Jackass in a 997 GT3
 

It's a shame that Jackass star Ryan Dunn died while "piloting" his '07 997 GT3. What really bothers me is that he was only going a reported 110mph. By the looks of the car I would have guessed he was going faster. I'm sure the producers of Jackass are kicking themselves for not being able to record the crash.

As drunk as he supposedly was, that 110 probably felt like 200

In Pa. the armco is mounted to steel I beams sunk in the shoulder. If you deform the armco it's like driving through a wood chipper. That's why there was only a floor pan and a the front firewall left.

Wonder what was left of the motor.

Tragedy
 

The only tragedy is that the rest of the cast wasn't in the back seat.

Saw the crash site today first hand.
It is a Y intersection...
By the look of the skid marks, he made a last minute decision to take the right fork of the road.
The car, on the other hand, decided to take the middle fork.
They were still cleaning up debris at noon.
Looked more like a small plane had crashed into the woods.
Sick, yet sad.

Wow...that's pretty harsh :eek: (Were the movies that bad??)

Yea, read about this today.. what a beautiful car! what a waste...

Hell of a way to go though. Buckle up fellas!

Wow, I can't believe some of those remarks. The bar owner said he's not a big drinker so who knows if he was drunk or not. He shouldn't have been driving like that if he'd been drinking, but who really knows what happened. At the end of the day 2 people died.

I think some of the members here need to sell their car and go buy something more suitable for their old grandpa cruising ways and quit acting like driving a PORSCHE hard or fast is crazy. Is it wreckless sure, but to each his own.

I managed to hit 149 in my car Sunday and had I wrecked and died I would have gone out with the biggest grin on my face. Wouldn't have liked it any other way

Doing it on the street is inexcusable... you may be willing to die on the street, but the others who are on the roads didn't sign up for that.

If you want to go fast, take it to the track.

Amen. :cheers:

RIP Ryan Dunn and his passenger.

Good quote, just add sober to it....

I like to party with the best of them from time to time, however what Ryan did was very stupid.

Must have been under some serious pressure to let loose like that and to take another life in the process is just plain ignorance...

I have known cases where people have committed vehicular homoside before and the attourneys come looking for the estate of the driver..

Once again to each his own...I was alone in my car on a 4 lane empty completely straight section of highway where there was nobody coming in either direction as far as I could see. I knew the risks and there wasn't anybody else around who didn't "sign" up to get hurt. Making a quick top speed run and then immediately returning to normal speed wasn't that big of a deal.

Why is it inexcusable? Would you say that if I was on the autobahn?

Call it inexcusable, call it what you want, I could really care less your opinion.

Obviously it depends on the situation. The one in which you describe is basically a race track. I think he's referring to the situations where there's a minivan full of kids next to you, or the 16 year old that just got their license and is nervous as hell. There's a time and place for sure...

Highway's your's? Let 'er rip!

Innocent Bystanders? Maybe not so much.

There's also the argument that I don't want my tax dollars going towards fixing guard rails all the time because some guy decided to play 'stig' :)

Let me see if I understand the tone of this thread. We all have cars capable of handling curves at more than 30+ mph over the curves posted speed and top speeds of over 150 mph, but we can't use it. If this were so, then Porsche and other exotics should be banned and we should all just drive a Prius or a Smart For 2.

I don't think so.

I'm always sober. When the road is empty and I'm in a place that feels "safe", I too enjoy a burst of speed. Unfortunately we here in the USA don't have an "autobohn" anymore since Montana put a 75 MPH limit on their highways. Yes out here in the west we can find plenty of straight, empty open road to enjoy the limits of our cars. Please don't brand me as a wreckless jerk because I safely enjoy my car.

To tell you the truth, when my wife and I are on a roadtrip, I can't beleive how many Honda Minivans pass us like a Porsche. They seam to have something to prove to the 5 kids in the back. Seriously, we get passed all the time by Honda Minivans. Those damn things blow our doors off all the time.

I call BS... 149...??

Er... was that Top up or Top down..??

With a 155MPH published Top Speed on a new car, I find it very difficult you hit 149 in a 12 y.o. car. 'Course if you were going downhill w/ Hurricane Katrina behind you, on AvGas, maybe.

