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Car Forum / Ford / Ford Mustang / April 2007Another moment of silence
Several things trouble me about this story. "Boynton Beach -- Stephen V. wasn't going to drive away like a punk, friends said. So he accepted the challenge to race the silver Ford Mustang that had beat his Dodge Neon SRT-4 before. V., 18, thought he would win this time. He knew how to speed up his car, recently modified with a wastegate and blow-off valve. He'd gotten up to 145 mph in the car. "But shortly after hitting a curb about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday west of West Palm Beach, V. spun out of control, knocked over a bus stop sign, hit a gate and flipped several times, the Florida Highway Patrol said. V., of Boynton Beach, didn't like seat belts, friends said. "'He doesn't like being tied down,' said his girlfriend, Marybeth. "V. was ejected from the car and died in a vacant lot near Forest Hill Boulevard west of Anderson Lane, the FHP said." (Jerome Burdi, South Florida Sun-Sentinel) 1) A Mustang racing a Neon. And please don't tell me, well, it was an SRT-4. It's still rather like picking on your younger brother. 2) The Neon exceeded the operator's ability to control the vehicle. Did he really have it up to 145mph at any point previously, or was that just boasting? 3) Seat belt. How the hell can anyone consider themselves to be a "driver" and NOT strap in? Stupid, stupid, stupid. When I drive, the vehicle doesn't move until all occupants click in. dwight www.tfrog93.com > Several things trouble me about this story. > [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > dwight > www.tfrog93.com Having bent a steering wheel with my upper lip before, I always click. Street racings bad umkay? >> Several things trouble me about this story. >> [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > Having bent a steering wheel with my upper lip before, I always click. > Street racings bad umkay? Having been a race car mechanic for a good number of years, I can't stress the importance of proper belts, mounting them securely and using them... it's no joke. My friend for example flipped his race car over 7 times, end to end and sideways and everything in between. The rescue crew had to cut him out, but thanks to the roll cage and 4 or 5 point racing belts, he walked away with a minor concussion. The car was pretty much unrecognizeable. The forces involved in a bad crash are enormous. positive and negatiove G's, and centrifugal forces that make anything inside the car try to get out. Leave a quarter on the speaker shelf by the rear window, and it will fly through the windshield in a bad head-on crash.. Keeping race cars clean is a pain.. lol.. especially dirt track rally cars. One of the biggest complaints from the drivers is loose rocks and sand flying inside the car when they roll it :) Jan > Several things trouble me about this story. > [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] > dwight > www.tfrog93.com This story was in last Thursday's paper: http://tinyurl.com/2wcpw5 The kid was an idiot, which makes sense, because his mother is one too. After reading the story you get a feel for the attitude of the kid, his friends, and his mother. Truly sad. From the story... "I was very involved in my son's life, but I also had to let him be a teenager," said Cathy Vivarttas, 44, beside her other son, Michael, 10. "And look at what it got me. He was the kind of kid that if you tried to control him, he would rebel." What kind of crap is this? By her own admission, the mother basically gave up on straightening out her kid. End result: He ended up killing himself. Some people just don't get it... > Several things trouble me about this story. > [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > > When I drive, the vehicle doesn't move until all occupants click in. Yep, and many of them look at you like you're an old fool when you tell them that too. One good thing about that story is that at least he didn't take any bystanders or passengers with him. > dwight > www.tfrog93.com Are you TRYING to give the rest of us web envy? It's working....  Signature"Yes, it is a good thing you are handy, as you clearly suck at being smart." - Herb >> Several things trouble me about this story. >> [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] > Are you TRYING to give the rest of us web envy? > It's working.... Hey. It's what I do. I work on my company's website, then I come home and work on mine. And, if it makes you feel better, I just took out a contract with a web host for 5 gigabytes of room, since I outgrew the 26MB per screen name that Comcast allows. So now I've got all THAT space to fill up. dwight >>> Several things trouble me about this story. >>> [quoted text clipped - 44 lines] > > dwight Heh, and see my hook up and "hosting" are free. And I can have as much space to fill up as I can afford to purchase from Newegg. I just don't have the talent for doing it. Signature"Yes, it is a good thing you are handy, as you clearly suck at being smart." - Herb > Several things trouble me about this story. > "Boynton Beach -- Stephen V. wasn't going to drive away like a punk, friends > said. So he accepted the challenge to race the silver Ford Mustang that had > beat his Dodge Neon SRT-4 before. V., 18, thought he would win this time. He > knew how to speed up his car, recently modified with a wastegate and > blow-off valve. He'd gotten up to 145 mph in the car. > "But shortly after hitting a curb about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday west of West > Palm Beach, V. spun out of control, knocked over a bus stop sign, hit a gate > and flipped several times, the Florida Highway Patrol said. V., of Boynton > Beach, didn't like seat belts, friends said. It's ironic. Kids want to be like race car drivers, but forget that the number one rule of race car drivers is to buckle up. > "'He doesn't like being tied down,' said his girlfriend, Marybeth. And he died because he was untethered. > "V. was ejected from the car and died in a vacant lot near Forest Hill > Boulevard west of Anderson Lane, the FHP said." (Jerome Burdi, South Florida > Sun-Sentinel) > 1) A Mustang racing a Neon. And please don't tell me, well, it was an SRT-4. > It's still rather like picking on your younger brother. In name only. Think of your younger brother being well versed in mixed martial arts. Suddenly the/a fight is much more interesting. > 2) The Neon exceeded the operator's ability to control the vehicle. Did he > really have it up to 145mph at any point previously, or was that just > boasting? SRT-4's are 150 mph cars. Speed likely wasn't the issue here. (Anyone can drive 145 mph.) All you have to do is keep the car straight and the pedal down. I suspect the issue was the path the car was on. The race was likely at night and he probably didn't see the end of the street or a curve in the road. > 3) Seat belt. How the hell can anyone consider themselves to be a "driver" > and NOT strap in? Stupid, stupid, stupid. I don't know either. But it sounds like the seat belts would have had their work cut out for them even if he would have been belted in. > When I drive, the vehicle doesn't move until all occupants click in. I discovered the importance of belts at a young age. A friend took me off-road in his Jeep. While I was bouncing off the door, dashboard, windshield, and flopping around like a rag doll he was laughing at me while he was firmly belted into his driver's seat. Needless to say, once he brought the vehicle to a stop, I quickly found my seat belt. Patrick He didn't die from being untethered.... he died because he was racing..... Jeezussss... Is this so f.cking hard to realize? If he hadn't been racing, he wouldn't have been in his "situation". Life is full of choices... we have the option of making the right choice or the wrong choice.... I feel no pity, little sympathy and can only scratch my head in wonder why we should have a moment of silence for an idiot. > He didn't die from being untethered.... he died because he was racing..... > Jeezussss... Is this so f.cking hard to realize? Racing doesn't kill people. But running into something without being belted-in/tethered, more often than not, increases your odds of being killed. > If he hadn't been racing, he wouldn't have been in his "situation". Maybe. Racing is a risk factor, but accidents happen when the risk factors build up. Maybe he wasn't familiar with the street he was racing on, maybe the weather changed, maybe something in his car distracted him, maybe he had a mechanical failure. > Life is full of choices... we have the option of making the right choice or > the wrong choice.... True. And sometimes it's about being in the right place/wrong place at the right/wrong time. > I feel no pity, little sympathy and can only scratch my head in wonder why we should have a moment of silence for an idiot. Because he was a kid. And we've all had our moments when we were young. Patrick :>He didn't die from being untethered.... he died because he was racing..... :>Jeezussss... Is this so f.cking hard to realize? [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] :>I feel no pity, little sympathy and can only scratch my head in wonder why :>we should have a moment of silence for an idiot. I feel sorry for you Jim, in that you can't find some have some sympathy for a young man who made a fatal mistake. Eighteen year olds are fighting in Iraq but they're also very young and they make mistakes. Who among us hasn't made a wrong decision when they were young? Fortunately for most of us the mistakes weren't lethal. > I feel no pity, little sympathy and can only scratch my head in wonder why > we should have a moment of silence for an idiot. I'm going to have to agree with you there. It's a darn shame when a young man person dies. But he made those bad choices and there he is. Not just one bad decision, but many all at once. And a history of them, too. His general attitude seemed to have been, "Screw you, me first, I'm more important". Well, life is tough, and it's even tougher when you're stupid. At least it happened before he had a chance to breed. Darwin's Theory in action. Are you cold hearted? Am I? Yeah, I think we are. Signature.boB 2006 FXDI hot rod 2001 Dodge Dakota QC 5.9/4x4/3.92 1966 Mustang Coupe - Daily Driver 1965 FFR Cobra - 427W EFI, Damn Fast. > He didn't die from being untethered.... he died because he was racing..... > Jeezussss... Is this so f.cking hard to realize? [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > I feel no pity, little sympathy and can only scratch my head in wonder why > we should have a moment of silence for an idiot. In this case, the moment of silence - the absolute moment - is that singular moment when the tire hit the curb and he realized, "This is going to hurt." I'm not about to preach the anti-racing stance, since I engage in plenty of mini-competitions every day. While I don't go out on a weekend night to a staging area and run head-to-head with Neons, I do understand the need. I didn't buy Mustangs so I could obey the posted speed limits and, yes, I've done plenty of stupid things behind the wheel over the past 30 years. Perhaps the subject line was misleading - I wasn't looking for either sympathy or respect for this young man, merely passing along yet another story of (as you would say) bad choices. A young kid (and they get younger every year) who was too stupid or too full of testosterone to think straight. But the bottom line was the bit about the seat belt. Some idiots try to defend their refusal to wear them in terms ranging from personal comfort to personal freedoms, but on any level of any discussion seat belts make sense. And, yes, a seat belt may have made all the difference that night. dwight > Several things trouble me about this story. > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > really have it up to 145mph at any point previously, or was that just > boasting? most cars are speed limited these days by the computer, they lean out the engine. About 110 is top for most now, I had an older 5.0 ex cop car up to 140 but it takes too much smooth highway with NO traffic to do it, they do not see you coming at all, was 1 AM. The cars are not designed to do above 110 anyway. > 3) Seat belt. How the hell can anyone consider themselves to be a "driver" > and NOT strap in? Stupid, stupid, stupid. If he was doing above 110 and rolled it good luck even with seat belt on. > When I drive, the vehicle doesn't move until all occupants click in. > > dwight > www.tfrog93.com <snippage> > Several things trouble me about this story. > 3) Seat belt. How the hell can anyone consider themselves to be a > "driver" and NOT strap in? Stupid, stupid, stupid. > > When I drive, the vehicle doesn't move until all occupants click in. Amen to that. I have actually left a few behind because they felt it was okay to argue and question my, as the driver, authority to tell them what to do. The worst one, for me, was when a boy my daughter liked gave me lip and I put him out at the curb. My daughter gave me major crap for that one. ;-) She got over it.
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