Motorcycle "crash" at 343 mph

March 23, 2018, 01:12 PM

12131

"Crash"? Anybody see a crash? It's a spill, but it ain't a crash, in my view. It it were a real crash, she would have been dead.

http://www.foxnews.com/auto/20...otorcycle-crash.html

Shocking video surfaces of Valerie Thompson's 343 mph motorcycle crash

By Gary Gastelu | Fox News

Valerie Thompson was going for the motorcycle land speed record of 376 mph when it all went wrong.

Racing across the salt flats of Australia’s Lake Gairdner at the World Speed Trials on March 19, her streamlined two-wheeler tipped over at 343 mph.

Video of the accident show the fish-shaped bike flipping end over end, rolling over and sliding for more than a mile before finally coming to a rest on its side.

Amazingly, the carbon fiber monocoque of the vehicle stayed largely intact, and Thompson suffered only minor bumps and cuts.

Thompson told Fox News that it was the first time she ever crashed the bike, with which she set the women’s motorcycle land speed record of 328 mph earlier in the week.

She’s still not sure exactly what caused the spill, but will be going over the onboard data to try to figure out what happened, while her team assesses the damage to determine if they can get the bike back together for another shot at the record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah later this year.

You’ve got to get back on that horse.

Or motorcycle.

March 23, 2018, 01:16 PM

Oz_Shadow

She must have been wearing a ridiculous amount of gear and been covered in some Clark Griswold type lubricant.

March 23, 2018, 01:18 PM

Aeteocles

She was in an enclosed carbon fiber cockpit.

March 23, 2018, 01:19 PM

Perception

Looks like they need a little aero work. It probably would have been bad, but the chute being deployed kept it stable. Hopefully they can get it back up an running for another run pretty quickly.

"The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford, "it is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them. They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards."
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard, then the wrong lizard might get in."

March 23, 2018, 01:21 PM

Aeteocles

Definitely not an expert, but I guess that a little more downforce in the front wouldn't have hurt.

March 23, 2018, 01:29 PM

sigmonkey

quote:
Originally posted by 12131:...
She’s still not sure exactly what caused the spill...

Probably texting...

March 23, 2018, 01:34 PM

12131

quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey:
quote:
Originally posted by 12131:...
She’s still not sure exactly what caused the spill...

Probably texting...

"Look Ma, no hands."

March 23, 2018, 01:37 PM

archerman

quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey:
quote:
Originally posted by 12131:...
She’s still not sure exactly what caused the spill...

Probably texting...

I don’t care who you are, that’s funny

March 23, 2018, 01:49 PM

erj_pilot

quote:
Originally posted by Aeteocles:
Definitely not an expert, but I guess that a little more downforce in the front wouldn't have hurt.

I'd venture that's the LAST thing they want to do. Increasing downforce exponentially increases aerodynamic drag. I'm sure there's a formula for that somewhere, but since I'm not Sheldon Cooper and I tend toward the lazy side, I'm not gonna look it up.

"If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24

March 23, 2018, 01:55 PM

sigmonkey

At those speeds, folks are beyond skating on ice.

And with no directional (flight) controls, you have even a smaller margin for deviation of trajectory.

A little rapid increase or decrease of forward thrust, wheel shimmy, or other input and you start looking like bad Bruce Peterson landing.

March 23, 2018, 02:10 PM

TMats

Do you suppose she manually deployed that chute, or is there some sort of automatic deployment system?

March 23, 2018, 02:17 PM

Angus the Kid

Looks like it may have been a little top heavy...

March 23, 2018, 02:18 PM

JohnnyD

quote:
Originally posted by archerman:
quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey:
quote:
Originally posted by 12131:...
She’s still not sure exactly what caused the spill...

Probably texting...

I don’t care who you are, that’s funny

Ya know that really was pretty good

March 23, 2018, 02:23 PM

SigEd

Perhaps I’ve become jaded. Am I the only one not shocked by the “Shocking” video?

March 23, 2018, 02:31 PM

whododat

quote:
Originally posted by SigEd:
Perhaps I’ve become jaded. Am I the only one not shocked by the “Shocking” video?

My thoughts exactly. Evel Knievel had some shocking landings on an ACTUAL motorcycle.

March 23, 2018, 02:45 PM

Rightwire

Selfie?

March 23, 2018, 03:05 PM

Aeteocles

quote:
Originally posted by erj_pilot:
quote:
Originally posted by Aeteocles:
Definitely not an expert, but I guess that a little more downforce in the front wouldn't have hurt.

I'd venture that's the LAST thing they want to do. Increasing downforce exponentially increases aerodynamic drag. I'm sure there's a formula for that somewhere, but since I'm not Sheldon Cooper and I tend toward the lazy side, I'm not gonna look it up.

Just add more power =)

March 23, 2018, 03:07 PM

Aeteocles

quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey:
At those speeds, folks are beyond skating on ice.

And with no directional (flight) controls, you have even a smaller margin for deviation of trajectory.

Is there a rule that says land speed records can't be broken by vehicles with (flight) control surfaces? Because, that'd be cool to have some control surfaces that could be manipulated to stabilize the motorcycle.

March 23, 2018, 05:04 PM

slabsides45

I read somewhere that after reviewing the cockpit film, they've decided that the next version will not have a rear view mirror. Apparently application of lip gloss over 300 mph is frowned upon by the gods of physics and universal cosmetology.

March 23, 2018, 05:23 PM

Sig2340

As someone with personal experience on this topic, I observe that when random parts of your motorcycle and you become separate entities intent on occupying the same space-time coordinates but with different entrance and exit vectors, it's a crash.

Some times you walk away from a no-kidding crash with surprisingly few injuries. In my case, based on training in paramedic school and from other sources like the lectures of the late John Hinds, M.D. on the kinematics of trauma associated with motorcycle crashes, my 60 mph crash into a stopped car should have ripped one or more of my aorta, pulmonary artery and vein, and vena cavas (vena cavi?) from my heart, broken my legs, neck, skull and/or spine, and left me in a pile of dead on the outer loop of the Capital Beltway. Instead, I walked out of the ER four hours later.

It's twenty years later you learn that youth is wasted on the young. Old people who crashed motorcycles when they were young are the ones who need the resiliency of youth.