Yep death trap for streets

Porsche That Killed Paul Walker 'Dangerous,' 'Needs Respect'

Some newscaster is making stuff up about their speed. I'll wait for the final analysis but to cut the car in half on impact and hurl the starter motor 200 ft onto the roof of a building down range? They were moving fast. Very very fast. A CGT goes from 60-100mph in 3 seconds.

Agreed.

1. The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters. (Only add this because my original message....well, you know :rolleyes:) Not to change the subject, but WHY does anyone CARE if a message is too short???????? What's wrong with a one word reply?

Mechanical failure??

Mechanical failure behind Paul Walker crash: report | New York Post

Of course this is coming from the buddies of the deceased........but interesting.

Stalling car? Trouble proned??? Figure out what was wrong with it??

I won't be buying from these guys......I'll go to the dealership first!!

Which I hope includes examination of those notorious center locking wheels that have been known to come clean off the car. If the rears were hurled from the car before impact then they were presumably not consumed by the fire.

http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/a...pspeoopmsg.jpg
http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/a...psqjk5b46x.jpg

The tires are still on the car- all 4

Thanks for all these pics Timco- I now see that the rear section is bolted onto the passenger section. The bolts must have sheared off due to high lateral loads.

Frodo- the car stopped on the straight but the skid probably started mid way through the curve- a long lurid drift that wasn't caught in time. The inertia of the rear mass took control with the car spinning slowly about it's center axis while scrubbing very little speed off in the process.

http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/a...pscc9023be.jpg
http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps247de136.jpg
Letter sent to dealerships re allowing anyone to drive this car....
http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/a...psa105a7b8.jpg

Unfortunately this car's name has forever changed to "Porsche Carrera GT, the car that Paul Walker died in"

...just as the 550 Spyder is always followed by "the car James Dean died in".

I was wondering when someone was going to point that out.

Top Gear - Porsche Carrera GT VS Mercedes McLaren SLR - YouTube

Jeremy Clarkson has some very interesting (and frightening) things to say about the CGT on an older Top Gear.

Skip to 5:20~

Prophetic.

I guess there are some allusions to some sort of mechanical malfunction contributing to the disaster. But assuming they prove unfounded, I wonder what position Jerermy C's "Button of Death" (5:46) was at the time. Traction control disengaged I'd wager..

No fluid leak......
Porsche in Paul Walker crash didn't suffer massive fluid leak - latimes.com

Wow, that car is even more beautiful without the body imo.

Quick Question...Have you guys ever been in a RWD car with 600 plus hp, not to mention one weighing only 3,000 lbs ? The closest I've been is low to mid 500's at the rear wheels, those experiences were incredible and the cars imo were insane at anything approaching full throttle.

Like anything else I guess you could get use to it but the feeling of breaking traction at 80 plus mph is something I will never forget, the pucker factor was otherworldly. Granted these guys were "semipros or pros" if there is such a thing but simply losing control of such a beast would be my bet as to cause. Except for potential future litigation the cause is irrelevant to the two poor guys in it, RIP.

A friend of the men, Jim Torp, said the tragedy began to unfold when Walker and Rodas slowly pulled out of the driveway as a charity event was winding down.

After they came back around for another pass and went out of sight, he and another car enthusiast listened to the sounds of the Porsche's exhaust to gauge its speed.

"You could hear the exhaust -- they got on it a little bit -- and I heard two booms," Torp said.

That would be 45-100 in what, 3-5 seconds?

I thought the Carrera GT wasn't equipped with traction control.

Perhaps Nine8Six has a valid point when he states "...authorities be enforcing a "PILOT" license requirement to be allowed to drive those super sport cars exactly."

I have read several stories about drivers, some with good credentials, loosing control of the CGT. I've also read that when the Ferrari Enzo was first released, there was a plaque on the dash that read "You are not Michael Schumacher".

TO

Yes. A 997 GT2RS at Pomona Fairplex race track. 3000lbs @620hp It had rained the night before so there was a lot of standing water on the track This wealthy driver had just bought the car and had never been on a track before. We were very cautious in the morning and as the track dried out gradually added throttle. The car was just stupid fast.

I really don't want to own one of these because I am certain that one moment of reckless abandon and it will end badly.

Autopsies have determined the official causes of death for Paul Walker and Roger Rodas. Rodas, the driver of the vehicle, died of multiple traumatic injuries; Walker, the passenger, died of the combined effects of traumatic and thermal injuries, the Los Angeles county coroner's office said Wednesday.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/04/us/walker-death-questions/

I really hope they release that autopsy for independet review. The fact that the wheels were still attached, (I thought the rear half of the car had broken off) and "the tub" kept the occupants in the car, both were wearing belts and still strapped in, sounds like the impact was severe but not really like a 150+mph top speed collision at race track. Something really doesn't add up in this whole tragedy. An experienced driver, presumably familiar with the location, on a street that wasn't exactly straight, that led into a sharp turn? Something was wrong with that car beyond its inherent nervousness.

