17-year old girl killed at Cayuga

[jonovision_man]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2006/10/02/jetcar-crash.html

:shakehead



Girl, 17, dies as jet-powered car crashes
Last Updated: Monday, October 2, 2006 | 8:50 AM ET
CBC News

A 17-year-old Windsor-area girl is dead after the jet-powered dragster she was driving crashed at nearly 500 kilometres an hour.

Kendall Hebert of Tecumseh was driving the car at the Toronto Motorsport Track near Cayuga, Ont., when the accident happened at 3:20 p.m. Sunday.

Police said the teen was on a quarter-mile track when the dragster ran into a concrete barrier for unknown reasons. The vehicle bounced over the wall and rolled several times.

Hebert was ejected from the car and was later pronounced dead in a hospital in Hagersville.

At the time of the crash, Hebert was conducting a performance run with no other cars on the track. She had reached a speed of more than 480 kilometres an hour, police said.

The Windsor high school student had been driving race cars since she was nine years old.

[nrc]

Terrible news, but ejected? :confused:

[jonovision_man]

Terrible news, but ejected? :confused:

I wasn't quite sure about that either...

There's a picture of her and car here:
http://www.gladiatorracing.com/

I don't really follow drag racing, had no idea people actually strapped jet engines to the back of their cars and head down a track. :eek: That's insane... especially for a young woman to risk her life like that.

jono

[RichK]

Terrible news, but ejected? :confused:

I've seen it before, once the back of the car is torn off, the seat belts aren't really connected to anything. Not good.

[devilmaster]

Thanks for the link Jono...

Copied it to the education office, waiting to see if she's in the public system. If so, I suppose the board's crisis response team of social workers and councillors may already be at the school just in case.

A team used too often unfortunately. :(

[pchall]

Terrible news, but ejected? :confused:

That makes me wonder as well. Was the poor kid in some sort of homebuilt lash up or something?

:confused:

[Trevor Longman]

.

[Andrew Longman]

Yes that does seem odd. Belts should attach to the cage or something else that won't shear off. Maybe this car was a bit of a "homebuilt". Clue: she looks like a cute kid in the picture, but that sure doesn't look like Nomex underwear.

As for jet dragsters they are a bit of a rarity these days. 1) 300 mph is about all you can get out of them in a quarter mile and once upon a time that was impressive but top fuel does it all the time now. No novelty for the fans and hence little interest from promoters. 2) Insurance companies frown on them because of all the stuff they blow over in their wake. Even moreso for rocket cars.

Sorta OT, years back I worked for a marketing company that, among other things, did promotions for cigarette companies. I was working a gig for Raliegh cigarettes in Toledo that involved sponsoring a truck and tractor pull in the hockey arena down by the river.

Part of the show was a jet engine tractor. The pulls actually started outside and entered the arena through a big overhead door. The jet tractor ducted its exhaust upwards. As it entered the arena it immediately blew a swath of acoustical tile off the ceiling the length of the arena.

Back to reality. Sad about the girl and what was obviously a passion for her.

[stymie]

Tragic loss for her family and friends, prayers to them.

As a note Gilles was ejected from his car during his crash and was still buckled in his seat.

[Tim]

I noticed the car has no way of generating downforce except for a VERY small front wing.

[Joelski]

The track is way too narrow too. No way to steer that thing with what little downforce it had.

[Fio1]

This is tragic. And, absolutely so stupid! :confused:

I won't get in that thing, and sure as heck won't put my daughter in that. :thumdown:

It's like tie-strapping a 125cc ICC Shifter Kart motor to a flipping skate board! :shakehead

[jonovision_man]

This is tragic. And, absolutely so stupid! :confused:

I won't get in that thing, and sure as heck won't put my daughter in that. :thumdown:

It's like tie-strapping a 125cc ICC Shifter Kart motor to a flipping skate board! :shakehead

Glad to hear others had the same reaction I did.

I accept that racing is always going to be dangerous, and I accept there will always be 17-year-olds trying their hand at it, you have to start somewhere and it usually means starting young.

But geebus... 480km/h with a jet engine behind you hardly seems like something any parent should be encouraging.

Mind you, I don't plan on letting my daughter drive anything faster than a Civic... ;) and even then I'm going to keep an eye out!

jono

[Andrew Longman]

Glad to hear others had the same reaction I did.

I accept that racing is always going to be dangerous, and I accept there will always be 17-year-olds trying their hand at it, you have to start somewhere and it usually means starting young.