And, that musta been some pull considering the 1/4 mi. speed is only 98.8mph, you would have had time to finish your sandwich given the near 1/2 mi. run it would take to achieve that speed, if even possible.

Personally, I'd have the speedo checked.

And, I have relatives in OH, there musta been a 2fer1 at the Donut shop to keep the staties from catching you.

You jab at the older guys for driving with some sanity. Yea, we all did it... in cars that were half as safe as a Boxster... we were foolish... and LUCKY!

You're still young and stupid, and if you live through it, someday you'll know what they mean.

Kill Stories are like Fish Tales... and Kill Stories on the Internet are like Whale Tales... They get larger with time/distance.

Be thirsty my friend!

Cheers!

Well, let me try to explain it.

The maximum posted legal speed limit in the United States today is 75MPH. Going over this limit is illegal, as in not allowed.

Porsche (as do others) produce cars that are capable of exceeding the legal limit. They have no control over raising that legal limit.

So... Yes, you cannot use it.

Legally that is. Use it illegally, and the consequences are all yours (assuming no innocents are involved).


Cheers!

I was already rolling 60mph so this wasn't a quarter mile drag or anything like that. I had the top up and windows up. Maybe the speedo is wrong at that those speeds, not sure, but that thing climbed to 149 before I let up. I've read on here about others hitting the 150's and some claiming 160 is doable. I personally don't think so.

@ Lil Bastard- I love this forum and have learned a lot from it, but I am constantly amazed by the amount of people on here who talk about babying their car and only occasionally drive it "spirited" or at the first sign of any trouble their first response is "have it towed to a shop." I understand that driving responsible is huge. My jab wasn't at you but there is no need for someone (not saying you did) on here to say that those guys deserved to die or be dicks about him driving too fast or irresponsible. I hope it wasn't a drinking and driving thing although that's the initial appearance. With little to no info on what "actually" happened, who's to say he didn't wreck from trying to avoid a deer or something. I was speeding one night in a civic and tried to avoid a deer and end up rolling my car several times. The ideal thing to do is mow that SOB over but its not your first reaction. And yes, I am young and dumb, but I work my ass of for the things I have and one of those things is my car. It might not have been the best decision, but I wanted to enjoy every aspect of it. Had to do that top speed run at least once!

Anyone know if there is a law about speeding on private property. I don't need to take it to a track if I want to rip off some 1/4 or 1/2 mile times. My stepdad's drive is a straight black topped mile long personal runway basically. My personal record on a Ducatti was around 150mph on my driveway.

Would it be not more sensible to blame the MANUFACTURERS?! Come on guys....

I still believe that the majority of Porsche owners can make a decent judgement as to when it is safe to push their cars on public roads.

RIP Dunn

I stand by my inexcusable comment.

No one here is an angel, all of us have to some extent broken Traffic laws. The question here is the order of magnitude. 150 miles an hour on public roads leaves no margin of error. Any innocent bystander who you may have accidentally overlooked, and we all make mistakes, should not have to suffer for your ego boosting play.

Even if you're willing to die doing something stupid as driving double the posted limit in a straight line, and have no regard for the friends and family may leave behind, gives some thought to the time and cost to have the police and emergency workers scrape you off the pavement.

Far too often people forget that driving is a privilege, one we take it far too lightly here in North America. We forget to be courteous drivers, we don't think or plan for emergencies, and we do nothing to ensure that our skills behind the wheel are more than barely adequate.

In my opinion driving a Porsche doesn't entitle us to use the roads as a personal playground. Rather as someone who obviously values driving as more than a basic chore to get from A to B we should be held to a higher standard. We should set the tone on the roads. We should as a group be more aware, more skilled, and more courteous than those around us. We love driving, and be it on a race track, or driving to the corner store should we not display skills well above the norm.

Just my thoughts.....

What a wild, impossible image this conjures up!! (Not doubting your word, JD...with a driveway that long that certainly is plausible. I say that because my driveway, like many driveways, is like 100' long :) BTW, far as I know, on private property speed limits don't exist...shoot for the moon!)

