And don't forget, hit an oak tree 15 feet off the ground at the end of that 200 foot-long flight.
He must have been going at an unbelievable rate of speed, plus the runway was elevated somewhat above the surrounding ground.
No, that 200 feet isn't altitude. It's distance.
Yeah, it is. Another story about this, posted earlier on FR, noted that there is an 85’ embankment at the end, and the car went off the runway, up the embankment, and into the air - much like a ski-jump.
My guess - debris on the runway and/or not paying attention to how much runway was left in the quest to see how fast the new BMW was. Or, it could be the “Hey, watch me recreate the bootlegger turn in Tokyo Drift at 100 mph!” stupidity factor.
I wouldn’t trust too many of these measurements. It says the wreckage was contained to a 10 foot by 20 foot area. I think the correct translation is: It done went yonder, got smashed to smithereens and ended up all over tarnation.
They said he was going 100mph when left the runway. This from the Orlando paper:
Florida Highway officers said a gray 2008 BMW was traveling on an airstrip after 3:30 a.m. Saturday near Jumbolair Aviation Estates when it sailed off an 80- to 85-foot elevated embankment at the runway.
The vehicle was speeding in excess of 100 mph when it left the ground and traveled 200 feet into a large tree, Local 6 has learned. The vehicle hit the tree about 15 feet above the ground.
http://www.local6.com/news/15144329/detail.html
More likely that way actually. Sliding sideways, even a small bump and flip a car over. It's happened at low-speed-almost-nothing-ever-breaks autocross (solo 2) events, one time to a BMW in fact.