Yesterday, while attempting to beat her own land speed record, the 52,000 horsepower jet-powered car driven by racer, fabricator, and television personality Jessi Combs crashed in the Alvord Desert in Oregon, killing her, as local news reports. Combs was 39 years old and held the title of “fastest woman on four wheels” after breaking 398 mph in that same North American Eagle Supersonic Speed Challenger in 2013.
Whoops... I looked at the first two pages here... didn't think to look in Off-Topic...
That’s awful. She gets points for dying being a badass and doing what she loved. I honestly wasn’t a very big fan of hers but that’s very easy to set aside when something like this happens.
I probably would have been a bigger fan had I known she was so involved in crazy, risky automotive competition. I blame myself for not knowing that stuff and thinking she was just a girl on tv.
God bless her family. They and the automotive community at-large will suffer from her loss.
Geez, I didn't know who she was at first but now I recognize her. Very sad.
That sucks so bad. . . Rip Jessi You will be missed.
Shame......
I remember seeing her on one of the Spike TV shows and she always seemed very down to earth and very much a gear head. My condolences to her friends and family.
How more people aren't killed in LSR is beyond me. Not that I'm against it or anything. Just seems super over the top dangerous.
Seeing tributes to her on other forums, there's a lot of people talking about her "going out in a blaze of glory", "doing what she loved" et cetera. berkeley that. An exceptional person has died and that just sucks.
I will tell you my brother drank himself to death by age 49 and at the time I made the comment that had he at least gone out doing something like racing at the Isle of Man or climbing Everest I wouldn't think it a wasted life.
It does suck but hers very much was a life well lived, albeit to short.
A 401 CJ said:How more people aren't killed in LSR is beyond me. Not that I'm against it or anything. Just seems super over the top dangerous.
Most programs have a lot of safety things put into them. As opposed to using an airplane with the wings taken off.... What I have seen of this "car" was just a normal F104 fuselage with no real cage. So no real safety things on it at all.
Then again, I've been at the salt flats where someone died with a cage at half the speed she was going. Sucked pretty badly.
In reply to alfadriver :
I’m no engineer but I cannot imagine surviving a crash approaching 400 mph no matter how much safety equipment they add in.
Im convinced the physics your body undergoes crashing at that speed is not survivable. All of which makes her 10x more ballsy than I’ll ever be.
In reply to ebonyandivory :
Depends on what was the root of the crash. And by that, I mean this specific crash- I can't imagine a 50 year old structure that was designed to not be loaded as car would do all that well when stressed as one...
The greater point is that not many cars going that fast crash. This is the second time for this one- and I did see a car do something similar to the first time this car went off course- and the second time it did it a few months later ended the same way.
I do think at a certain point safety equipment is window dressing. But it's crappy to think about a situation where you were this close to making it that you'd still be alive if you had gone just a little further in safety prep. I don't know what the odds are of just barely dying when you started at 400+mph, but anyone playing in this field can at least afford the safety stuff, so not having it is either reckless or lazy. Not saying that applies here, but i think that's why you still try on safety stuff even though you're about to take a huge risk, mostly in fear of falling into that tiny stupid hole where you really should have lived.
I read a report this morning that said there was a problem with the parachutes not opening at the end of a run. I don't know if that's confirmed or just a rumor. I've also read that the car (which as mentioned is essentially the fuselage of an F-104 with wheels attached) did not have a roll cage. Again, I don't know if that's true but I would imagine there's very little room for one inside the cockpit of a fighter jet.
I remember when I first heard about this car, years ago, thinking the idea of an aircraft fuselage as an LSR car at this level was pretty crazy. I just can't imagine that the structure is well suited for use on the ground, not that there aren't considerable stresses involved in the design of supersonic aircraft. The Thrust SSC used aircraft engines, but was designed from the ground up for the purpose.
As to the lack of safety equipment... at 400+ mph, I'm pretty sure the only thing that would have made a difference was an ejection seat.
The parachute system on this particular car has failed several times, and looking at their website, they made some changes this year. It would be really sad if a known problem that wasn't properly addressed was the cause of this crash.
Not wanting for this to be a bitchfest, but I have to agree with Eric on the structure of the vehicle. LSR racing has one advantage in accidents. Generally there's a lack of things to hit, so given the speed, there's a lot of chance to dissipate energy and save the occupant. People have survived much higher speed accidents (and not survived lower). But an aircraft is not designed to dissipate energy on impact and will probably just crumple. I think Art Afrons was fine after crashing at over 600mph/.
Having said that, I know nothing of the details, but if she went into some kind of mega high speed roll the G forces could have spun her internal organs beyond survivability and there's nothing that could have been done.
I just hope she didn't suffer.
ebonyandivory said:In reply to alfadriver :
I’m no engineer but I cannot imagine surviving a crash approaching 400 mph no matter how much safety equipment they add in.
Im convinced the physics your body undergoes crashing at that speed is not survivable. All of which makes her 10x more ballsy than I’ll ever be.
Seems like about the only thing with a chance of working would be an ejector seat and any seat with enough acceleration to get you high enough for the parachute to deploy and slow you down before you hit the ground would probably be enough acceleration to kill you. Then the parachute deceleration to get the ground impact within survival limits required would be crazy high as well.
In reply to stuart in mn :
I don't imagine that either of the Bloodhound projects have much in the way of crash protection either. Judging by what I can find about them anyway.
I can't imagine any amount of crash protection would matter as the energy transferred to the the driver would be absurd. Even using a safety cell as seen in F1 or Indy to dissipate the energy.
I would have thought there would be a good amount of runoff for the car though. No use in speculating this early.
The0retical said:No use in speculating this early.
This I agree with...for any tragedy like this there are always way too many opinions and rumors going around before anyone really knows what happened.
Tom1200 said:I will tell you my brother drank himself to death by age 49 and at the time I made the comment that had he at least gone out doing something like racing at the Isle of Man or climbing Everest I wouldn't think it a wasted life.
It does suck but hers very much was a life well lived, albeit to short.
A lot have succumbed to the fate of your brother. A lot. Jack Kerouac comes to mind as one of the more well known examples.
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