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Another moment of silence

Several things trouble me about this story.

"Boynton Beach -- Stephen V. wasn't going to drive away like a punk, friends said. So he accepted the challenge to race the silver Ford Mustang that had beat his Dodge Neon SRT-4 before. V., 18, thought he would win this time. He knew how to speed up his car, recently modified with a wastegate and blow-off valve. He'd gotten up to 145 mph in the car.

"But shortly after hitting a curb about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday west of West Palm Beach, V. spun out of control, knocked over a bus stop sign, hit a gate and flipped several times, the Florida Highway Patrol said. V., of Boynton Beach, didn't like seat belts, friends said.

"'He doesn't like being tied down,' said his girlfriend, Marybeth.

"V. was ejected from the car and died in a vacant lot near Forest Hill Boulevard west of Anderson Lane, the FHP said." (Jerome Burdi, South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

1) A Mustang racing a Neon. And please don't tell me, well, it was an SRT-4. It's still rather like picking on your younger brother.

2) The Neon exceeded the operator's ability to control the vehicle. Did he really have it up to 145mph at any point previously, or was that just boasting?

3) Seat belt. How the hell can anyone consider themselves to be a "driver" and NOT strap in? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

When I drive, the vehicle doesn't move until all occupants click in.

dwight

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Reply to
dwight
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Having bent a steering wheel with my upper lip before, I always click. Street racings bad umkay?

Reply to
GILL

"dwight" wrote in news:lpWdnTWeZbGZ367bnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

This story was in last Thursday's paper:

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The kid was an idiot, which makes sense, because his mother is one too. After reading the story you get a feel for the attitude of the kid, his friends, and his mother. Truly sad.

From the story... "I was very involved in my son's life, but I also had to let him be a teenager," said Cathy Vivarttas, 44, beside her other son, Michael, 10. "And look at what it got me. He was the kind of kid that if you tried to control him, he would rebel."

What kind of crap is this? By her own admission, the mother basically gave up on straightening out her kid. End result: He ended up killing himself. Some people just don't get it...

Reply to
Joe

Having been a race car mechanic for a good number of years, I can't stress the importance of proper belts, mounting them securely and using them... it's no joke. My friend for example flipped his race car over 7 times, end to end and sideways and everything in between. The rescue crew had to cut him out, but thanks to the roll cage and 4 or 5 point racing belts, he walked away with a minor concussion. The car was pretty much unrecognizeable.

The forces involved in a bad crash are enormous. positive and negatiove G's, and centrifugal forces that make anything inside the car try to get out.

Leave a quarter on the speaker shelf by the rear window, and it will fly through the windshield in a bad head-on crash.. Keeping race cars clean is a pain.. lol.. especially dirt track rally cars. One of the biggest complaints from the drivers is loose rocks and sand flying inside the car when they roll it :)

Jan

Reply to
Jan

Yep, and many of them look at you like you're an old fool when you tell them that too. One good thing about that story is that at least he didn't take any bystanders or passengers with him.

Are you TRYING to give the rest of us web envy? It's working....

Reply to
WindsorFox

Hey. It's what I do. I work on my company's website, then I come home and work on mine. And, if it makes you feel better, I just took out a contract with a web host for 5 gigabytes of room, since I outgrew the 26MB per screen name that Comcast allows. So now I've got all THAT space to fill up.

dwight

Reply to
dwight

It's ironic. Kids want to be like race car drivers, but forget that the number one rule of race car drivers is to buckle up.

And he died because he was untethered.

In name only. Think of your younger brother being well versed in mixed martial arts. Suddenly the/a fight is much more interesting.

SRT-4's are 150 mph cars.

Speed likely wasn't the issue here. (Anyone can drive 145 mph.) All you have to do is keep the car straight and the pedal down. I suspect the issue was the path the car was on. The race was likely at night and he probably didn't see the end of the street or a curve in the road.

I don't know either. But it sounds like the seat belts would have had their work cut out for them even if he would have been belted in.

I discovered the importance of belts at a young age. A friend took me off-road in his Jeep. While I was bouncing off the door, dashboard, windshield, and flopping around like a rag doll he was laughing at me while he was firmly belted into his driver's seat. Needless to say, once he brought the vehicle to a stop, I quickly found my seat belt.

Patrick

Reply to
NoOption5L

most cars are speed limited these days by the computer, they lean out the engine. About 110 is top for most now, I had an older 5.0 ex cop car up to 140 but it takes too much smooth highway with NO traffic to do it, they do not see you coming at all, was 1 AM. The cars are not designed to do above 110 anyway.

If he was doing above 110 and rolled it good luck even with seat belt on.

Reply to
BillMays

Heh, and see my hook up and "hosting" are free. And I can have as much space to fill up as I can afford to purchase from Newegg. I just don't have the talent for doing it.

Reply to
WindsorFox

Amen to that. I have actually left a few behind because they felt it was okay to argue and question my, as the driver, authority to tell them what to do. The worst one, for me, was when a boy my daughter liked gave me lip and I put him out at the curb. My daughter gave me major crap for that one. ;-)

She got over it.

Reply to
Jeff Mayner

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