it's science! all the force of impact on the lotus was converted into making it move backward. all the impact on the miata was to make it stop. miata driver takes a harder hit because of this.

drunk drivers walk away because your reflexes are slowed so they don
t have time to go "o shit" and get tensed up. same thing happens to people that fall asleep at the wheel.

Damn, that was more violent than I expected. I bet that makes your blood run cold to see that next to you as you go past. Good to know both guys were OK (besides wallets being thinner).

Im a noob here..... is there any insurance that covers accidents at the track as such??

Shouldn't make a difference.

Assume that both an SM and a Lotus weigh the same. The Lotus is stationary (with brakes not applied) and the Miata is travelling forward, colliding head-on with the Lotus. Assuming the collision to be perfectly inelastic, 50% of the Miata's kinetic energy is transferred into the Lotus, causing it to accelerate backwards at a rate equal to the rate at which the Miata is decelerating. The forced imposed upon each driver are equal in both magnitude and direction.

The problem here appears to be more the fact that the front end of an Elise is roughly ramp-shaped. If the Miata hadn't gone airborne, things probably would not have been nearly as rough. Just speculating, but I'd guess that Ken's injuries were probably compressive in nature, owing to the secondary impact between the car and the ground when it came back down.

FUCK NO! unless you where real good, pulled the number and logos and towed the car off site and hoped your name didn't come up on youtube of track video


i forgot about this part, and ya that's what fucked him up you would thing

I am no expert or anything but won't the fact that the elise had a more ramp-shaped front end, help keep both from taking the full bump. This way it allowed some the energy from the miata to be spent sliding up the elise instead of hit the elise? I think that may have help to slow the miata down slower and help to stop some of the forces from the dead stop. But I will agree that the slamming back into the ground most likely didn't help.

The initial force between the Lotus and the Miata are the same, end of story. If you would like to argue, sign up for PHY 2048 at a near by campus, wait till about 3/4 of the way through the class then show the professor the video, argue your point, and be wrong still.

Edit:

I shivered when the impact happened in the video...nasty stuff.

And we're going that fast on track days without nearly that level of protection and a wider range of skill levels. (or lack of skill)

Fuck.

The landing was likely the worst of it. The fact the Miata launched over the Lotus actually diminished the impact for both drivers at initial contact. Would have been more energy transfer if the miata hadn't deflected upward. The Miata faired worse since all the unspent energy from the impact went into launching it.

In pro racing the Evo would be protecting his line. In amatuer he's just asking for a beat down in the pits. I'm suprised they had such a wide speed differential with that Z running with the SM's. Also suprised the SM's don't try too hard to give the faster cars the line. Figured they would offer the courtesy to the faster class like the GT cars do for the P cars at Lemans.

that was painful watching the z try to pass that evo lol

shit... limerock. that corner is crazy to stand at and spectate cause cars loose traction over that crest.

That crash is ridiculous.