Ultimate Crash Test

The car let him down? He's lucky he's alive, if you ask me, it did its job, it saved his life in a 200+ mph crash.

He's got a friggen broken back! If a jet pilot can bail out at 600+ mph, still in his seat and float gently to earth then that dude should be able to rely on his ride to stay tight enough that at least his spinal column is supported... Y'know? Legs and arms broken sure, you'd expect that, but you've seen how tight racing harnesses are - you don't exactly move around, so obviously something let go - thats all I'm saying.

Actually, when a Pilot ejects from a fighter plane, there's so much force from the upward push, it compresses the disks in their back. Then when they clear the cannopy, there is so much force from the wind at 600mph - it breaks all the bones in their face, there ribs and does serious damage to their eyes. And as for landing gently done to southend in their chair? The chair clears them and if they don't pass out on from the lack of oxygen, chances are they'll break their legs too.

Sure if he had a few hundred feet between him and the earth, than he should certainly be able to survive a 600+ mph bail, but he was in an f1 racer less than 5 inches from the ground going 200+ mph. He definatly knew there could be consequences, what do you think, this is infalable? He's alive, it did what it's supposed to do, keep the driver from death.

yeah, I guess I've overstepped a little here - all I was trying to point out was that those (indy) cars are supposedly so safe now that you should be able to walk (or at least crawl ;) away from a crash like that. I'm not trying to understate the risks involved at 200mph, just that maybe 4 corners is too many -or not enough. I feel like I'm painting myself into a corner here but I don't think indy (on those tracks at least) or nascar are the most impressive displays of either car control or outright speed so what's the point?