BTW, guys, I hate to sound like your English teacher here, but it's "reckless" not "wreckless". (Unless you drive wildly and have never, as a consequence, had a wreck...then I suppose "wreckless" might make some sense?? :rolleyes: )

IDK if you have ever driven in the midwest and southwest USA, but many roads are deserted for hundreds of miles at a time....

if you can manage to get on an open road with no-one for miles... i would say its pretty excusable.

CAR and DRIVER, Nov. 1966. Ford Cobra, 427, 0 mph to 100 mph to 0 mph, 14.5 sec.
Of course, my Boxster can't do that. Point is, I can get my 2000 base to 127 mph and back to 65 mph in seconds flat. Have not tried to find top end, but this car had plenty left. Road raging rice rocket was right on my ass, so I got away from him and got right back to posted speed limit. Lo and behold, about .5 mile ahead an Ohio State Trooper was standing in the highway, point to ricer, signaling him to pull over.

Had my top down, looked up and saw the state police airplane right overhead.

This car can go very fast then back down to reasonable speed again in VERY short time.

I kinda go along with the last posted sentiments, when conditions clearly allow. When I drive at what would be considered excessive speed (say 30+ over the posted speed limit), I am constantly thinking of two things:

(1) If something surprises me at speed, is there room to move out of the way? An extra lane to move into (with no other vehicles to contend with)? The ability to safely "move out of the way" dwindles quickly the faster I'm traveling. Obvious to all, no doubt, but it's still something I'm actively thinking about. The wild card here, of course, is animals, a deer, or a dog. Those can be really tough to handle at speed because they are also moving and, more importantly, they're notoriously unpredictable.

(2) If anything bad happens here, it will be assessed to be TOTALLY my fault, regardless of whether it actually was. Example: If there's a side road that intersects with the one I'm on, someone stops, then pulls out in front of me, and I smack into them, odds are extremely good I'm going to be the one "liable" in all senses of the term. This is true even if the third party who pulled out should reasonably have yielded to oncoming traffic. ("Failure to yield" probably ain't gonna help you if you were doing 90 in a 60.) Problem is, they are not even thinking about the fact that some approaching vehicle might be going that much faster than the posted limit. You have to assume that they will probably be thinking that you're traveling no faster than the posted speed. Soooo, the existence of ANY side roads is a red flag for me and I'm almost certainly gonna slow down when I see one. (This is where familiarity with the road you're on is helpful.)

Avoiding the to-be-reckless-or-not-to-be-reckless debate that could go on for another 50 thread pages, and getting back to some of the original content: it really is unfortunate what happened, both to see the destruction of an amazing machine and even more the loss of two lives. Let's not forget that what we read and see in the news on this matter is mostly speculation, and it was even noted in some of these speculations that autopsy results won't be available for over a month. We don't know what factors led to the accident, and there's no guarantee that the investigation(s) will be 100% right. Regardless, it's really a shame.

And I will say that while I'm not a huge fan of the franchise and some of its cast, I could not even jokingly say that anyone else from the show should have been in that car with him and suffered the same fate, and it was really a shame to see that comment made on here. Whether it's a celebrity of sorts or someone local who you may or may not have known, I really feel it's never a good thing to hear about the death of another. And I'm not trying to sway anyone or tell them they're wrong, I'm just giving my opinion.

Let's all be safe out there, and I don't mean drive like grandpa when I say that. I just mean be safe. Have your fun and enjoy your life, because you could be 74, or a week past 34 like Ryan Dunn, there's no set age or scenario for the end of your life.

Now where's that Porsche key...? :)

Driver's Ed 101

The latest news point to that the jackass had about double the legal alcohol content in his blood. I say good riddance.

.195 blood alcohol + 130mph = lethal combination

It's fortunate that no one else was taken out by this fool. As far as the passenger, he entrusted his life to Dunn when he got in the passenger seat and let an obviously drunk person drive. Unfortunate, but he had a choice.

Madmods, could you explain what you mean in your stmt about blaming Porsche? I don't know if you're kidding or serious. I hope you were saying that tongue-in-cheek.

