In March, extreme athlete Guerlain Chicherit failed in his attempt to break the longest car-jump record set by Tanner Foust in May 2011. As we reported then, although Chicherit cleared the jump, his landing was far from successful as the car crashed nose-down onto the ramp, sending his modified Mini Countryman flipping end to end around eight times before coming to a stop.
GoPro has now released a 12-minute video documenting the stunt, from Chicherit's preparations through his practice jumps to the slow-motion capture of his crash from different camera viewpoints--including one inside the car that captured his reaction just before the crash. It was all captured by GoPro's Hero3+ cameras.
"The life of a professional stunt athlete is rarely without consequences," said GoPro Original Productions four-wheel motorsports creative team leader James Kirkham. "We see them fall, crash, get hurt and, yes, sometimes die. But what we captured inside of Guerlain's car was very different than a crash video--it was a deeply ethereal, intimate human experience. We captured that moment: a look on a man's face and a light in his eyes when he realizes, 'This is it. I am going to die.' Three or four seconds that seem like minutes, without time. Where I expected to see fear, panic, contortion and pain, Guerlain shows us a deep existential calm."
Watch the video below.
Photo from GoPro's Facebook page
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