Marv,

Juan posted that the day the accident happened. Josh crashed at 3:30 am the following morning.

The crazy thing was that then Juan came onto the thread and ranted about how people only cared about 18 years olds who died in the crash, and no respect for the 18 year olds who die serving the country. He ended up proclaiming that he'd leave the M5board. Those were 'interesting' posts to say the least.

That is one reason I no longer visits the M5Board. The E60 members are more of the fast and furious crowd. BMW can do no wrong, the SMG is the only tarnny worth driving with. If I like sticks I'm retarded, etc. etc. Just not my cup of tea.

CP

 

Thats why I asked about braking time and distance. These "kids" obviously did not go out to take dad's car for a 68 mph pass- they must have been over 150 and either started to brake gradually then realized the danger and braked hard- or just panic braked from the outset.

The police will have a forensic specialist who will figure it out. In any event, the end result is the same.
Chilling.

 

Since the current-generation M5 has more brain power than the lowly Space Shuttle, I wonder if the investigators will be able to read what speed the car attained before going into a low-earth orbit.


Andreas

 

A guy on the M5 board calculated that based on the distance travelled, they were going ~100mph when the cars went airborne. I would think that near 70mph and hitting a completely solid object squarely could definitely do that kind of damage.

 

You'd have to dispute Marv's formula or the distance assumptions on this; otherwise physics is physics. Think about throwing an M5 sideways 200 feet through the air.

I have a distinct memory of driving my Dad's car much too fast one time at about that age, and realizing how very, very hard it is to slow a speeding 4800 pound object. My brush with stupidity was at least in broad daylight with unlimited visibility, so I learned from it.

 

I encountered the same sort of bulls---t on the E46 M3 boards ... talking about who was a pimp and who wasn't, calling themselves thugs, etc. Forget asking a technical question, but if you wanted to know which 21" rims look the baddest or how to make the rims around your highbeams light up when the lowbeams were on, you were in business.

 

gotta love darwin-

 

From what I've read, the car ran off the runway 80-85 feet off of the ground, and struck the tree 15 feet off the ground. Acceleration towards the ground was at 32 '/sec/sec and therefore took ~2.02 seconds. The car traveled ~ 200' in 2.02 seconds, or 99 feet/sec or 67 mph.

 

I experienced the same on the M5board. Amazing how many kids 16-25 get performance cars given to them by their parents.

Though my dad could very easily afford to buy me a new car when I turned 16, I was taught to earn my own way and paid for my first car with earnings from my job cleaning tables at a local restaurant.

I'm baffled by successful adults, especially those who are self-made, that think giving their kids so much rope is actually going to help them become responsible and accountable human beings.

 

I could potentially see the M5 from the parents assuming he was a perfect kid, great grades, very responsible, never got in trouble, used to kart race, etc. But four moving violations in two years including a 20-29mph speeding and they let him have a rocket like that? Never.

 

My dad bought me a Vette when I was 17 (in 1980) ... I loved that car and drove it safely.

Oh ... it was a Chevette.

 

That's like people I know who went to Hartford College. If you mumble it sounds like Harvard...

 

I'm just reading about this for the first time tonight and was thinking as I was perusing each response that when this "blows over" in 3-6 months, kids/people will still be at it doing stupid, dangerous stuff like this. We did it when I was a kid (alcohol, pot and driving fast muscles cars has always been a recipe for disaster) and kids will keep doing this in the future. I was just lucky, that's all. I was in cars with other kids driving them WAYYY too fast at night, half drunk.

Stupid, stupid, stupid - we were too. We never wrecked like this though...



and this one from 2 months ago...





Steve

 

My first car was designed by F. Porsche.
It had an air cooled boxer engine.
On a flat road it could hit 50 mph with it's awesome 40 hp.
It was a 1964 VW microbus.

 

You think the four guys who got into that car at 3:45 in the morning with this driver didn't know what they were about to do? What were they, kidnapped? "Uh, I though we were going to go 55 on the highway in the middle of the day, what the F are we doin at 3:45 doing 150 on an airstip?!" I don' think so. If they each had M5s, you would have had 5 M5s going 150 down that runway instead.