Monday, March 07, 2011

Closed course—professional driver

Barrel-rolling a sports car inside a freeway tunnel isn't everybody's idea of fun. But apparently these Mercedes-Benz guys had nothing better to do.



Thanks to Brad Huff for sharing this gem.

UPDATE: Wired's dot.physics has a nice analysis of the physics.

5 comments:

Stevie Kneivel said...

Clever transition ramps - I wonder how they were secured to the tunnel walls. Are we sure this is not another one of those Water Slide Into a Doughboy Pool faux videos?

Stevie Kneivel said...

Clever transition ramps - I wonder how they were secured to the tunnel walls. Are we sure this is not another one of those Water Slide Into a Doughboy Pool faux videos?

rallain said...

Initially, I wasn't absolutely sure if it was faked. You know, keeping an open mind.

Here is my analysis: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/mercedes-roll/

The comments for that post were very insightful.

Dean Baird said...

I downloaded the clip via KeepVid.com. Watching it as a QuickTime clip--being able to advance and reverse frame-by-frame--does not enhance the video's credibility. The otherwise continuous tracks of lighting appear to be Photoshopped out of the frames precisely where the car would need to drive across them. No other breaks in the lighting tracks are apparent.

My verdict so far? Physics-ly possible but faked due to pesky details of reality.

Doubting Stevie Ray said...

It would seem to me that since there would have to be a component of the tire friction up the wall during the entire loop, there should have been some serious tire squealing heard there. Also, The placement of the transition ramp back to the horizontal would be mission critical and It's hard for me to believe that they would have been so "dead on" at the end of the loop.