I wonder if it would be possible to make it so that if it failed like this, which is actually quite a close, gentle fail (take a look at the Barge PoV to see how close it actually was,) that it wouldn't actually completely explode...

I suppose there must be reasons that the whole thing just blows up but... why not build it so they could recover it if it's basically standing upright and falls over sideways like this?

Grahamslam's hamsterwheel is most likely.

Head has caster wheels and 2-3 (or more) magnets.

Body has basically a R/C car that can move sideways, and a gimbal mounted array of similar magnets to the head.

The R/C car moves everything, the gimbal moves the head. Doesn't need any segway tech, just a big weight at the bottom.

I think that at best this would be applicable only to the very lightest of electric vehicles (something in the "motorcycle" weight class, even half a ton is probably too heavy), and I have my doubts about even those, even when completely disregarding the sideways forces.

With a system like this you do not want more than a few cm (about an inch, at a guess) of suspension travel from when the car is lifted in air to the car at rest (= 1G vertical load), just from the weight of the car compressing the springs. If you have more the springs (which the loops naturally are) have to compress a lot with each revolution, which strains them, heats them, isn't good for rolling resistance, etc.

If we assume a 1000 kg car with a 50/50 weight distribution, to get about 2 cm of suspension travel the spring stiffness would be about comparable to a high level GT racing car. Comparing to high level sports cars, the street going Porsche 911 GT3 RS car, which is regarded as a pretty stiff, racy and track oriented vehicle has something in the region of three times that much travel, a normal commuter car can have way over 10 cm due to soft, comfort oriented springs.

So you can't spring a proper car with just these because it'd require it to be too stiff (also I can foresee shock absorption issues). Another problem is the 360 degree springy nature of it. You really don't want car tyres to move much aside from up and down. These have the problem that when you brake, the forces will try to push the axle forwards in relation to the wheel (i.e. the wheel moves backwards while braking), and the reverse when accelerating. You'd be (possibly) drastically changing the wheelbase of the car during acceleration and braking, which could have catastrophic results for handling in extreme situations. Many if not most cars these days are capable of braking at over 1 G, as long as they have decent tyres, so the front-back movement could be bigger than the up-down movement.

So yeah, doesn't really sound like a workable solution as the ONLY spring system on a car. Having some springiness in the tyres (either in the wheel itself of just having larger profile tyres, like we used to back in the day) can be helpful for comfort and even handling in some cases, but springing the car only via the wheels isn't a good idea, you really want to be able to control the wheels better than that.

Stick or Porsche PDK, there is no brake lights after taking off from the light. As he floats it sideways there is no light up of his taillights, or brake light bar in the rear window.

He only taps his brakes going OVER the median, not before (0:16)

After he gets back in his own lane, and tries to drive away the embarrassment with more throttle (no brake lights through this bit either). The partially broken spindle became fully snapped.

It is about speed. They aim to be the fastest and the most sideways, and there are also points awarded for style.

The formula drift scoring is described here, and seems fairly similar to the other competitions I've seen televised:

http://www.formulad.com/info/judging-info.php

I think truck's fault because....
First, the truck should not be in the fast lane, it's being passed by traffic, not passing traffic. He's too impatient.
Second, the truck intentionally speeds up to block the car. When it started the lane change, there was room. When you change lanes, you look sideways to be sure there's room, then you move over while looking forward. If someone speeds into the space and hits you from behind after you start the lane change, it's THEIR fault unless you slam on your brakes to make them hit you.
Third, the truck, trying to block the car, moves WAY too close to the next car, tailgating insanely. Watch the black car speed away terrified.
Fourth, the truck passes the car on the shoulder, them moves back into the lane slightly squashing it. The truck knew the car was there the whole time but just refused to brake.
Fifth, the truck was speeding. The truck speed limit is 10mph below the car speed limit on freeways, and the truck was going faster than the speeding cars, so almost certainly speeding by over 10mph.
Sixth, and indisputable, the trucker was on the phone, making him at fault as much as if he was drunk, no matter what he did driving.

As I see it, the car was less than safe, but the truck was an intentional dickhead that STARTED the film by driving badly, and ended with an accident he'll pay for. It's on film, he saw the car changing lanes and sped up to block it refusing to let her merge, passed it on the shoulder after it had passed him and entered the lane, and hit the car on purpose because he refused to hit his brakes/didn't want to be passed again. If I was on the jury, I would put it (EDIT)98% on the truck. He had every opportunity to avoid the accident by hitting the middle pedal just a little, but instead stood on the little pedal and seemingly thought to himself "Ramming speed!".

Regardless of the actual rules, they are both crazy.

The truck driver for intentionally taking away the room (see the sudden reduction in space with the car in front between seconds 15 and 19).

And the merging driver for not cancelling her action when she must realize it's not going to work (when she has merged half a lane it must have been clear that whatever was going to happen next, it was going to be problematic).

(she drives a great car though (especially the tires), getting shoved sideways by a truck at high speed but recovering apparently without major difficulty).

I've been thinking about this, and I came to the conclusion that reversing up the hill would have ended in fail as well, not because the motor couldn't pull it up (although possible if the gearing is different), but because it's a 3 wheeler and if you put too much weight on the single wheel it will flop over sideways the instant it goes off center/balance.
I don't get why the passenger didn't help by pushing just enough to keep the front wheel on the ground. His getting out hurt more than it helped.

I think you can see at the beginning that the camera frame is descending from above. There's some delay between when the water rushes in and when the operator reacts to it and there's other aspects that point me toward thinking it's not hand-held. It seems to have a fairly small sideways range and move up and down quite easily so I think it's on the end of a pole. (I know, Mom joke incoming... (; )

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Not likely they could Imax it. Imax uses the same 35mm film, but sideways, meaning each frame uses twice the film, and so has twice as much picture to project. If you project a plain 35mm onto an Imax screen, it looks terrible and grainy. It's possible they could digitize it, do some digital magic, and make it happen, but I'm not holding my breath.

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Blow me sideways - now this is a looker!!
http://uncrate.com/stuff/renovo-coupe/
http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/renovo-coupe-revealed-electric-supercar-shelby-daytona-2014-08-18

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