Jesse Combs.

NY Nick said:

Holy cow the group has gone from riled up to downright twisted. I can't believe anyone read ddavids comment as anything other than being sad. 

I'm way to dense to even figure out what cap'n was thinking he meant. I read it meaning , well, exactly what it said. 
I always intend to only read and respond to car stuff, cause most are awesome. But I fail. 
I've heard I joined at a bad time for the forum (shortly before the current crazy) but I've read old stuff. Some people like to be keyboard commandos , just like other forums. Thankfully not as bad. 

I will likely watch; the first time I saw her on TV it was obvious she was a total gearhead. 

Kleenex, because 'dusty room'.

It's sad that I have to clarify that. Yeah, it could be taken in a different context...but in this thread?

In reply to alfadriver :

Dude, you need to chill out before you give yourself a stroke. I understand you're always looking for something I say to be wrong and get riled up over it but trust me, it ain't healthy. 

In reply to bobzilla :

In his defense, you did make it a personal attack. 
He is probably correct in the technical info, although he is being aggressive in his delivery. And completely in the wrong (in my opinion) to be thinking see was too oblivious to know what she was attempting. 

Note: I did NOT say she deserved to die.

we all make choices. In an attempt to set records, sometimes we don't always make the safest ones. 
 

deleted

Don't be shocked when you get rude and someone's rude in response.

Rest in peace, Ms. Combs. You were inspirational. The above is in response to this thread's heading, not the loss of a talented young lady.

I see that all of the other fastest LSR cars have substantial overhead safety structures surrounding the driver, resulting in improved high-speed crash survival rates over the years. I also see that the canopy was the high point for the front half of this particular 'car', with that bit of plexiglass being the entirety of the overhead 'safety-structure' protecting her head... And her cause of death ended up being blunt force trauma to the head. None of this seems particularly coincidental to me, and has me inclined to (strongly) agree with alfadriver.

It may be possible to modify the structure internally to be more suitable for the general forces involved, but the complete lack of driver safety cell inherent in the 70 year old jet fuselage cockpit design is an absolute affront to every advancement in racing driver safety made the past half century. It almost makes me wonder why they bothered putting a harness in, since ejecting the pilot/driver was an accepted practice back in the F-104's day too.

In reply to Driven5 :

That F104 had a downwards firing ejection seat, if I recall correctly.  Neither here nor there, but I'm like 95% certain that's how that specific bird was equipped. 

Anyway. I don't like talking about this, so the last thing I will mention is that wasn't the only bad incident the NAE team had, even with Jessie behind the wheel. A year or two earlier they had an incident with her going off course pretty bad, chute didn't deploy and had an issue with the magnetic brakes as well. Again. That team had a LOT of problems through the years. It's not a well kept secret in the LSR world. It's a freaking horrible tragic situation. One that frankly, never should have happened. 

Regarding her knowingly getting into the car: A professional racing driver should have at least known at a glance that it was 'less safe' to some degree. However, people who knowingly use 'less safe' equipment are typically not in a position to know the full extent of just how 'less safe' it actually is... The people who knowingly produced the 'less safe' equipment generally are, or at the very least should be, and as such carry the lions share of the blame when their intentional safety gamble goes sidways. Since this car couldn't be run with any official sanctioning body due to not meeting the (legal and moral) liability-limiting safety standards, they knew and still chose to gamble somebody else's life on it anyway.

In reply to GaryC83 :

Just the prototypes and the first 26 A models. All other starfighters had conventional seats.

In reply to Appleseed :

I meant specifically that one. That one was built and assigned to the AFB for flite testing in like 57?  I dont think that the production airframe officially entered "production and use" and service until sometime in 58 ? That one ( NAE'S) was used as a test bed for the J79, if im not mistaken by the AirForce and GE.  I do know that it also was the *actual* chase plane for the X15 and some other notable projects. 

I'd say it's incumbent on the team building the car (vehicle?) to make it as safe as possible for their driver.  It's not incumbent on the driver to know the ins/outs of the vehicle.  It sure sounds like this team was minimally negligent in their designs and safety responsibilities to their driver.  You'd hope that after she experienced the first few failures Jessie would've declined to participate with them anymore.  It's tragic she paid for that poor decision with her life.

It's very easy to get sucked into doing things you shouldn't as passion tends to blind you; regardless of whether you are the builder or the driver.

Colin Chapman & Jim Clark were both highly intelligent and close friends; yet one built unsafe cars (even for the time) and the other one knowingly raced them.

Supposedly after a winning race, Lotus held a party, which included a cake with the image of a Lotus race car on it. One of the Lotus drivers cut a piece and served it to Chapman, who noticed that the piece had the image of the wheel that had broken off the driver's car during the race. Chapman was not amused... as I assume, neither was the driver.

In reply to kb58 :

Revenge is a piece of cake - served cold.

I watched this doc. It's very good, IMO, really shows the person. It also delves a bit into the history of women's LSR, including the story of the lady who's record Jessi broke, Kitty O'Neil. Kitty's story also ended sadly, though in a different way.

But there's no two ways about it, that car was sketchy as hell. As others have pointed out, you're going to be out there going 500mph-plus, and the only rollover protection you have is a plexiglass canopy? That's insane. The doc doesn't touch on the lack of safety, but anyone with a basic knowledge of racing safety could take one look at that thing and see why it was so dangerous. I suppose you could make the argument that it's hard to survive any kind of impact at those speeds, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

However, I will say that I think everyone involved went into it with eyes open. The team leader, Ed Shadle, who was ultimately responsible for the whole thing, got in and drove the thing, too. Bad decisions were made, but I don't think anyone was misled at any step of the way.

Anyhow, watch the doc. It's excellent.

I also saw it and think it was rather good and would suggest it also.  A good exploration of the sacrifices a dedicated racer has to make if nothing else.

Although I am sure the safety concerns where real (e.g. the lack of roll cage as noted) they did not appear to be a big part of reason for the crash or death (maybe there was a lack of a fire system?). Hard to tell, as noted, they didn't really go into that.  It does seem like the location was a big factor.  Specifically not nearly enough space.  Certainly not enough space if they wanted to try for super sonic!  Also, the use of a dry lake, rather then a salt lake bed clearly was an issue.

Watched the documentary a few days ago.  She really was a cool person and it brought back the gut punch I felt when I first heard of her death.

The F-104 fuselage seemed fairly sketch as a way to build a LSR "car".  Of course LSR cars seem like a pretty idiotic undertaking to me anyway.  The technologies don't seem to be advancing the art and science of cars so it's really just about bragging rights.  (shrug) To each their own I suppose.

LSR cars in general of course have a practical use of maximizing performance, but the absolute top speed stuff is clearly just absurd and pointless at this point and probably should not be recognized anymore.

Realistically, how are these top speed cars any different than just flying a plane super low and lowing some specialized wheels that technically touch the ground?

A more practical "contest" would probably be the worlds fastest train but I don't think any of the teams would want to have to build the precision track that would be required.

It's a good watch. Sad, but good.