Scary Moments in Your Racing Career?

[Michael Kilduff]

I thought this would be a good topic for the off season. Anyone here care to share a hair raising moment or two when you were behind the wheel, or even when checking the car and finding something wrong that could have been disasterous?

I have two to share. Several years ago I had a 67 Chevelle street car that I raced at a local track. I did the burnout, charging hard outta the waterbox and the throttle hung wide open. I'm sure everyone was wondering why I was doing a John Force style burnout across the starting line ....fortunately I kept my head and killed the ignition before I blasted all the way down the track with the *** end up in smoke . As soon as I killed the ignition the pedal came back-had a broken motor mount which kinked up the factory linkage.


Episode number two wasn't at the track, but was so scary I think I can write about it here anyway. My brother has a '70 Cuda street/strip car, he took the car to a local guy to get the ring gear changed and the posi unit rebuilt. I went with him to pick up the car. We left the shop that did the work, I was riding passenger side and heard a distinct 'ting'-the sound of metal hitting metal for a split instant as we were traveling 45 mph a mile or two from the shop. A few more seconds and I heard it again.

It dawned on me that what I was hearing was the lug nuts coming off and glancing off the wheel! I just started yelling for him to pull over-he musta thought I was nuts. As he was getting stopped asap I told him what was going on. We got stopped on the side of the road and only 2 of the lug nuts were on the right rear wheel. There was a bridge about 1000 feet ahead. To this day I check my lug nuts on everything I drive like clockwork.

If ya had something freaky happen on or off the track, feel free to chat it up!