THE DARWIN AWARD

You may have heard about the Darwin Award. It's an annual honor given to
the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing herself or
himself in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's winner was the
fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him
as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it. 

And this year's Darwin Award nominee is: 

The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded
into the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The
wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car.  The
type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. The lab finally figured out
what it was and what had happened. 

It seems that a guy had somehow gotten hold of a JATO (Jet Assisted Take
Off - -- actually a solid fuel rocket) unit that is used to give heavy
military transport planes an extra "push" for taking off from short
airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a
long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car,
jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO! 

The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator of the 1967
Impala hit JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the
crash site. This was established by the prominent scorched and melted
asphalt at that location. The JATO, if operating properly, would have
reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds
well in excess of 350 MPH and continuing at full power for an additional
20-25 seconds. The driver (soonto be pilot) most likely would have
experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-18 jocks under
full afterburners, basically causing him to become insignificant for the
remainder of the event. However, the automobile remained on the straight
highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and
completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber
marks on the road surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4
miles and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, leaving a
blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock.  Most of the driver's remains
were not recoverable; however, small fragments of bone, teeth, and hair
were extracted from the crater and fingernail and bone shards were removed
from steering wheel.