While I’m not 100 percent where this video initially came from, I am absolutely 100 percent glad that it exists. This is an extended industrial video wherein engineers basically take a ski slope chairlift and “See what it’ll do,” in the hot-rodding sense of the phrase. Ostensibly, this was done to test the systems in place on the chairlift to make sure that the safety systems functioned correctly since it’s probably unlikely that there are a whole lot of “test” chairlifts constructed for such “stress testing.” I’m using a lot of quotation marks here because this, down the stale narration, seems like an excuse for engineers to try destroying the everloving crap out of a chairlift system to see freaking awesome and/or terrifying it is.

As it turns out, the answer is “extremely awesome and/or terrifying.” The first couple of tests are braking tests and while there’s a bit of smoke, it’s relatively unexciting. Stick around to watch all of it because chair-lift chairs flying off with ridiculous centrifugal force like a freaking hammer throw while aforementioned engineers look nervous, then panicked, then fleeing…well, videos like this are pretty much why Al Gore invented the internet.

But wait, there’s more. While that test broke almost every component of the entire chairlift system, some chairlift mechanics fixed all of it so they could tear it up even more the next day. I hope these engineers and mechanics got a medal for their work in showing us how rad it is when a giant chairlift motor goes absolutely berserk, catches on fire, or has a tree fall on it. So who else can’t wait for ski season?

Big thanks to Rich from Rocket Surgery Racing for sending me this video.