But geebus... 480km/h with a jet engine behind you hardly seems like something any parent should be encouraging.

Mind you, I don't plan on letting my daughter drive anything faster than a Civic... ;) and even then I'm going to keep an eye out!

jono


There is not a competitive series with jet dragsters up there is there?

To my knowledge, running these things is either for promotional purposes (a little something to boost the gate) or personal amusment.

It seems she didn't have to do this to break into racing. Instead it seems it was a choice made to gain some fame. Not much different that joining a circus high wire act of trying to get on Fear Factor.

Doesn't make it any less tragic, but she seems to have been motivated to be an entertainer more than a racer. And no, my daughter will not be driving anything at 300 mph.

[Twisty Bits]

My boss's kid hung out with her, so, he's even more grumpier than normal this week. Regardless, sad news indeed.

[pferrf1]

From what I have read the belts failed.

In an article on this topic the family (or a spokesman) said they are looking into the belts. They said the 'metal' failed, not the webbing. The belts were apparently only a number of weeks old. The only 'metal I can think of ont he belts are the latches and teh mounting points. In this case, from photos of the car on her website, the belts were mounted to tube frame driver's cell.

[RacinM3]

Belt failure or not....300 MPH is pretty much the same as a plane crash, and we know how often people don't walk away from those.

[ChrisB]

I accept that racing is always going to be dangerous, and I accept there will always be 17-year-olds trying their hand at it, you have to start somewhere and it usually means starting young.



This is a real tragedy, BUT....

If someone is racing at a young age, it's probably the result of 2 scenarios which involve the parents:

1. The parents have no racing background, and the child was highly motivated and got the parents to fund their racing endeavor (or even better, got financing outside the family.. now THAT's a motivated kid!)

2. The parents were racing fans to begin with, and wanting to continue their passion through their children, made the opportunity to drive a race car for their kids somewhat easier than normal (sometimes handing them the opportunity on a platter). Given the chance to do something excting and be the center of attention, the kids rarely turn it down.

I would suppose scenario #2 is what happens 90-some percent of the time.

[Peter Olivola]

Your missed an all too common and equaly unfortunate third scenario: The over involved soccer dad behavior that pushes kids farther, faster than their internal maturity warrants.


I accept that racing is always going to be dangerous, and I accept there will always be 17-year-olds trying their hand at it, you have to start somewhere and it usually means starting young.



This is a real tragedy, BUT....

If someone is racing at a young age, it's probably the result of 2 scenarios which involve the parents:

1. The parents have no racing background, and the child was highly motivated and got the parents to fund their racing endeavor (or even better, got financing outside the family.. now THAT's a motivated kid!)

2. The parents were racing fans to begin with, and wanting to continue their passion through their children, made the opportunity to drive a race car for their kids somewhat easier than normal (sometimes handing them the opportunity on a platter). Given the chance to do something excting and be the center of attention, the kids rarely turn it down.

I would suppose scenario #2 is what happens 90-some percent of the time.

[ChrisB]

Yea, Pete I was sorta implying that with scenario #2. Everytime I've seen a TV story or magazine article about a kid involved in racing, it often seems the Dads are more into it than the kids... which leaves an unfortunate situation of how a dad must feel after his kid gets killed doing something dangerous (like racing) that he helped the child along with that he/she otherwise would not have been involved with.

Otherwise, I used to attend jet dragster/funny-car shows all the time at Atco NJ back in the 80's. One time while coming home, we stopped at a Diner and there was a father and (teenage) son team whom we had seen race there that night, and we talked to them a bit... nice folks, but I doubt the son would be driving jet funny cars if not for his dad (presumably) putting together a jet-car "team".

I kinda lost touch with jet-cars, but I think Atco still markets itself as a major place for jet-car racing... though I also remember talking to some other drag racers who don't like having to follow the jet-cars because the kerosene exhaust makes the track slick.

[Hameroids]

Have a look at the pics of that "300 mph car". They were in the running for a Darwin Award, and unfortunately she won.

http://www.darwinawards.com/i/art/zeebarf/jato2.jpg

JATO-Impala

[emjaya]

Another death.:shakehead


A JAPANESE drag-racing driver died when his jet-powered car crashed into a wall at an estimated 300km/h and burst into flames in central Victoria yesterday.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20547132-661,00.html

And this is what it looked like.:saywhat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVzC40QHSCs

I don't think I would pay to see that.:yuck: