I drive this section of road 'spiritedly' myself¹, and I can attest that this particular spot is deceptive and can easily bite you. I wet my pants a couple of times by overcooking it (in both directions) before I finally got the hang of the proper entry speed, which is much lower than it looks approaching from either side.
Coming this direction, the tunnel makes it feel like you are going slower than you are due to the lack of passing references (trees, etc.). It's also downhill, so you are going faster than your foot/throttle angle makes it feel.
There is zero straight once you exit the tunnel; the turn begins immediately, and it is every so slightly off-camber; there is also, iirc, a little swell that unloads the weight just a little, which can be enough to matter. You need to stand on the brakes a couple of seconds before exiting the tunnel to get down to a navigable speed. The road surface is a little rough there; it's not lumpy or bumpy, but it's not butter smooth either.
Btw, it's not a 'concrete' wall, in the sense of something man-made: it's the granite face of the mountain formed as a result of cutting the roadway itself. It's easily visibly in Google Maps with satellite view enabled (keywords: Angeles Crest Tunnels).
411, my work buddy was riding his '24 Gold Wing around the forest (for the first time, based on my briefing) that afternoon and got stopped (coming from the ascending/opposite direction) by the road closure just a few hundred meters from the accident site as LEOs and Emergency responders had just secured the area.
¹- I rent sports cars through Turo a few times a year and take them up there for fun. Among this year's choices were a 2024 BMW M2 (6-speed) and a 2024 Corvette C8. [edit: formatting]
Going downhill is usually when I'm most conservative. The margin for error is a lot lower than when you're driving uphill. Get a little loose and gravity makes the whole situation much worse instead of helping bleed off speed.
> That seems to be a more recent thing. There is now a concrete barrier in front of the rock face.
Nodding thx for the correction. Understandably, I am not scanning the outside shoulder in this or any other technical section in the Angeles National Forest roadways. "Eyes on the road" is not just something your Dad would say when driving at speed on these (or any other) fast, twisty roads.
These days even regular cars are getting quite good at it. A couple cars ago I owned a 2018 Camaro SS 1LE. One day I was out dorking around on some twisty rural backroads -- and no, I do not break the lane markings, there are some limits to my madness -- and happened to glance down and notice that I was getting to the point where I was entering tight corners at 80 mph. That car had phenomenal handling, especially at that price point, but it scared me. The amount of potential energy that is being held in check between the suspension, tires, and road is pretty ridiculous at that pace. An unexpected patch of gravel on the road, an animal darting out, or some other asshat coming the other direction who is over the lane divider, and your odds of dying are remarkably high.
I settled for a much more sedate pace after that. And decided to focus on buying slower fun cars that aren't so inherently capable. Harder to get them up into that area of the physics equation where one unexpected variable becomes life threatening.
I remember playing the original Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 back in the day after I rented it from Blockbuster. That game was an incredible experience.
Thank you to Vince Zampella and everyone else who worked on that game for those memories.
Titanfall 2 is a really good one. Not something I expected to have such a strong emotional element. I didn't know Vince Zampella's name, but it is another project of his, so it seems fitting to recommend it here.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (the original, I haven't played the sequel) was crazy good. Gameplay-wise it's fine, but story wise it is one of the most emotionally intense games I have ever played. I recommend going into it spoiler-free. Look it up and see if it's something you're interested in, and if you want to play it, stop reading and play it.
RIP Vince. Whether you're a fan of FPS titles or not, the work of him and his teams have undoubtly helped to shape pop culture in some sense. One of my favourite games as a teenager (Battlefield: Bad Company 2) was arguably a reaction to his work (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) so in that sense, Vince played some small part in making me who I am today, even if I'd never thought about it before
Watched the crash video. Coming out of the tunnel way too hot, combination of speed and driver likely being blinded by the light caused him to drive straight out (likely understeer too) into the concrete barrier and strike at the right angle for it to completely peel the car like a tin can. Passenger was ejected while still attached to his seat (this isn't supposed to happen in a 600k car!!!)
Still, I've seen crashes way worse but the chassis didn't disintegrate like that. I'm even inclined to say the speed with which they crashed was mid at best.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is probably my second favorite FPS game after Doom 2. Nothing has ever really hit me since like the nuke scene did. The set-pieces in Modern Warfare and MW2 are some of the best single-player FPS gaming I’ve ever experienced.
Road surface and consequently traction can vary (for example, gravel). It's important to stay well within margin. Once you lose traction at speed, it can be hard to get it back.
TL;DR take it to the track, where the road surface is well maintained.
Technically yes but on any given track day there can still be gravel, weeds, rubber, bits of material from car body kits/aero, and even various liquids that have leaked.
If you do hit gravel/oil, tracks at least have runoff areas or soft barriers, and no oncoming traffic or cliffs to worry about.
Every track day I've attended required the cars to have been inspected for leaks and loose components. And they were quick to clean up any debris or oil.
Not that tracking cars is the safest hobby, but if someone is gonna drive like that regardless its far safer at a track than on public roads.
I was like whoa, he was on BOTH the tentpole military-simulator-aspirant FPS franchises? That's like George Lucas being called over to work on Star Trek.
> The young president of a successful new computer company died Wednesday afternoon in a car crash in California's Silicon Valley, hours after his company had sold its stock to the public for the first time and he had become a multimillionaire.
I think this understates just how fast modern performance cars have gotten and how unsuitable they are for public roads.
A Ferrari 296GTB sprints from 0-100mph in 4.7s. The 1983 Lamborghini Countach I had a wall poster of as a kid, took 12.1s (and a relatively leisurely 5.4s to get to 60mph). The Ferrari is pulling well over 1G longitudinally during this time, enough to induce tunnel vision in some people and warp your perception of speed and distance.
Compare someone accelerating at full throttle through that tunnel in the Countach versus the 296. The 296 would reach 2-3x the speed the Lambo did by the time they reach the curve where he crashed. Human brains can't process and react to surprises 3x as fast as they could in 1983. Even if they could, at 2x the speed your braking distance increases 4x. No amount of traction control or electronic nannies can make up for this. Nor can the electronics bypass the laws of physics - I think for many they provide a false sense of security.
And while there have been huge improvements in passive safety too, they are tested at speeds like 40mph, not the 90mph+ it is estimated Vince's car was going. This is why Teslas have the highest crash safety ratings there is, while also have the highest rate of fatal accidents.
Not to take away from the tragedy that is Vince's death. I enjoyed many hours playing MoH and CoD as a youth and this is extremely sad news. But as a car enthusiast, I am using this as a sober reminder of how quickly things can go wrong at speed.
I still rather drive (get driven) a modern tank like suv. Or truck/bus conversion. I see these young/hip people spend countless hours in the gym, spending 1000k+/mo on supplements etc to 'live forever' only to wrap themselves around a tree at a young age on some superbike or car.
I‘m in the habit of speeding, I think it’s closely tied to the mental stresses you push yourself into, in sedentary, intellectual work. Thankfully I no longer own a car/motorcycle, and have other physical outlets now, to better balance it all out. I’m only here now myself at 55 through luck.
It's related to culture, a culture that normalises driving as a non-risky activity while also being very individualistic, a culture that requires you to drive from early age to have access to places, with minimal training and not very strict training requirements to be licenced.
A habit of speeding is created from a lack of consideration, it's an ignorant and dumb thing to do.
No, I don’t think that’s it. Almost everyone one I associate with does similar kinds of work, and I don’t see that same willingness to expose them and others to undue risk like that.
I agree those desires come from stress and that sedentary work can cause stress, but it's not the only or even primary stressor for many.
Working from home has forced me to be more deliberate with my free time and how I get away. I tend to choose exercise and am rarely in rush to where I'm going anymore.
Aren't a disproportionate amount of high schoolers road fatalities? I think it's due to emotional immaturity, nihilism or an inability to tackle problems directly.
They started at Electronic Arts with MOH. They left EA and went to Activision. Under Infinity Ward they created MW2, which is maybe the only digestible COD game ever made. They got bored with ATVI by doing COD day and night. At the time the rumor was they wanted to make scifi games, but ATVI forbade them. So they formed Respawn and went back to EA. TitanFall 1-2 were just terrible games, and EA also botched the marketing (like they usually do when they didn't want a franchise to grow wings). And seemingly they were doing Battlefield at EA lately.
Titanfall 2 is a fantastic game with perhaps the best single player FPS campaign for fast FPS games, and a skill ceiling that's incredibly high in multiplayer which is still alive to this day. Did you mean to say "terrific" instead of terrible?
I drive this section of road 'spiritedly' myself¹, and I can attest that this particular spot is deceptive and can easily bite you. I wet my pants a couple of times by overcooking it (in both directions) before I finally got the hang of the proper entry speed, which is much lower than it looks approaching from either side.
Coming this direction, the tunnel makes it feel like you are going slower than you are due to the lack of passing references (trees, etc.). It's also downhill, so you are going faster than your foot/throttle angle makes it feel.
There is zero straight once you exit the tunnel; the turn begins immediately, and it is every so slightly off-camber; there is also, iirc, a little swell that unloads the weight just a little, which can be enough to matter. You need to stand on the brakes a couple of seconds before exiting the tunnel to get down to a navigable speed. The road surface is a little rough there; it's not lumpy or bumpy, but it's not butter smooth either.
Btw, it's not a 'concrete' wall, in the sense of something man-made: it's the granite face of the mountain formed as a result of cutting the roadway itself. It's easily visibly in Google Maps with satellite view enabled (keywords: Angeles Crest Tunnels).
411, my work buddy was riding his '24 Gold Wing around the forest (for the first time, based on my briefing) that afternoon and got stopped (coming from the ascending/opposite direction) by the road closure just a few hundred meters from the accident site as LEOs and Emergency responders had just secured the area.
¹- I rent sports cars through Turo a few times a year and take them up there for fun. Among this year's choices were a 2024 BMW M2 (6-speed) and a 2024 Corvette C8. [edit: formatting]
> It's also downhill
Going downhill is usually when I'm most conservative. The margin for error is a lot lower than when you're driving uphill. Get a little loose and gravity makes the whole situation much worse instead of helping bleed off speed.
>Btw, it's not a 'concrete' wall, in the sense of something man-made
That seems to be a more recent thing. There is now a concrete barrier in front of the rock face.
> That seems to be a more recent thing. There is now a concrete barrier in front of the rock face.
Nodding thx for the correction. Understandably, I am not scanning the outside shoulder in this or any other technical section in the Angeles National Forest roadways. "Eyes on the road" is not just something your Dad would say when driving at speed on these (or any other) fast, twisty roads.
I stopped going on 2 because of assholes who break the lane barrier.
It’s not a race track.
Broke ass (mentally poor is also a thing) motherfuckers driving rental supercars or daddy’s Ferrari at 100+ mph.
Imagine having millions of dollars and not being able to afford track day. Cheap ass, broke ass, losers. The whole lot.
These days even regular cars are getting quite good at it. A couple cars ago I owned a 2018 Camaro SS 1LE. One day I was out dorking around on some twisty rural backroads -- and no, I do not break the lane markings, there are some limits to my madness -- and happened to glance down and notice that I was getting to the point where I was entering tight corners at 80 mph. That car had phenomenal handling, especially at that price point, but it scared me. The amount of potential energy that is being held in check between the suspension, tires, and road is pretty ridiculous at that pace. An unexpected patch of gravel on the road, an animal darting out, or some other asshat coming the other direction who is over the lane divider, and your odds of dying are remarkably high.
I settled for a much more sedate pace after that. And decided to focus on buying slower fun cars that aren't so inherently capable. Harder to get them up into that area of the physics equation where one unexpected variable becomes life threatening.
I remember playing the original Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 back in the day after I rented it from Blockbuster. That game was an incredible experience.
Thank you to Vince Zampella and everyone else who worked on that game for those memories.
Rest in peace
I remember seeing a Best Buy ad for it touting the “cinematic experience” of playing MW2 - and it truly felt like it, a real revolution in gaming.
However, I really stopped playing big titles since then. Are there any good “woah” games that took it another step further?
Titanfall 2 is a really good one. Not something I expected to have such a strong emotional element. I didn't know Vince Zampella's name, but it is another project of his, so it seems fitting to recommend it here.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (the original, I haven't played the sequel) was crazy good. Gameplay-wise it's fine, but story wise it is one of the most emotionally intense games I have ever played. I recommend going into it spoiler-free. Look it up and see if it's something you're interested in, and if you want to play it, stop reading and play it.
