I read this on yahoo, anyone knows exactly what happen??? its such a shame...



The Amelia Island classic car show in Florida last weekend spawned a number of sideline events, including a speed festival at the local airport for exotics and tuned cars to take a few high-speed runs. This was the unfortunate end to one: a Ferrari 458 enhanced with twin turbos to about 700 hp running out of tarmac before it ran out of speed. It's not how the owner imagined his second day with the keys would end.
As discussed on Ferrari Chat and other forums, the car was a project of top tuning shop Underground Racing, which had once belonged to IndyCar driver Graham Rahal; the driver, who was reportedly a friend of the owner, was not injured in the runoff, which happened on his third attempt. Doing a full-throttle run in any supercar requires a significant length of road — those with a memory for algebra class might recall that a vehicle's stopping distance grows in proportion to the square of velocity — and the private airstrip where the event was held was just 0.56 miles long.
Modern restoration shops can work near miracles, and given the value of such exotics there are a few craftsmen that might see this 458 as an opportunity to showcase their skills. (If a Ferrari Enzo that was driven into the ocean can be resurrected, anything can.) But doing so would likely cost as much as a new Ferrari 458, and how would America's hard-working reclamation engineers earn a living were it not for a steady parade of wrecked exotics to scalpel into eBay-able parts? I'd say this race was won by the automotive circle of life.

 

That looked quite bad . Too bad on such amazing car, glad the driver is ok.

 

I think you are referring to Bugatti, right?

 

^No, an enzo went into the drink too.

Pretty sure a 6speed owner had that car. (tt458)

 

just wow at all the 458s that have been going down lately.

 

At least there seems to be less going "up", in smoke I mean.

 

Yes, it was a modified Enzo. The owner lives here in Alberta, Canada.
The race was held at Targa Newfoundland.
I think that he may have his Enzo already rebuilt & ready to race again!

 

We ran cars on the airstrip all day without incident. Even with cars capable of 200 mph the top speeds were 145 - 150 because guys had to get off the gas due to the length of the airstrip. When this guy showed up in the TT 458 (I have pre and post crash video) he didn't take any practice runs to determine the length of the airstrip, braking zones, etc. We learned (post crash) that he was determined to get the car to 180 mph, which he did, and he simply ran out of asphalt. He actually cleared a small pond airborne and crashed into the dirt bank on the other side. We estimated he must have been going 90+mph when he left the end of the flat ground (the top of the pond is about 8 feet lower than airstrip surface) otherwise he could have never cleared the pond. I was watching his run from his launch point and when he was about 2/3 down the run it was clear he was going to run out of asphalt because he was not braking when he should have been. I saw the explosion of dirt and frankly I figured he was dead. He had a minor injury to his right let, a little blood on his face from the airbag and a few fairly deep cuts on his right arm.

 

Wow. Lucky he made it out alive.

 

Absolutely - notwithstanding the loss of the car, I cannot tell you how lucky this guy is. When we saw the crash/impact a friend's 14 year old son jumped in a golf cart and I stopped him from going to the site because I thought it was likely a fatal crash. Several of us ran to the station/hangar (on the same airstrip where we were running the cars) where the life flight crew is based and told them to grab their gear and prepare the helicopter because we thought best case he would need life flight. When the fire dept/EMT got to the car they talked to the driver and then helped him out of the car, but he walked out from the crash site unassisted - we were all shocked.

 

Ouch! Sorry to see that.