John L. Haughom

There is a great scene in the 1990 movie Days of Thunder. Tom Cruise is a race car driver screaming around a racetrack in a noisy blur of smoke and color. Coming into a straightaway, he puts his foot right to the floor. The car roars, the tachometer leaps up into the red, and the engine promptly explodes. The car loses all speed and limps to the side of the track, useless. Cruise had pushed it too far, and as a consequence, it died.