First off, Captain Ron is in my top 5 favorite movies of all time, Kurt Russel is my spirit animal!
To answer your question I’ll tell you a story.
While I was driving Pro Formula Mazda we had an issue with the rod ends for the a-arms both front and back corners. It was the start of the season and we had swapped out all the rod ends over the off season, along with everything else that had a sub one year life span. We did not know it at the time but there was a manufacturing flaw with the parts and it made them weaker than they were spect. Unfortunately we did not heed the warning signs of the issue (they were loosening up during practice more then they should) and during a hot lap (putting together a timed lap to judge how we are doing) the back right lower rod end attaching the a-arm to the upright let go. This was at Road Atlanta, my home track, on the exit of turn five just after “the Esses” (we called it Death Valley lol), turn five is a very fast left turn with high loading and to get your best time you run the curb on exit. Because this is where the short course re enters the main course, the safe barrier is not very friendly. Suffice to say, the car was very badly damaged when the back end went and I hit that barrier at about a 45* angle backwards.
My point is this, there are no guarantees in this life. I trust the designer and build of a race car to do their job, but it’s on me and my team to listen to the car and make our judgment calls based on all the evidence. If we would have stopped and thought about why the rod ends were loosening up, we may have caught the problem before the accident.
You should never just Willy nilly go run a race car at 150mph without doing the work to get up to that point. Never start with your hot lap.
At any rate, here’s to swimmin with bow legged women! (Sorry, I also love the move jaws lol)