Since I posted that Hertz is renting the Exige and the Elise in Italy, I’ve had Lotus on the brain, and when I saw this clip, I couldn’t help but think about the little track toys being thrown in with these behemoths. Now, because of their incredibly nimble handling, the Elise and the Exige can generally hang with the big boys at the track. But “big,” like “heavy” and “fast,” is a relative term, and semi racing is one class where the British micro machines would definitely be out of their league. I imagine this is the kind of thing that wakes them up out of a sound slumber…

For a second, it looks like the driver might get control of this wiggly dragster, but them it gets away from him and winds up skidding across the track on its roof. Fortunately, it doesn’t look like there’s any real damage, and it’s almost certain he didn’t sustain anything more serious than a few bruises. It’s a shame there isn’t some in-car footage of this wreck, I bet it’d look scary as hell!

Most of the time, when you see a crash during a motorcycle race, it’s because the rider comes into a turn too hot, or because a couple of riders get tangled together and wind up wrecking each other. But I’ve never seen a tire fail as spectacularly as it did on Matt Mladin’s GSX-R 1000, and it’s amazing this wreck wasn’t more serious. Riding one of these vicious racing machines is hard enough when everything is running perfectly, and trying to bring one to a stop with no rubber on the rear wheel must be a nightmare. Here, the seven-time AMA Superbike champion makes it look easy, but it’s safe to say a lesser rider wouldn’t have been able to handle a situation so gracefully. Good thing it was the rear that went, I don’t even want to think about would have happened had the front one disintegrated…

Ok, across the pond, they call them telegraph poles, but no matter what they’re called, I’d think that a high-speed collision with one would render a car inoperable.  But somebody apparently forgot to tell World Rally Championship driver Chris Atkinson that, because even after his Citroen C4 took out a telephone pole during a WRC stage in Ireland, he was able to keep going and manage a 10th place finish. Huh? What the hell do they make telephone poles out of over there? Balsa wood?

Every guy shooting wants to get as close to the action as possible, but something tells me the dude manning the camera here has invested in a zoom lens. He takes a pretty hard lick from the business end of the burly 4×4, but at least he’s knocked out of the way. The guy I was worried about? The one that gets run over immediately afterward. The way the truck is bouncing made me think the worst, but fortunately, he climbs out from under the rig unharmed. Given that the driver just keeps going like nothing happened, I have to wonder if he knows how close he came to killing somebody.

Not including stupid, burnout-related accidents, this is one of the dumbest motorcycle crashes I’ve seen. Sure, the rider in the frame might have come in too hot—hey, it’s happened to me—but the guy on the camera bike? What the hell is he thinking? If his buddy is obviously wrecking, why exactly does he follow? Of course, that’s not the only problem here. In following his buddy, the camera guy avoids being hit by a GMC rounding the corner by what looks like inches. It’s not clear who’s “1st Time Down” this is, but let’s hope there were some lessons learned.

Over the weekend in Greece, Sebastien Loeb lost it during about halfway through the Acropolis Rally and wound up making eight revolutions before coming to a stop.The good news is that Loeb and his driver are both in good shape. Unfortunately, that can’t be said for the pair’s Citroen C4, which is as bashed-up as you’d expect it to be. During interviews following the wreck, the world champion said that he basically came in to the turn too hot and over-corrected, which send the car over the edge of the road and started the tumble. Hopefully he and his team have better luck next time out.

I saw this posted on Jalopnik late yesterday, but I didn’t get a chance to watch it until it came up in the StreetFire approval queue, and it’s hilarious. Now, when I played Street Fighter, Chun-Lee was my favorite character—probably because I found it easy to kick ass with her—but I wouldn’t want to mess with this dude. To hell with anger management, watch him tear up this doomed car! Bonus points for the Rage Against the Machine soundtrack.

The coolest part of this clip might not actually be the crash itself, but the way that the second driver, after going up on two wheels, manages to keep his Subie from flipping. And while I understand there’s a fair amount of luck involved in such a maneuver, I don’t think I’d be able to manage something like that even if I had all my fingers and toes crossed. It’s pretty clear from the first second that the Evo driver isn’t going to be able to navigate the turn—the angle is just too steep—but fortunately most his speed is lost before he makes contact with the statue. Think the driver and co-pilot were able to right the car and keep going? I’ll give them a 50/50 shot…

Right from the point where this dude gets off his bike, you can tell this little exercise is going to end badly. I mean, it looks like he barely has a hold of the machine, and it’s not like there’s a ton of room for error here. I’ve probably watched this clip like ten times already, and I can’t get over how the rider flops around like a rag doll after the bike gets traction and shoots off toward the parked car. Fortunately, it looks like the dude is OK, and the car seems to have escaped without any damage.

When I picked up my brand-new TL1000R way back in 2000, I was totally stoked, but I was also nervous as hell. And my nerves were not soothed by the lecture I got from the mechanic. After telling me not to ignore the break-in routine, he started by firing off a long list of ways I could kill myself on the bike. I can still remember exactly how his voice sounded when he said, “and then you die.” After that, he told me stories of trashed bikes that had come in to his shop, and the injuries their owners sustained during the wrecks. He concluded by telling me the new tires would feel fine, unless it started to rain. Then it started to rain. Damn, could this idiot have used a lecture like that…

According to StreetFire member MPLIGHTNING01’s description, a car rolled over during a track day and landed on top of this brand-new GT-R, resulting in a total right off. While the damage is certainly devastating, I think it’s a little weird that you can see the motor in the shots of it laying in the junkyard. Anybody know the whole story on what happened here?

The quality of this clip is kind of crappy, but it’s easy to see exactly what happens here. Some dude—probably the luckiest in Costa Rica—is sitting on his scooter waiting to cross a street. Then a couple of cars behind him get tangled up. After that, one goes up on the median, collides with an oncoming car, and goes airborne. Miraculously, even though the dude straddling his scooter is just a couple of feet from this whirling mess of death, he appears completely unharmed. Can you imagine what goes through your head after something like that? After I changed my shorts, I’d probably go buy a lottery ticket.

Lots of people just wake up with a hangover after Memorial Day, but one Seattle man greeted Tuesday with the knowledge that he’d trashed his Porsche. Of course, given the car left the road at high-speed and hit a utility pole before flying into 15 feet of water off Seattle’s Alki beach, that doesn’t exactly rule out a hangover. Details come from KOMO News, which has reported the accident occurred about 2AM, and that the 50 year-old driver—who was alone in the vehicle—was able to free himself before firefighters arrived. Alki is a beautiful stretch of road and a popular cruising spot, and this isn’t the first time speeding drivers have lost it on this corner. But this Porsche might hold the distance record! We’ve got one more shot after the jump, and KOMO has a bunch more pics and a video of the story.

Continue reading "Seattle Man Crashes His Porsche Into the Drink" »

Rally racing is cool stuff with cars flying through the air and hurtling over all sorts of terrain at high rates of speed. This particular car happens to be driven by the crazy nut Travis Pastrana. Travis apparently hits an undulation in the road incorrectly and launches this car into a series of rolls like we have never seen before.

The in-car cuts are wild. Note that the driver and co-driver are talking to each other before they even stop rolling. We can only guess that the co-driver may have had some reservations about climbing into that car again.

Pastrana has literally jumped out of an airplane without a parachute so this may not rank that high up on his scale of death defying feats, but for mere mortals like us, it tops the charts.