Short of either of the decesased sitting exactly where the light pole/tree ripped through the front of the car, this seems like an accident where injuries would be severe but not necessarily fatal. Seeing as how the corpses are at the point of needing dental record recognition I'm curious to hear an independent expert say how the they can claim that the impact itself would have been fatal. There's no debating a fire is always lethal however.

This all makes me think of the Roger Williamson F1 fatality in the early 70's. Those racing cars were not designed to distribute energy sustained by a driver at impact like this CGT and so many modern carbon fiber racing cars today. Williamson crashed heavily at Zandvoort on the high speed esses, was tossed around and around but was conscious and begging for help according to another driver David Purley who ran over, but the fuel tank exploded and engulfed the car in a huge fireball.

p.s.
I can't believe the level of hate in some of thoe article comments. They are swearing up and down with total certainty that this was nothing but 100% driver error. Before release of any of the facts for independent review.
I guess these are the times we live in.

Not severe? I don't understand how going THRU a light pole (sideways?), and hard into a tree is not severe. It does appear that the car "broke" in the middle, or just folded around the tree, but the tires/suspension stayed with their respective sections. Entirely believable that even a "pro" could lose it with a twitchy car like that. As mentioned elsewhere, it can bottom out on crowned roads, obviously causing problems at speed. The F1 reference is different, circuits generally don't have concentrated points of contact like a light pole.

Exactly how I felt. Unless you've ridden in or driven a car with that kind of power it is hard to understand how completely brutal and non-forgiving they could be.

I like you have absolutely no desire to own anything that powerful.

actually, I said the injuries would be severe.

And I did not say this wasn't a severe crash.

I'm simply saying this isn't like on-track crash where the destruction is much worse. Yet short of the driver impacting the tree (or pole) directly like the entirely preventable fatality at LeMans this year, or the car flipping over and killing the driver like Michele Alboreto in the Audi, most drivers survive impacts at much higher speeds than what occurred here. Also, many F1 circuits do indeed have points of impact, Robert Kubica's crash at Montreal comes to mind. And Dario Franchitti's accident on the Indy road course this past year is another. There's always some sort of barrier that can and have indeed been impacted by out-of-control carbon fiber racing cars, yet the drivers (excluding oval catch fencing) nearly always survive. But as I said, if the driver or passenger directlty came into the path of the tree/pole it's another matter.

And I don't think that the possibility of losing control of the car is up for the debate as many far more experienced drivers have proven that this car is inherently dangerous. Personally I think the decision to make this car street legal was a poor one. Allowing anyone to buy a car without any qualification for road car use really puts innocent motorists at risk. Porsche imho should have made this a track only propostion like a Cup car which you can buy from them any day of the week.

Sorry, I misinterpreted your commentary. Carry on !

T- bone's are different. 100mph to zero in 3 inches. We are then back to the days before crumple zones. The G-loads are then just too great for the human body to bear. People die after a 30 mph T-bone EVERYDAY.

Where has this 100 mph figure been coming from? I mean is a estimate by Police or is coming from actual data logging?

I like other people, 'just know' what the truth is!!! I KNOW WHAT IS TRUE!!!!!!I AM HUMAN AND WHEN I KNOW- I KNOW! That 's why I don't NEED to WAIT for empirical facts to be reported- or any other type of FACT-BASED , provable, repeatable truth. And besides, I am too busy and TOO DAMN LAZY and TOO DAMN APATHETIC to SPEND MY TIME, INVESTIGATING THINGS. I choose to just 'decide without inquery' instead. I am like most people in this. Ah sorry, Perfectlap- I have been put ( forced by ALLTHATIS) to teach others about the scientific inquery and the pathetic pattern of not doing due- diligence in matters of importance. You are modelling that due diligence perfectly at this very moment! I have previously stated on this topic that 'I estimate they were going about 80mph and now feel it could be 100mph.

My opinion on speed is that at 0-50ish the car will be destroyed and will wrap around smaller objects like that tree. At 60+ I've seen telephone poles sheered off by small vehicles. At 100ish I would think that car would have either sheered off both the pole and tree and ended up many yards beyond the curb or broke in half even more cleanly.

At lower speeds the dead stop of the pole and tree would be more traumatic to passengers and the car....then add two explosions. Hell, the first 'smaller explosion' could have been impact or even a tire popping.