I also highly recommend Hellblade, as a deep emotional journey (but not the sequel).
If you are even slightly interested in celtic and germanic mythology and modern psychology, go for it.
Titanfall 1/2 and Apex Legends were all huge. He recently produced Battlefield 6 which was also released to acclaim.
A lot of it is iterations upon iterations, so it can be hard to pick out precise moments. There are great games out there.
Titanfall 2 was spectacular, and BF6 is easily the best entry in the franchise in the past decade+. Apex Legends is great too.
RIP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Zampella
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Ward
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respawn_Entertainment
RIP Vince. Whether you're a fan of FPS titles or not, the work of him and his teams have undoubtly helped to shape pop culture in some sense. One of my favourite games as a teenager (Battlefield: Bad Company 2) was arguably a reaction to his work (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) so in that sense, Vince played some small part in making me who I am today, even if I'd never thought about it before
Sad for their family and friends. Lucky that more weren't killed by his reckless driving.
Watched the crash video. Coming out of the tunnel way too hot, combination of speed and driver likely being blinded by the light caused him to drive straight out (likely understeer too) into the concrete barrier and strike at the right angle for it to completely peel the car like a tin can. Passenger was ejected while still attached to his seat (this isn't supposed to happen in a 600k car!!!)
>this isn't supposed to happen in a 600k car!!!
Technically it isn't designed to handle someone fumbling it into a concrete barrier well beyond the speed limit.
Still, I've seen crashes way worse but the chassis didn't disintegrate like that. I'm even inclined to say the speed with which they crashed was mid at best.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is probably my second favorite FPS game after Doom 2. Nothing has ever really hit me since like the nuke scene did. The set-pieces in Modern Warfare and MW2 are some of the best single-player FPS gaming I’ve ever experienced.
RIP Vince
Absolutely awful to hear.
His games were a significant part of my teenagehood, as I'm sure they were for many others. Thank you for all the memories Vince.
What a genius, what an idiot.
Road surface and consequently traction can vary (for example, gravel). It's important to stay well within margin. Once you lose traction at speed, it can be hard to get it back.
TL;DR take it to the track, where the road surface is well maintained.
Technically yes but on any given track day there can still be gravel, weeds, rubber, bits of material from car body kits/aero, and even various liquids that have leaked.
If you do hit gravel/oil, tracks at least have runoff areas or soft barriers, and no oncoming traffic or cliffs to worry about.
Every track day I've attended required the cars to have been inspected for leaks and loose components. And they were quick to clean up any debris or oil.
Not that tracking cars is the safest hobby, but if someone is gonna drive like that regardless its far safer at a track than on public roads.
“has died” is one way of saying “crashed his Ferrari at a high rate of speed, killing his passenger as well as himself.”
Very unfortunate. Thank you for the wonderful moments. You created so many.
Thanks for COD: MW2 (2009), Vince. The game of my childhood. Rest in Peace.
Call Of Duty II was one of those games I will never forget in my life - it was like reading Lord Of The Rings.
I was like whoa, he was on BOTH the tentpole military-simulator-aspirant FPS franchises? That's like George Lucas being called over to work on Star Trek.
The world lost a titan. No pun intended.
He also produced Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, the best game in that series. Call of Duty and Infinity Ward were born from that game.
Indeed.
"A passenger was ejected, and the driver died after being trapped in the burning vehicle"
2026 Ferrari 296 GTS
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/video-game-develope...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_296
(shared for context around vehicle power and dynamics likely leading or contributing to the event)
Not sure why you are being downvoted. Dude crashed his Ferrari.
Realistic racing sim games have taught me not to want a supercar for daily drives. Way too easy to f up.
Just one such example (1983):
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/10/business/corporate-triump...
https://archive.ph/gbrZv
> CORPORATE TRIUMPH, THEN DEATH IN A FERRARI
> The young president of a successful new computer company died Wednesday afternoon in a car crash in California's Silicon Valley, hours after his company had sold its stock to the public for the first time and he had become a multimillionaire.
supercars from 1983 are very different than modern cars. they have traction control now and are much tamer.
I think this understates just how fast modern performance cars have gotten and how unsuitable they are for public roads.
