Category: that’s too bad”

Top honors for “Human Projectile Of The Month” go to an as-yet-unidentified dude who, we’re told, is also a serious contender for the annual Darwin Award. That prestigious prize is given — posthumously — to the person who does the human gene pool the greatest service by removing himself from it in the most extraordinarily stupid fashion. Well, the Darwin folks might see it that way, but we consider it a gallant, if not brainless, form of ballistic research.

Troopers from the Arizona Highway Patrol got involved with this historic event after motorists reported some mysterious scorched and blackened scars on a stretch of deserted highway. The more officers found, the stranger the case got until they pulled back, regrouped, and launched a full-scale investigation.

Here’s what they kinda “pieced” together: JATO units are basically huge canisters of solid rocket fuel used to achieve “Jet Assisted Take Off,” typically lifting big transports into the air from rough-ground short runways or shooting overloaded planes from the decks of aircraft carriers.

They were not, repeat not, designed to augment the inherent boost factor of a 1967 Chevy Impala. But we guess — let’s call him “Zippy”— didn’t know that when he hooked one up to his ride.

Anyways, the Zipster kicked the tire, lit the fire, and ran his Chevy up to top cruising speed. And then he hit ignition!

Investigators know exactly where this happened, judging from the extended patch of burned and melted asphalt. The pocket-calculator boys figure Zip reached maximum thrust within five seconds, punching that Chevy up to “well in excess of 350 mph” and continuing at “full burn” for another 20 to 25 seconds.

Early in that little sprint, at roughly the 2.5-mile mark, the Human Hydra-Shok stood on the brakes, melting them completely, blowing the tires and rapidly reducing all four ’skins to liquefied trails on the pavement.

Remember that gentle rise on the turn? That’s where Zippy concluded his land-speed record attempt and went for aerial honors, ultimately reaching an altitude of 125 feet and still climbing when his flight was abruptly terminated. We’ll never know how far and how high The Big Zip might have gone. A cliff face of solid rock kind of got in the way, posing a serious violation of the laws of physics vis à vis two chunks of matter attempting to occupy the same space at the same time. Zip gave it hell though, blasting a three-foot deep crater in the terra-very-firma.

The best modern forensic science could do was ID the car’s make, model, and year. As for Zip, only trace evidence was found of bone, teeth and hair in the crater, and splinters of fingernail embedded in what is believed to be a piece of steering wheel. If there ain’t room for this one in the Guinness Book of World Records, there damn sure ought to be an honorable mention in Weatherby’s.