you know how when there's a live car chase on tv, helicopter following overhead, the would-be escapee is never driving a fast car? it's always a clapped-out grand caravan or an old ford aspire that's already on a space-saver spare.
well, it seems that when you decide to jump a drawbridge, the same rules apply: if you're the type of person to smash through a barrier arm and try to make it to the opposite side of a drawbridge, you probably don't have the impulse control and life skills that would lead to ram trx ownership. but like they say, you jump the bridge with the car you have, not the car you want. and, in the case of the main street bridge in daytona beach, florida, that car is a old hyundai santa fe.
this particular bridge seems to be a hot spot for would-be jakes and elwoods to try their luck, since last month a motorcyclist did the same thing during bike week. (with a passenger, it seems, who might've been a little surprised at that turn of events, given the healthy bounce upon landing.)
the latest flying leap occurred monday morning, when the santa fe crashed through the barrier arm and caught air with all four wheels as it sailed over the gap. of the second-gen santa fe, we opined that "the soft-riding suspension absorbs bumps well," and good thing for that.
main street bridge is a double-leaf bascule bridge that spans the indian river, roughly 20 feet below. so you wouldn't want to come up short. our daytona beach travis pastrana does an on-the-spot assessment of the relevant newtonian physics and errs on the side of more throttle, sending the hyundai airborne even though at that point the bridge has just begun to open. we don't see brake lights until touchdown. the footage ends shortly thereafter, but we trust that the opposite barrier arm got the same treatment on the way out.
what was the motivation here? we can only speculate, but mere impatience seems insufficient. more likely, the santa fe driver's brother just got out of prison and was making derisive comments toward the sensible crossover in which he was picked up. that santa fe, if it had the 242-hp 3.3-liter v-6, ran zero to 60 in 8.0 seconds (per our 2007 test). and by the time it got to the opposite side of the main street bridge, he'd probably begrudgingly admit that it has pretty good pickup.