Took me awhile to find the correct location of the accident. Given the performance capability of the car it could have been traveling at over 100 mph coming off the last curve but the next one was posted at 15 mph. Not sure how that was going to work out at that speed. Also, the street lanes were lined with raised pucks in addition to the imbedded reflectors. Might have contributed to loss of control if they were changing lanes at high speed. It would taken away from road adhesion and caused wheel hop.
At least people stopped to see if they could help, well done to the first person to do so in particular.
Yes, thanks, I was trying to visualise what had happened and this makes sense.
btw if you don’t mind me asking you stated above that accident investigation is relevant to you, what do you do?
Thanks for that, if you zoom out it looks almost like a closed circuit, perhaps they were racing around it?.
I assume they were approaching the 90 degree corner when the accident happened? If so the long sweeping bend before that would be basically a straight for a car like that, you could accelerate around it no problem. Good point re the reflectors in the road, I imagine the car had pretty hard suspension as well.
Same here actually and never had a person refuse to slow down when I was in with them either thankfully.
I just found this out, totally sucks. 
I always liked the guy.
This has been sobering to read. Saturday I was pushing a Carrera around a closed circuit road course, often at speeds well in excess of this crash and apparently right about the same time. Afterwards as I stopped by my local pub for dinner immediately the CNN flash about Paul’s death came across. The waitress and I talked about it, she being of the opinion it was another hoax like the one just days before. Now I see that wasn’t the case at all.
With road circuit racing hopefully you’ll stay within the limits of your skill set and the car’s abilities. Still, crap can go south in a hurry and that’s always on your mind. It could happen quickly in my little 355 HP model, I can’t even imaging how fast it would be in the GT’s 615 HP V10 beast out on the streets.
To learn now it was a Porsche they were in, to see that shell of a once capable car a shattered, smoking mess, just… damn. I can’t imagine what that must have been like to go from sheer exhilaration to a sickening skid, jarring impact and then the horror of being unable to extricate yourself as everything around you is consumed by flame.
I feel bad for them both. It’s only natural to want to go back and warn them, but they of course knew the risks and just didn’t listen to that voice in their head. So one hopes the living listen and remember this tragedy when they’re confronted with a similar situation and choice. By all accounts Paul had a far reaching audience and large number of friends. With them in mind I hope something positive comes out of this whole awful mess.
I tend (and prefer) to think that they were knocked out by the force of the impact before burning to death.
As dangerous as they can be dedicated race circuits usually have wide-run off areas though, and a notable lack of concrete lamp-posts to hit. As you say maybe it will make people think twice before racing on public roads, though I doubt it.
Given the level of apparent damage they were probably basically crushed/torn apart by the impact, which as gruesome as it is is preferable to the alternative.
I’m a little puzzled over the pucks in the street in addition to the reflectors. Is this common in California? They’re pretty rare around Ohio. Can only think that they help people stay in their lane like rub strips.
The area of the accident is industrial with little traffic. It looks like an invitation to zip around. Unfortunately that car was capable of zero to crazy fast in a couple of seconds. I remember driving in an old Austin Healy with a 60’s fuel injected vette motor and the driver just blipped the gas pedal off the line in 1st gear. The car weighed nothing so the wheels gripped. we were going 40 mph in less than 2 seconds and the engine wasn’t even revving up.
They’re very common in the Seattle area. Not here around Chicago though.
I assume you mean the Botts’ dots in the middle of the street. I assume they would not be used in a climate where snowplows are common, as they’d probably not survive the winter.
Yup, they’re called Botts dots, after the buy who made them way back when. They’re not used in snow areas unless you recess them, as snowplows will shear them off. They help demark lanes as stripes fade, and some are reflective which makes the lane lines more visible at night.
PM sent.
I thought the hoax itself was a hoax - that the concept of a hoax from a few days before was from a fake website that specializes in hoax-on-demand, and it was quoted after the fact. Was there actually a hoax report before the death?
Anyone have a link?
Traveling the world pulling off heists in exotic sports cars with Dominic Toretto while banging his super-hot sister?
I’ll pass, he was getting to drive fast cars in his day job and I’m sure he could find a nice girl without any particular difficulty. That and he gets to be one of the good guys and not an accomplice of criminals and thugs.
Yeah, why hang out with Ludacris and The Rock when you can make $50k a year busting meth heads?
It’s escapist fantasy.
Sure, and as I said I enjoyed the movies (those that I’ve seen), it didn’t stop me thinking that the character was making the wrong decision though, as fun as they are they aren’t the good guys.
Granted its been a long time since I saw the first movie.
Autopsy report is out. The vehicle was traveling at more than 100 mph:
I was surprised that the report said that The driver’s brain was exposed.
I expected the autopsy to find blood and guts but NO brains.
A more complete report on the accident is out: speed up to 93 miles an hour going into a tight curve on a road with a 45 mph speed limit. A pair of 9 year-old tires contributed to the accident.
That’s huge.
It’s a serious problem in the world of high-performance cars, especially classics. The cars are driven little and so have minimal tire wear, and the tires are often extremely expensive… because they are ultra-high-performance, very large sizes and low profiles, or no longer made. Having “correct” tires on a classic car is worth a lot of points, both real and figurative. So replacing mint-looking tires is an expense and a collector’s hassle many owners won’t do.
But tires have a lifespan. Soft high performance tires are probably unsafe after 4-5 years as the rubber compounds harden and change.
I have two such examples - one a project car that’s never turned a wheel on the road due to terminal not-yet-reassembled issues, so the expensive Pirellis on it will be suitable to drive around but not for long and not with any aggression. The other uses tire sizes that have become almost unobtainable; while it’s drivable I would not push its grip limits very hard with the 90%-tread, 8-year-old tires it has.
So stupid. One or both of them should have known better. This is not an obscure problem for owners of cars like these.