Dude..............

Given the media attention that this tragic event has garnered, I tend to think that an intensive examination of the accident will be conducted, and eventually more concrete facts will surface. I also think it prudent to refrain from purely emotional and irrational hypotheses.

Mourning at this time is more appropriate, as in a short period of time this entire event will essentially be forgotten.

There will plenty of time for theories then.

Just sayin'................

TO

What is wrong with trying to figure it out ourselves? I enjoy trying to understand the 'scene' and others do to. I don't think anyone means any disrespect, nor does it indicate apathy.

I wouldn't have known one way or the other. (I doubt my local Porsche dealership would have allowed my sorry butt to so much as settle comfortably into the driver's seat, ignition off! :D)

Just going on what Clarkson said in the vid at roughly the 5:46 mark. The aforementioned "button of death"? He referred to it as TC.

Tragic for sure. What a senseless waste of two lives. The driver had kids.

Sorry OP, I did not think he was a very good actor, although perceived as "cool".

On a somewhat similar topic, I spent my entire 23 year military career as a USAF aviator. I grew up as the son of a career aviation mechanic who's business was building racing and aerobatic engines. My younger brother died at age 20 in an aviation accident. I grew up around my Dad's clients and friends having died in aviation accidents. I've lost friends in military aviation accidents from the time I was a 2d Lt.

The common thought around almost every accident was "It couldn't have been his fault. There MUST have been something wrong with the airplane. He was simply too good a pilot to let something happen to him, etc, etc."

Throughout my 50+ years around civilian and military aviation I've read countless accident reports, and the common thread in almost all was Pilot Error. The pilot simply let something get away from him or put himself in a predicament/position that was not recoverable. Seldom was the accident the sole fault of the aircraft.

So while yes, it's too early to know the facts of the accident, I know on which side I'd place my money...

With respect,

Rick

Sitting next to a coworker tonight on the bus on the way home...he said he had heard of a new video showing the actual crash. Not the security cam vids shown to date....but something new that came out late Pacific Time today. Anyone seen it? (I have not and am not claiming it exists....just asking).

Yes most fatalities are absolutely driver error. Especially as the machinery becomes more complicated. I'm not debating that. The point is that there is a process of review and evaluation that must be conducted. That is what we owe the dead. Blaming them for their own demise before the process has been concluded is really unfair. Any premature conclusions based on the statistical probability that it wasn't a case of equipment malfunction is nothing more than that, a guess based on past events. By all indications this has a long list of atypical circumstances.
For starters most fatalities by sports car drivers on the road do not include trained sports car drivers let alone competitive ones. Secondly most of these fatalities do not include ultra rare, ultra ill-handling cars that can easily become dangerous with something as simple as an improper alignment. Third, most of these sports car fatalities do not occurr in this type of a street location where even getting the car at a sustainable high rate of speed is even possible, simply not enough road. And fourth, most of those fatalities don't occurr with this type of carbon fiber sports car construction -- this car at impact is unlike virtually every other sports car crash.
If there was ever an incident that was unlike most typical sports car fatalities I can hardly think of better one than this.

When you think about it, this exact accident could have occurred at virtually any stadium autocross where speeds can easily exceed the 65mph speed limit, and there's always a light pole of some kind near enough to wrap the car around it. Yet when is the last time you heard of someone dying from an impact during an autocross incident?


I did see a video on TV where the car is shown veering toward the edge of the road but the crash itself is obstructed by something getting in the way of camera.
There must be something up with showing that video, after seeing it I was sure it would be plastered all over the news over and over. and it seems TMZ pulled the video they had of the impact.

Autopsy blames impact and fire for actor Paul Walker's death - CNN.com

Bottom corner under more video....

No....not that. I've seen that one. It's not a security camera view like the first couple videos I have personally seen. This is something hand-held supposedly. I am not trying to be a Troll...it's just that this co-worker is one of those encyclopedia types that tends to know about stuff a day before you hear about it and I was interested to see if anyone else had heard anything. The other comment about TMZ vid may be what he was talking about.

The one shot by the occupants of the blue car with fart can exhaust?

I agree with all who suggest that we should await some concrete evidence before jumping to conclusions. We should also understand that there is a very strong prospect of litigaton by the families of both of these men - and that as Porsche will have much deeper 'pockets', I suspect that there will be a strong motivation to find some way to blame the manufacturer. Remember the Audi 5000'sudden acceleration' fairy tail? It led to inflammatory coverage on 60 minutes and at least one successful lawsuit, even though the 'science' was a joke. Stand by folks.....

Brad