Reports of busted cars, knuckles, and spirits are rolling in after the first day at Hot Rod Drag Week 2011 presented by Gear Vendors. As we get the photos of said breakage and thrashing, we’ll share them with all of you. The opening salvo in what is surely to be a week long opus includes a FUBAR alternator and a rear end that checked out at the strip.

The guy below, hunched over his fender is Bill Fowler. He was on Drag Week 1 in 2005 and his 1,000hp Mustang drop top is an amazing multi-purpose car. For whatever reason, the beast chucked an alternator belt and said alternator decided it was time to stop alternating. Fowler was using a high output aftermarket piece. When Chad caught up to him he was yanking that piece out in an O’Reilly Auto Parts parking lot and was going to swap in a HD GM piece to get his electrical system back up to snuff. That whole GM part thing is definitely killing him right now!

The second guy who had virtually immediate trouble was Tom Hogshead. His dicso Nova ate a rear end and in the process stripped a bunch of teeth off the ring gear. The car was repaired in the pits with help from a bunch of fellow racers (because those are the only people legally allowed to help you per the Hot Rod rules). One thing that really caught our eye was the splines on one of the car’s axles. Check out the twist!