Scary Moments in Your Racing Career?

[X-TECH MAN]

Having a gun pulled on me at the scales in Bristol Tenn. for Dq,ing a racer for being 15 lbs light in the first round back in 1973. Thank goodness for the Tenn. State Troopers close by at the time. Needless to say that guy dosent race in either association anymore.

[randy wilson]

93or 94, osborn mo. brake rod fell off ss/cs 86 camaro, 106mph, flipped end for end twice and destroyed the east texas car but i was unhurt excwpt for a pulled rib. steve thompson pulled me from the car.

[Nova4301]

About 8 years ago had a fairly mild 350 my 72 nova. Just a regular bracket race and I think it was the last time trial. Well, the engine came loose right at the traps and I can remember knowing exactly what took place so I eased into the brakes...at least I think I eased into the brakes. The next thing I know the car is sideways enough that my buddy coming down the return road later said he could see the back glass of the car running pretty much running parellel to the gaurd rail and the EMTs told me I did a good job of saving it.

Luckily I didn't hit anything, but when I got out of the car and looked back down the track I could see a pretty violant looking S pattern on the track where the rear tires were riding in the antifreeze and oil. Had to do alot of cleaning to get all the antifreeze and oil off the car...but I was glad I wasn't doing body work too.

[jim powers]

at the risk of reviving some bad memories for my good friend dean riberio,i can remember the atco points race in 2003 in the spring when i ran dean first round in stock,me in my f/fia 85 camaro and dean in jim whiteheads 69 camaro, i dialed in about a 11.80 and dean dialed about a 11.97 to which i said i know old dean is holding back some so as we left and i caught him we were watching each other all the way down the track, my plan was to run him and drop him at the stripe ;at 1000 feet we were staring at each other and i said to myself get ready to drop him,well for some reason i did not hit the brakes, to this day i really dont know why,as we crossed the finish line i looked over as i let off the fuel and did not see deans car,i looked in the rear view miror and saw it UPSIDE DOWN literally on my back window,i mashed down on the gas and kept on driving almost to the trees!!i watched deans camaro rolling several times behind me,in that situation which seemed like a long time, and it almost seemed like i could not get away from the crashing stocker,when i stopped i saw deans car upside down against the wall, when i turned around and got back to him the division one safety guys and atco's crew were there,we literally lifted the car from the back and dean came crawling out the back window!!!i dont know who was more shaken up me or dean!!!by the way dean got the win lite on the roof, john force aint got nothing on dean!!!!

[Larry Fulton]

Lost race car & trailer while driving down the road....
It was back in '80-'81, it was the last race of the year and we were nearly home, all we had to do was get over this last climb and we were good to go.

My partner was driving our truck at the time, and as he manually down shifted (4 speed) the truck near the bottom of this upcoming climb (to maintain some speed) the ball snaped and the safety chains let go, (YES it was the big 10,000 lbs. machined ball & large shaft).

We were doing about 70-75 when we hit the bottom of the hill... there we're four lanes, 2 going up & 2 coming down. We were in the far right hand lane. When the trailer (with the car on it) broke loose,
it took off across the 3 lanes on our left, just missed hiting 2 cars and a semi truck that were coming down the hill...

this steep hill had 200' drop offs on both sides... the trailer (with the car still on it ) just barely caught the end of the left hand gaurd rail... this grabbed the whole trailer & car up onto the gaurd rail where it sat there teetering. It could have went over the 200' drop at anytime.

About 15 mins later a HP came by... he called a wrecker (no cell phones back then )... and the wrecker came and pulled the trailer off of the rail.... we backed the car off the trailer and drove it to a friends place near by.

You can never be too careful or alert. and you can't check your equipment often enough... **** happens fast.. and That was some scary ****!

Larry

[bert powell]

What an awesome story!!!!

Originally Posted by bill dedman

I wasn't in a car...

It was 1958 or '59... can't recall the year,exactly, but at the Carlisle (Arkansas) drag strip (a WW II bomber emergency landing strip), we had no win/lose photocell system...

What we had was a guy standing on a wooden, folding chair, in the middle of the drag strip at the finish line, with a flag.... He would raise it and tip the flag toward the winning lane as the cars went by.

Yours truly thought that would be a great place to watch the race from, so, one day I volunteered to be the "JUDGE."

