http://youtube.com/watch?v=3_zb64jpY0c

Don't mean to be insensitive here...but WTF is a concrete wall doing at the end of a drag strip??

It's a horrible accident, and one that hopefully the sport will take lessons from, but it's such a horrible way for saftey to be improved.

Yeah, it's quite baffling that they didn't have at least a tire wall there. Or something.

Apparently there's a road just on the other side of that wall, and the run-off can't be extended.

HOLLLLY SH*******T

That sucks O_O That's one dangerous drag strip.

When he hits the wall a peice of his car just goes flying into the air. It almost seems like he drove on a mine or something. O_O Scary.

RIP :S

Don't get me wrong now, but isn't that acutally a "happy" end?
I don't know anything about dragsters to be perfectly honest, but that explosion looked very serious, if not fatal, so even if one survived such an explosion, is what you have afterwards really worth being called "life"?

Anyway, it's a horrible way to go, RIP.

Track seems way too small for big dragsters and lack of any runoff zone makes me wonder why are these drivers even willing to race there.

Well they race 300mph cars for a living, its dangerous, and they know if something goes wrong they could die, but they love it enough to continue doing it.

Very sad to see that accident though, because I've seen a few like that on drag strips with large run off areas and some have walked away with barely any injuries, the initial explosion and fire surely wouldn't have killed him, it must have been the massive impact into that wall. I think they will seriously need to think about that drag strips safety, because by the looks of it that car launched extremely high over that wall, if there is a road on the other side then it could have landed on it, or debris could land on it.

OMG!
thats terrible............thoughts go out to his friends, family and loved ones.

but what i find really disturbing is the title and a few of the comments, there are some very "strange" people in this world.

all in all, a sad day for motorsport.

RIP

That dragstrip really is stupidly unsafe, what a sad unnecesary waste of a life.

@ Mr Grady: The title of the video is fine, those drag cars are actually called 'funny cars', it isn't saying the crash is funny.

I can't believe that, there is no reason why there couldn't be a deep tire wall there, which as we've seen from circuit racing is a relatively safe way of stopping a car from high speed head on.

holy crap ..... man, thats bad

RIP

Quote from ajp71 :

I can't believe that, there is no reason why there couldn't be a deep tire wall there, which as we've seen from circuit racing is a relatively safe way of stopping a car from high speed head on.

Well apparently some guy in a business suit thought: "Well, if anyone's going anywhere near the end, he's on fire anyway so let's save a few bucks and just forget about the safety there."

R.I.P but who in the earth would place a concrete wall at the end of the drag strip :S Horrible crash he crashed to heaven..

Tragic.

At least he died doing what he loved best; Racing.

Perhaps the safety of drag strips should be looked into, perhaps there should be SAFER barriers?

Quote from 5haz :

Perhaps the safety of drag strips should be looked into, perhaps there should be SAFER barriers?

They don't offer a very effective way of absorbing a heavy head on impact, the advantage they would have, and probably the reason why the concrete wall was left unprotected, is that there would be no risk of a car plowing under the tyres whilst on fire, which is a greater risk in drag racing, I think most people would choose to live with that risk rather than have a concrete wall.

What are the chances of actually surviving a ~300mph crash? Tyre walls at that speed would surely be almost as hard as a concrete wall. The same way that water is like concrete if you hit it at ~50mph.

Anyway, sad to see anyone dying in motor racing, has to be one of the biggest crashes in history.

It should have a dirt run off area like most tracks, or some kind of gravel trap.

Quote from amp88 :

What are the chances of actually surviving a ~300mph crash? Tyre walls at that speed would surely be almost as hard as a concrete wall. The same way that water is like concrete if you hit it at ~50mph.

It wasn't a 300mph impact with the wall, after it caught fire there was clearly some attempt to stop it, even if the parachutes didn't deploy correctly the car will have lost a lot of its speed. The impact speed was probably more like 150mph, which is very fast but completely survivable (there have been a few very fast head ons with tyre walls with big single seaters with drivers only suffering minor injuries) a well designed car and substantial length of impact absorbing material (there's no reason why a drag strip that can't have miles of run off road can't have a 50 foot deep tyre wall). I do think the length of stopping distance is ridiculously short at this track though, it must be pretty tight anyway.

Why they would run such fast cars at (what looks like) such a short strip is beyond me. And to simply have a wall at the end is shocking, unless this is a relatively new strip (in which case why there?) I'd be amazed if this is the first time someone has been killed.

WTF ever happened to dirt emergency roads?

The runoff there (distance from timing line to wall) is 1/3mi, btw.

The strip is one of the oldest on the circuit. Was built in 1965 and has been hosting the NHRA since 1968.

Very tragic death...but I'm more appalled by the comments that some people made...

wow, i didnt think the crash would be that hardcore. i figured something failed in the chasis, not that he went plowing into a wall headfirst while driving a fireball.:eek:

God that was bad. RIP. They shouldn't use that place with such a small run off. You should be able to at least land a 737 on the area of a drag strip. And it should be in an unpopulated area where there is loads of run off.

I've been to Englishtown a few times in the past couple years. As I recall, they use a net at the end of the track to cushion the wall. The "track" actually ends shortly past the scoring boards. A lot of what you saw was due to the fact that the initial engine explosion sheared off the body and parachutes. Also, drag cars have very small brakes. I may be wrong, but I don't think they even have front brakes.

There really is no runoff issue at Englishtown. It's just unusual to see a car explode at the end of the track like Scott's did. Still, tragic.

RIP Scott.