the tub. In that respect the Porsche engineering paid off -- tub in tact, seats still bolted down. Even the wheels were still attached. look at Allan McNish's Le Mans crash into that one corner, he was doing 100 plus, hit the wall and one of the wheels came down into the crowd mere inches from photogs And fans.

[papasmurf]

as the black CGT was owned by a somewhat notorious fellow (VR Alexander) that frequently drove and filmed his CGT around the LA area. He was killed while driving up pikes peak I believe a few years ago (911 turbo I think). Driving the cars sanely like a normal car especially in traffic and around the city should not present any more issues than any other car. A viper, t-bucket roadster, cobra kit car, etc. can get you in just as much trouble as any CGT when driven irresponsibly. It is as much the mentality of the driver that is at fault in these situations as anything.

On an irrelevant side note...VR Alexanders CGT had straight pipes and/or an aftermarket exhaust and while louder, does not sound nearly as good as the stock exhaust system.

[Timco]

Originally Posted by tanque55

I certainly don't want anyone telling what I can or can not buy. Porsches fault? Give me a break. You can do as much or more damage with guns, speed boats, wave runners, motorcycles. I'm almost certain that if it was in our price range and available more than half of the guys on this fórum would have the same car in their garage .

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

If we were in fact talking about a standard road car you could say that. When you are talking about a full on carbon fiber racing car, all bets are off. The only thing that is designed not to tear apart and not go flying in pieces into the next county is the tub. In that respect the Porsche engineering paid off -- tub in tact, seats still bolted down. Even the wheels were still attached. look at Allan McNish's Le Mans crash into that one corner, he was doing 100 plus, hit the wall and one of the wheels came down into the crowd mere inches from photogs And fans.

From what I understand, giant explosions from gas tanks have been known to toss very large objects for great distances.

[coreseller]

Originally Posted by papasmurf

as the black CGT was owned by a somewhat notorious fellow (VR Alexander) that frequently drove and filmed his CGT around the LA area. He was killed while driving up pikes peak I believe a few years ago (911 turbo I think). Driving the cars sanely like a normal car especially in traffic and around the city should not present any more issues than any other car. A viper, t-bucket roadster, cobra kit car, etc. can get you in just as much trouble as any CGT when driven irresponsibly. It is as much the mentality of the driver that is at fault in these situations as anything.

On an irrelevant side note...VR Alexanders CGT had straight pipes and/or an aftermarket exhaust and while louder, does not sound nearly as good as the stock exhaust system.

Yeah, I was aware of who drove the black CGT and how he met his maker. I had seen him a few times on TV usually somehow tied in with Tanner Foust (before ATG) along with Porsches. The guy knew his stuff on P-Cars but to me from the episodes I saw on TV, screamed arrogant a-hole.

Couldn't agree more on the V-10 exhaust, the black CGT's (VR's) note was obnoxious. The downshift and subsequent howl at 7:27 does indeed sound about as wicked as it gets.

Regarding the speed of the CGT, we'll all find that out eventually.

[papasmurf]

I am sure he knew a fair amount about porsches. I do remember a video where he was dissing the boxster treating it like it was not a real porsche due to the lower power output and such...I guess his knowledge of porsche did not include the 356, 914, etc. and only cars like the CGT and 959.

[stephen wilson]

Originally Posted by Timco

From what I understand, giant explosions from gas tanks have been known to toss very large objects for great distances.

There's no evidence of an explosion, just fire. In explosion like that would leave a wide debris field, but the debris was primarily between the impact points. One video showed 60 Seconds after impact, heavy smoke started, no explosion.

[thstone]

Good discussion. Here is my speculation: out for a demo ride, pro race driver shows off a bit and loses control at high speed (>100mph). Car crashes into fixed objects. Occupants crash into car interior and are dazed/unconscious. Fire starts. We know how it ends.

Its a simple result of using poor judgment at the wrong moment in the wrong place. We've all done something similar (in terms of poor judgment) and got away with it. This is the 1 in a 1,000,000 who didn't.

[Timco]

Coroner: Paul Walker car going 100-plus mph - CNN.com

Over 100. Here it is.

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by Timco

Coroner: Paul Walker car going 100-plus mph - CNN.com

Over 100. Here it is.

"Investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department met with engineers from Porsche to analyze the data-retrieval system in the car's computer, the department said last month. That system is used to shed light on the car's speed, throttle opening, air bag deployment, seat belt use and, possibly, other information from the time of the crash"

That's an interesting word choice. More interesting is that any of the car's data-logging is apparently fire and explosion-proof. And instead of hiring an independent expert to examine the data, the police went to the party that will most likely be the defendant in a civil suit to analyze said data? Sounds to me like Porsche is setting up a defense for the family's civil suit with this 100+ mph business. If Rodas was a competitive driver, I don't see how he couldn't have scrubbed some speed, at speeds fairly common for a racer and on a stretch of street that was far from ideal for 100+ mph racing. Either way they were certainly going over 45 mph so Porsche has a leg up from the start.

Let's wait until the family's indepdenpent expert goes through these same documents/data, if Porsche hasn't cleverly settled before then (long after the 100+ mph storyline becomes accepted fact).

[BYprodriver]

Originally Posted by thstone

Good discussion. Here is my speculation: out for a demo ride, pro race driver shows off a bit and loses control at high speed (>100mph). Car crashes into fixed objects. Occupants crash into car interior and are dazed/unconscious. Fire starts. We know how it ends.

Its a simple result of using poor judgment at the wrong moment in the wrong place. We've all done something similar (in terms of poor judgment) and got away with it. This is the 1 in a 1,000,000 who didn't.

+1 I heard somewhere the car had "racing slick tires" I don't think they ever left the office park so probablly never fully warmed up the tires.

[thstone]

Paul Walker's driver. 993 owner out in the canyon. Same issue.

Take it to the race track folks!

[southernstar]

I suspect that investigators are required to use Porsche's proprietary software to analyze the data. I also suspect that Porsche wouldn't 'fudge' the readings, law suit or not - those responsible could end up charged with obstructing justice, or the equivalent under California law.

What's the lesson here? Drive at speeds in excess of 100 mph on public streets where there are curbs and light posts and trees directly off the travelled portion of the roadway and there is absolutely no margin for error!

Brad

[RandallNeighbour]

"What's the lesson here? Drive at speeds in excess of 100 mph on public streets where there are curbs and light posts and trees directly off the travelled portion of the roadway and there is absolutely no margin for error!"

... driving at speeds in excess of 100 mph in a PARKING LOT provides even less room for error!

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by southernstar

I suspect that investigators are required to use Porsche's proprietary software to analyze the data. I also suspect that Porsche wouldn't 'fudge' the readings, law suit or not - those responsible could end up charged with obstructing justice, or the equivalent under California law.

I think Porsche are smart enough not to manipulate black and white data.
However, if there was any "approximating" needed for the retrieved data I would very suspicious. In the Ben Keaton and Corey Rudl case Porsche's own engineers contradicted each other on the stand when asked why stability management was left out of the CGT. One admitted straight up that safety was tossed in favor of sales.

If no interpreation/approximation of the data was needed, then the police could easily have given the telemetry to an independent third party (with no interest in concluding if the speed was above or under 100+mph) under a strict confidentiality agreement with Porsche and the police. And even if some guess work had to be done, the independent company could have been able to do this as well as that isn't a proprietary process. It's really head-scratching why the police would allow the party most likely to be the target of a civil suit to make this determination on the speed at impact.
But it doesn't matter because if a civil suit is brought the attorneys of the family and the expert witness they hire are going to have a field day with this decision by the police. What's more interesting to me is that Porsche themselves did not hire a independent firm to recuse themselves from this pivotal fact point. I'm more curious as to how the electronics survived a fire that left the police resorting to dental records. That must be some seriously high temp plastic.

[BYprodriver]

Amazing how often it comes down to tires, especially when speeds get into 3 digits.

Back in my press vehicle test driving days, we had a Dodge SRT10 truck with Viper engine & 6-speed. Truck had a couple thousand miles & was perfect.(handling was amazing for the time 2003) Truck got scheduled to go to Jay Leno for some high speed testing. Chrysler sent a new set of oem 22" tires, Pirellis I think. I protested as much as I dared about installing full tread depth, unproven tires, hours before VIP delivery to the opposite side of LA. Knowing few shops knew how to balance 22" wheels without proper equipment designed for them I anticipated problems leading to delays. My idea had to yield to client ideas so we lucked out & got a decent balance job & lots of unsightly slabs of aftermarket lead.
This all took place about a year after Autoweek rolled a preproduction Jeep Liberty during slalom testing. After this incident Chrysler mandated new OEM all-season tires for each Liberty test loan.