The stockers weren't bad.... running 75-90mph.... not too bad at all.... then came...

Raymond Godman's Memphis-based "Boll Weevil" AA/MR; nothing but a blown Hemi dragster with a T-bucket roadster body mounted to the back half... and ran something like 150+ at that time...

One trip through the traps with his Boll Weevil on one side of me and a different 150mph car on the other, and I was ready to watch the races from a different perspective. I think I told them I was sick... not too far from the truth.

To this day, sometimes I still hear that 6:71/Hilborn 4-port coming at me at warp speed.... and me with nowhere to go...

Nobody ever accused me of being smart.


Bill

[CrateCamaro]

Testing my street car at Cayuga. I knew the car was capable of dragging the bumber but theres something different about all 4 wheels coming off the track. When I landed my foot was still denting the firwall and the tach was in my lap. Car was fixed that night and back to the track the next day. Wish I could say the same for my back and neck.



and no i didn't lift...i don't know why it died at the top of the wheelie...upset the floats i guess.

[Kenny Wigington]

At my first PRO ET race in 87, I got woke up to scary spots. I had raced at SE Dragway in Dallas, GA, for a few yrs then, in warmed up street cars, and got my first "real race car", a 72 Vega,( former SG car, supposedly). I made my first time run, and was in line for run #2, and a cool little Pinto , complete with really cool paint, pulls up in line next to me. Driver and I had brief converstation and we got belted in.
We had left pretty close and were heading to the finish, both running 7.20's ( I had a stop rod in place still), when I realized he wasnt beside me any more. I looked over my shoulder after clearing the stripe, and see him coming at me, upside down. His welded spider gears had broken, and caused the rear to lock, spin and flip him. He was sliding right at me, and I hit the thottle again to get clear, and almost ran out of track to stop myself on.
I got it stopped , and ran to him with my little fire extinguisher, off the roll bar, and got to him before track crew could. helped him get out. He came over to me later and thanked me for being alert, for a newby, and helping him get out. His wife was less than plussed, that was for sure ! They said she fell down at the starting line when he went on his ride !

[dwydendorf]

I was running first round of Super Stock eliminator at the U.S. Nationals in 1996 and after we had crossed the finish line I saw a fairly large Dog in the middle of the track. I was running Louis Dejardins from Canada and he went around one side of this Irish Setter and I went around the other side of him. I don't think that it scared me as much as it was an Oh S*** moment. We tried to tell the Safety Safari Guys but I think they thought we were crazy. www.lifterboretools.com

[John Quinn]

In the late 60's I was watching the top fuelers run from a spot past the finish line. One of the cars lifted the blower way up in the air and it came down flying bouncing and tumbling in my diredtion. My first thought was to "run" and my second thought was "which way" the blower was bouncing in an erratic pattern. Fortunatly it ran out of steam shortly before it got to me.

In the early 70's I was racing a Pinto in Stock and every time a 427 Fairlane passed me at the stripe it was a little scary. It really rocked my Pinto.

The most scary was in the early 80's when I was driving an old style altered (T roadster) in Comp eliminator. The car ran just below 150 mph in the quarter. I was at a points meet in Pueblo Colorado and was making my first pass of the day. The car hooked up really well lifting the front tires about 18" and carrying them a ways down the track. As I reached the finish line the motor decided to impress upon me that I had run those aluminum rods just a little too long. The whole right side of the block exploded dumping a lot of oil onto the very hot header. The result was a very good smoke screen with me sitting in the middle of the smoke. I was completely blind, all I could see was gray smoke, not what I wanted at 150 mph. All I could do was assume the car was still going straight and slow down as rapidly as possible. As it turned out the car did go straight so I came to a safe stop in the shutdown area.

The most interesting thing I saw at the track was at the old and long gone Continental Divide Raceway in Castle Rock, Colorado. I had my car in line to be weighed and had walked over to the scale to talk to the tech guys. while I was there a young lady walked over to ask the tech guys a question for her boyfriend who was waiting in his car. The young lady was wearing a top that was completly transparent and was without bra. She had to ask her question two or three times before anyone could regain their powers of speech. That also reminds me of the two young ladies in string bikinis that the Plum Crazy Cuda brought with them to the first Mile High Sportsnationals at Bandimere's. Woooho.