Re: IML: Impala Driver vs. Imperial Driver

[Tom Hubbard <tom_hubbard1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This story appears to be a certifiable urban legend:
http://www.snopes.com/autos/dream/jato.asp

--- YBSHORE@xxxxxxx wrote:

> Imperialists, 
>     
>     The next time someone mistakes your car for the 
> aforementioned, note we 
> Imperialists generally frown on rodding ourselves, 
> as well as our cars, for 
> MANY reasons:
>  
> ybshore
>  
>
******************************************************************************
> *************
> 
> Ladies and Gentleman, the winner of  this year's
> Darwin Award 
> (awarded, as always,  posthumously): 
> 
> The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of 
> smoldering metal 
> embedded  in the side of a cliff rising above the 
> road at the apex of a 
> curve.  The  wreckage resembled the site of  an
> airplane crash, but it was a 
> car. 
> The  type of car was  unidentifiable at the scene.
> Police investigators 
> finally pieced  together the mystery. An amateur
> rocket scientist... had 
> somehow  gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted
> Take Off, actually a solid  
> fuel 
> rocket) that  is used to give heavy military
> transport planes  an extra 
> "push" for 
> taking  off from short airfields. He had  driven his
> Chevy Impala out into 
> the desert  and found a long, straight  stretch of
> road. He attached the JATO 
> unit  to the  car, jumped  in, got up some speed and
> fired off the JATO! 
> 
> The facts as  best as could be determined are that
> the operator of 
> the  1967 Impala  hit the JATO ignition at a
> distance of approximately 
> 3.0  miles   from the crash site. This was
> established by the scorched and 
> melted   asphalt at that location. 
>  
> The JATO, if operating properly, would have  reached
> maximum thrust 
> within  5 seconds, causing the Chevy to  reach
> speeds well in excess of 
> 350 mph and continuing at full power for  an
> additional 20 -25 
> seconds.  The  driver, and soon to be pilot,  would
> have experienced G-forces 
> usually  reserved for dog fighting F-14  jocks under
> full afterburners, 
> causing  him  to become irrelevant  for the
> remainder of the event. However, 
> the 
> automobile  remained  on the straight highway for
> about 2.5 miles (15-20 
> seconds)  before the  driver applied and completely
> melted the brakes, 
> blowing 
> the   tires  and leaving thick rubber marks on the
> road surface, then  
> becoming 
> airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting
> the  cliff face at a 
> height of  125 feet leaving a blackened crater 3
> feet  deep in the rock. Most 
> of  the driver's remains were not  recoverable.
> However, small fragments of 
> bone, teeth and hair were  extracted from the
> crater, and fingernail and 
> bone  shards were removed  from a piece of debris
> believed to be a portion 
> of  the  steering  wheel. 
> Epilogue: It has been calculated that this moron
> attained  a ground 
> speed  of approximately 420-mph, though much of his 
> voyage was not  actually 
> on  the  ground. 
> 
> You  couldn't make this stuff up, could  you? 
> 



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