Tommy Johnson Jr. loves driving nitro funny cars and here’s some breaking news…he’s damned good at it. Johnson is one of the guys that kind of revels in the challenge of wrestling these cars down the track. He’s old school in the sense that the harder and more brutal the car is to muscle, the more he likes it. He’s been driving nitro powered stuff for decades now and a ton of his experience came to bear in one weird run during qualifying 2017 Toyota NHRA Sonoma Nationals at Sonoma Raceway last Saturday.
During the course of a run his car actually sheared an axle off and just as quickly as that happened the car rotated about 90-degrees toward the wall. Johnson’s lightning fast response turned what looked like it was going to be a head on wreck into a tail slap that did no damage to the frame and did not force his team to swap cars over the course of the race.
The axle broke off way out by the wheel. You’ll hear Alan Reinhart on the call talking about how the wheel came off when he hit the wall but it was actually the car rotating away from the tire that caused the whole mess. Laying the wheel on its side you couldn’t see the axle stub over the side wall, that’s how far out towards the end it broke off.
This was a weird one but again, proof positive that in drag racing the raw ability of competitors is on full display when things do not go according to plan!
Thats cause he from Ottumwa Iowa we can handle crazy horse power