Darwin Award

1995 "Darwin Award" Winner:

You all know about the Darwin Award -- it's an annual honor given to
the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing
themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way.

Last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke (tm)
machine, whichtoppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a
free soda out of it.

And this year's winner is:

The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal
imbedded into the side of a cliff rising above the road, at the apex of
a curve.

The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car.
The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene.

The folks in the lab finally figured out what it was, and what had
happened.

It seems that a guy had somehow got hold of a JATO unit, (Jet assisted
Take Off unit, actually a solid-fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy
military transport planes an extra `push' for taking off from short
airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert, and
found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit
to his car, jumped in, got up some speed, and fired off the JATO!!

Best as they could determine, he was doing somewhere between 250 and
300 mph (350-420kph) when he came to that curve.... The brakes were
completely burned away, apparently from trying to slow the car.

NOTE:
Solid-fuel rockets don't have an 'off'... once started, they burn at
full thrust 'till the fuel is all gone.