Lawsuits
 

I believe it was in the early 80's when Porsche stopped exporting Turbo 911's to the U.S. They said Americans (Californians in particular) were law suit crazy and they figured it was only a matter of time before some jury of loonies granted a loser, or his family, a billion dollar settlement against a manufacturer.

Someone said driving is a privilege. It is not so. It is a right. And in many cases it is a requirement for work or otherwise.

Societies of the past chose to situate themselves sufficiently far from each other such that a means of rapid transportation is required in order to satisfy the demands of exchanging goods or services. From then one we have built our communities and cities, and countries to accommodate vehicular transport. We have built everything FOR cars, not the other way around.

We don't make new cars to "fit" new roads (with the exception of ecnonobox city cars, but they aren't really cars in my books), we build highways to accommodate faster travel and more volume.

It is not impossible to imagine a world in which cars did not form the basis for the layout of our communities, with something like trains or bikes in their place. Look at Hong Kong and all their bikes/motorcycles, for example.

So since driving is a requirement for most people, it is not logical, nor reasonable to argue that we need to drive gingerly at all times, utterly devoid of any spirit or amusement, when in fact we are the ones being forced to buy cars (on our coin, of course) to be able to work and contribute to our society by generating tax revenue and GDP.

If society wants me to work, to buy a car produced by society, to work for society, I think I reserve the right to use that vehicle how I see fit. And in the case of owning a luxury sports car, I deem fit use to mean speeding where appropriate.

Don't think you're gonna find a lot of support on this one.

Cheers!

http://www.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/celebrity.news.gossip/06/22/ryan.dunn.drunk/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

"Police: 'Jackass' star Ryan Dunn was drunk and driving over 132 mph"

I do not see why people love to say that "driving is a privilege, not a right." It really does not matter either way. Abuse either and you can lose it. It is not as if it were an actual right it couldn't be revoked. Look at your second amendment, the right to bear arms, there are situations and places that you lose that right, but you don't hear anyone saying the second amendment is a privilege not a right.

Regardless, if the conditions permit (abandoned area of highway or roadway) and you can safely go 150+ mph then it is all within the spirit of the law to speed. The law is there to keep people safe. If there is no-one around no matter how fast you go "people" are safe.

the only remaining argument would be whether you are safe driving that fast and while in the past it would have been a non issue, nowadays the government likes to regulate everything case in point, the seat belt law...

People drive these cars 140MPH+ every day in Europe in heavy traffic, without being bashed publicly. Just because we live in the proverbial nanny state doesn't mean anyone who makes an informed decision as to blowing the soot out of our cars on an open road is acting irresponsibly. AS to degree, you're breaking the law if you're doing 66 in a 65. If you are being safe there is no difference in the 66 or the 146. The only difference in us and our German counter parts is the speed laws.

Yea, but in Europe, there are other cars doing 140 around you :)
If you're the lone ranger on the highway doing 140 in traffic, you'll look like a dick (true story).

I'm all for "driving it as the dr. intended" when the conditions are right, and so far, everyone that has made that argument has preceded it with "when there's no one else around"... basically saying... "if the highway is in the same state as an empty racetrack then.. " well of course! go for it!

...anddddd driving is definitely a privilege.

http://www.duiattorney.com/dui-basics/privilege-to-drive (first sentence)

Can we reinstate the 'inexcusable' statement? Drunk driving is not cool!

Reaction time, being safe or not, is drastically different. :)

Has there been any indication whether he went straight off or backed it into the guardrail.

The pictures of the skid marks I've seen looked really narrow for the size of tires normally on a GT3. If he tried to make that ramp and it swapped ends, the wing probably took over and the car started to fly. Even then the greatest driver in the world could not of saved it.

TMZ has pictures of the hulk...

tmz.com

Those TMZ pictures. Wow. There's nothing left of the car at all. :(

Here's a piece Mr. Dunn wrote in 2009, claiming "I’m an amateur driver in the Sports Car Club of America series (SCCA)."

http://www.dailylocal.com/articles/2011/06/21/news/doc4e00e416ce506230685918.txt?viewmode=default