Hennessey Special Vehicles crashed its $3 million Venom F5 hypercar in July while traveling down a runway at the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) at approximately 250 mph. Newly reported details detail the damage caused by the crash, which occurred while the company was testing a new part for the car.
According to documents related to the crash obtained by ClickOrlando, the crash damaged the runway’s surface. The damage appeared to be minimal, and repairs and subsequent cleanup cost $712.70, billed to Space Coast Testing, the company that manages the runway rental. The rate to rent the LLF, which was once used as a runway for NASA’s space shuttle and is also used for aerospace purposes such as delivering rocket stages for United Launch Alliance, is $2,200 for four hours, ClickOrlando reported. It’s unclear if that’s the same rate Hennessey paid.
Hennessey was testing a “new experimental aerodynamic setup” when the car “lost downforce on the runway and the driver lost control,” founder John Hennessey said in a post on Hennessey’s Instagram account after the incident. The driver was uninjured and the company said it was investigating the cause. The test was part of Hennessey’s preparations to break 300 mph in its quest for the fastest production car record.
The documents reviewed by ClickOrlando were heavily redacted and do not appear to include photos of the crash scene, in order to protect Hennessey’s trade secrets, the outlet said.
The LLF is managed by Space Florida, the state’s aerospace economic development agency. According to the Space Florida website, other organizations that have used the facility include Amazon (Project Kuiper), United Launch Alliance, and Lockheed Martin. But the LLF’s flat, three-mile straight stretch is also used by car companies like Tesla and Volvo for real-world vehicle performance and aerodynamic testing.
Alaina Curry, public affairs director for Space Florida, told ClickOrlando that such testing “is not new and has been going on for many years, dating back to the Space Shuttle days under NASA’s control,” and that Space Florida regularly turns down requests to rent out its runway.