[thstone]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

... under a strict confidentiality agreement with Porsche and the police.

Good idea, but Toyota refused a highly similar scenario during the Prius unintended acceleration investigation (between Toyota, an independent engineering company, and NASA). Thus, I expect that Porcshe would follow a similar path of refusal.

The #1 rule in the protection of intellectual property is not to disclose it in the first place.

[Perfectlap]

but wouldn't this fairly routine data collected from Porsches already be out there though? I'm no race engineer but I'm thinking privateers must need access to equally if not more in depth telemetry than what would be needed in a road car traveling under triple digits. Or do the privateers have to install third party data-logging hardware for every relevant element..braking, acceleration, g's, throttle, etc. without any access to the onboard stuff rom Porsche? I guess these would be a good question for BGB who raced without factory support.

At any rate if the data Porsche used is too complicated to show and far too proprietary, then that sounds like it wasn't a simple matter of seeing a printout that showed the speed at impact but actually involved some guesstimating by Porsche in order to arrive at the 100+ mph figure.

[BYprodriver]

I'm guessing Porsche wanted these facts to be revealed & properly translated into English layman's terms.

[jdlmodelt]

So, what about Ferrari, Lamborgini, etc...they all fall into this high HP low car weight category and require an extremely experienced driver to stay out of trouble. Do we need to stop making all exotics? What about the guys hopping up the Nissans and Hondas, etc....It was an unfortunate accident.

I've responded to accidents at much slower speeds with fatalities. **************** happens sometimes. I don't understand why a whole bunch of Porsche owners think Porsche was irresponsible to make and sell this car? I'm quite sure motorcycle accidents are far more prevalent than exotic car accidents. I think people just start to think they are invincible and consequently, take risks that they can't control.

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

That's all true, those guys exercised free will in getting into a inherently dangerous car.

But this isn't an analog issue. You're certainly welcomed to put all of the blame on one party but I think that's a little too convenient for Porsche's sake. Everyone knows that high powered sports cars are dangerous, but does everyone know when they are in a yet higher level of danger because of safety compromises made for the sake of profit?

They exercised extremely poor judgment in selling this car as a production road car without taking some life-saving precautions. For starters they knew well ahead of the release that this car was not for novices yet no qualification was needed. They had every reason to believe that this car behaves like so many illegal for the street racing cars, and that sooner or later someone would turn the car into a heap. They recently acknowledged with the GT3 launch in press interviews that safety was prime motivation for moving to electric steering of high performance car, the old school steering fluid is highly flamable in the event of crash a simple spark could turn it into fireball. Yet they still chose to have the CGT fuel tank that close to the drivers, and still chose not to add some flavor of stability management or recalibration of the engine/throttle to make it more docile in green hands. This is a recipe for an accident that is survivable but the occupant(s) still get burned to death.

Did Paul Walker know he could be burned alive because of the peculiar crash-worthiness of this car? We'll never know.

[Perfectlap]

^ no they can keep selling exotics all day long. But don't conflate a $200K Ferrari or Lamborghini specifically designed for road car use with a flat out racing car that was never intended to be a road car and only became a road car when Porsche was not allowed to race the CGT afterall. Worst of all, when the decision to sell a racing car as road was made, they ignored their own well researched conclusions about what could keep the driver alive or keep that novice driver from taking out a bunch of other motorists in a highly flamable configuration. A driver getting into one of these racing cars veiled as a road car isn't just risking his own life, he's putting others at risk as well.
That is to say I have no issue with a guy putting himself in a coffin because he overestimated his talent and skill. Easy come easy go. But what do you say to the family of the driver pinned in his $20K car and subsequently burned alive because the CGT driver lost control, plowed into him with his $300K car and they both become a fire ball within 60 seconds of the impact? ooops? Or maybe for the sake of everyone on the road that $300K car should have had some stability management or fire mitigation required for road car use. If you want to jump without these parachutes on the track that's entirely a different matter.