This Is What a GoPro Sees When It Gets Smashed by a Dirt Track Car

GoPros are tough little cameras that can give us surprising insights into the inner workings of our cars, from inside a tire to the intake manifold. They can also give us a view of something that few of us will go out of our way to see for ourselves because we like being alive: Getting hit by a race car. So while a GoPro may be expensive, it’s better at surviving an impact than we are—and recording the experience in a way that can be shared.

Said experience was captured at a recent short track race recorded by Facebook page DirtDobber Video, which sounds like something you would’ve had to show your ID to see in the 1990s. They left a GoPro on the inner apron of a dirt oval at a race (which event, where, or even when isn’t clear) to record wide-angle flyby shots, of the sort you normally get only from cameras embedded in apexes at Grand Prix circuits. Only, because there was no chance to bury it, the cameraman ran the risk of a car hitting the GoPro. And we all know Murphy’s Law.

The resulting shot looks like either a deleted scene from Interstellar or what I imagine a DMT breakthrough feels like. The camera pirouettes through the air at an enormous rate of spin, which we can estimate very roughly based on the circular patterns of light. They indicate that each video frame is being exposed to at least one entire rotation of the camera, hence the circular trails left by the stationary track lighting. Assuming the video was captured at 30 fps, that suggests the camera was turning at least 1,800 rpm—that’s about double the idle speed of most cars’ engines.

Though the camera comes to a rest in the middle of the racing surface, it somehow isn’t flattened by a car. During a yellow caution period, track crews recover the still-running camera, presumably saving it from any further damage. Whether it could possibly sustain any more, though, is questionable, as the uploader captioned the video with “RIP GoPro.” If this camera died in the line of duty, then it gave its life nobly. Let’s serve it a 21-shutter salute.

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