I am so late with this (as in two years late) but hell, you may not have heard of it so here goes.
Daniel Sadek has $26 million dollars tied up in this adolesent dream project of his, so what's another $1.5 million to ensure a little publicity? "Here Eddie, here's $2000. Go run that car into the wall over there for the cameras. That Ericsson guy crashed one at 150+ so you'll be fine doing 30. Just put your seatbelt on and say somthing funny when the reporters interview you!". Once all the kiddies go to see all the cool cars go 'zoom zoom' on the big screen and he makes his money back and more in DVD rentals, Sadek will be laughing about it in the south of France with a glass of champagne in one hand, some blond in the other while waiting for delivery of his new Veyron.
If this was a stunt there's no way that guy would have been leaning against the barrier on the outside of that corner. It does seem a little strange that he didn't even flinch during the crash - maybe his head was down admiring his "Save the Enzos" shirt.
True, it's great publicity for a lame movie, but Griffin would have had to really know what he was doing. The amateur way would have been to drive straight into the barrier, not to understeer into the it.
Nah, that wasn't fake. It was that "lock up the front end while your foot's on the gas" kind of screwup that turns most any powerful car into an unguided missile. Pretty expensive way to learn the limits of left-foot braking...
I was going to post this yesterday, but you all seems so convinced I thought maybe you all knew something about "body" and "crushing" that I didn't. I will however say that when this was first reported on the local news here in LA on Sunday night, two stations aired portions with the crash and reported that "the video of exact moments before the crash" were "mysteriously missing". Also, this producer is a notorious dirtbag who is cleaning up his money from "questionable" sources. Sorry... I just think this has PR stunt all over it.
In my former life, I was an auto appraiser for an insurance adjuster. We considered a car "totalled" when repair costs equalled 70% of a car's current market value. If we stipulate that the current market value of an Enzo at $1.2 million, that would mean that it would have to suffer $840,000 worth of damage to be considered "totalled." In my present life, I am a "Hollywood douchebag," and my STRONG feeling here is that this was not an intentional publicity stunt, though I doubt that Daniel Sadek is losing too much sleep over the accidental publicity. But, seriously, the "Hey Eddie, go drive this car into a barrier" theory just doesn't pass the smell test to me.
The Enzo could have handled much better than that. The front wheels locked up. If all 4 wheels were locked up as it should in a panic stop, the car would have stopped much sooner than that. Also, it would have spun out while stopping since it was already in mid corner. The car already had rotational inertia. With 4 wheels locked up, it would not have gone in such a straight line. My guess is the brake bias was adjusted way up front so only the front wheels locked up. The turn previous to the crash, the car was already understeering heavily. I blame it on bad brake balance set-up either unintentional or more likely done on purpose for publicity. With the bias adjusted wrong, in normal driving, most people would not notice it. Only in a panic does it compound the situation. Placement of the cement barrier next to the corner supports the publicity theory.
As an active Auto-Xer I can tell you right now that that barrier placement is staged. I run in events where the most expensive car running is well under 100k and they design those tracks in such a way that you CANNOT hit the wall without aiming for it. Now this is done by some volunteers and has perhaps a $2k budget(with a really large turnout) for the entire event. Multi million dollar cars and actors would defintly have a rather well thought out track at there disposal, not something cobbled together with a wall 25 ft from a hairpin at the end of a straight. Now stupidity is still an option but seriously there had to have been an insurance company underwriting that event and they would not have allowed the track design to fall below SCCA standards.
And there you have it. What do you guys think? Did Griffin really pull an epic fail, or do the conspiracy nut-jobs have a case? Comments, please...
Thanks to my friend Ben, for flagging this!
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