To demonstrate the tremendous acceleration of a top fuel drag racer, you attempt to run your car into the back of a dragster that is "burning out" at the red light before the start of a race. (Burning out means spinning the tires at high speed to heat the tread and make the rubber sticky.)

You drive at a constant speed of v_0 toward the stopped dragster, not slowing down in the face of the imminent collision. The dragster driver sees you coming but waits until the last instant to put down the hammer, accelerating from the starting line at constant acceleration, a. Let the time at which the dragster starts to accelerate be t=0.