A Ferrari 296GTB sprints from 0-100mph in 4.7s. The 1983 Lamborghini Countach I had a wall poster of as a kid, took 12.1s (and a relatively leisurely 5.4s to get to 60mph). The Ferrari is pulling well over 1G longitudinally during this time, enough to induce tunnel vision in some people and warp your perception of speed and distance.
Compare someone accelerating at full throttle through that tunnel in the Countach versus the 296. The 296 would reach 2-3x the speed the Lambo did by the time they reach the curve where he crashed. Human brains can't process and react to surprises 3x as fast as they could in 1983. Even if they could, at 2x the speed your braking distance increases 4x. No amount of traction control or electronic nannies can make up for this. Nor can the electronics bypass the laws of physics - I think for many they provide a false sense of security.
And while there have been huge improvements in passive safety too, they are tested at speeds like 40mph, not the 90mph+ it is estimated Vince's car was going. This is why Teslas have the highest crash safety ratings there is, while also have the highest rate of fatal accidents.
Not to take away from the tragedy that is Vince's death. I enjoyed many hours playing MoH and CoD as a youth and this is extremely sad news. But as a car enthusiast, I am using this as a sober reminder of how quickly things can go wrong at speed.
> Nor can the electronics bypass the laws of physics
The only equation that really matters here is KE=.5mv^2
The difference in danger between two arbitrary speeds is not linear. It is quadratic.
If that crash video on X is accurate he was racing on public roads. If so, zero sympathies.
But of course there is a button to disable it.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/37353/driver-turns-off-tractio...
I still rather drive (get driven) a modern tank like suv. Or truck/bus conversion. I see these young/hip people spend countless hours in the gym, spending 1000k+/mo on supplements etc to 'live forever' only to wrap themselves around a tree at a young age on some superbike or car.
...or getting run over by a tank like suv with limited vision around the car (it's tank like after all) while cycling.
I‘m in the habit of speeding, I think it’s closely tied to the mental stresses you push yourself into, in sedentary, intellectual work. Thankfully I no longer own a car/motorcycle, and have other physical outlets now, to better balance it all out. I’m only here now myself at 55 through luck.
It's related to culture, a culture that normalises driving as a non-risky activity while also being very individualistic, a culture that requires you to drive from early age to have access to places, with minimal training and not very strict training requirements to be licenced.
A habit of speeding is created from a lack of consideration, it's an ignorant and dumb thing to do.
No, I don’t think that’s it. Almost everyone one I associate with does similar kinds of work, and I don’t see that same willingness to expose them and others to undue risk like that.
I agree those desires come from stress and that sedentary work can cause stress, but it's not the only or even primary stressor for many.
Working from home has forced me to be more deliberate with my free time and how I get away. I tend to choose exercise and am rarely in rush to where I'm going anymore.
Aren't a disproportionate amount of high schoolers road fatalities? I think it's due to emotional immaturity, nihilism or an inability to tackle problems directly.
The video is clear. He was speeding, tract the corner on exit straight into the wall.
3 kids, days before Christmas, passanger bopped too and DIAF while risking other road users for nothing.
Keep speeding to the tracks, reaper only knocks once.
They started at Electronic Arts with MOH. They left EA and went to Activision. Under Infinity Ward they created MW2, which is maybe the only digestible COD game ever made. They got bored with ATVI by doing COD day and night. At the time the rumor was they wanted to make scifi games, but ATVI forbade them. So they formed Respawn and went back to EA. TitanFall 1-2 were just terrible games, and EA also botched the marketing (like they usually do when they didn't want a franchise to grow wings). And seemingly they were doing Battlefield at EA lately.
Titanfall 2 is a fantastic game with perhaps the best single player FPS campaign for fast FPS games, and a skill ceiling that's incredibly high in multiplayer which is still alive to this day. Did you mean to say "terrific" instead of terrible?
The 'and also' indicates that he means terrible, and this person has no taste.
You have no taste. TF2 had such a bland, emptyheaded story and a weightless mech experience that it literally hurts anyone above 110 IQ.
What FPS stories you think were good?
Titanfall 2 was excellent.
Titanfall 2 is a masterpiece. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Maybe the multiplayer, but I'm talkin about the single player campaign, which was godawful.
This is crazy talk. The single player campaign is considered as one of the best in FPS games ever.
Exactly.
Wow! So sad, what a terrible way to go.