Since Roger Lessman himself posted this video to his YouTube page, we don’t think that he’d have a problem with us sharing it here on BangShift. During the 1990 World of Speed meet on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Lessman suffered one of the craziest high speed wrecks we have ever seen. According to the description on the video, Lessman says that the car was traveling at some 280mph when he hit a patch of wet salt and things went very wrong in a hurry. As you will see, the car starts to step out sideways and then it literally takes flight, tumbling and shedding its body panels, engine, and everything else but Lessman onto the salt. When you see the violence of this crash it is hard to believe that anyone lived through it. We’re trying to ballpark the actual height that the car achieved while tumbling and it seems like at least 20-30 feet.
It is kind of neat that there was some television coverage of the event in 1990. Since Dave Despain is hosting the show we’re making a guess that this was some sort of SpeedVision racing news program that was airing the coverage. Lots of films and stuff get shot at the various Bonneville events that happen each year but we’re not sure that there’s any “news” style coverage like this produced. We’re glad that Roger Lessman made it through this mess alive and that he was able to find and hold onto the footage all this time!
Rough stuff –
That’s what happens when you sneeze at 230mph.
Ugh. Aerodynamics is a bitch.
Off topic but its nice to remember that Dave D. wasn’t always a cranky old man.