This weekend, yours truly and the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series heads to historic Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey for one of the longest running and most well known races on the entire racing schedule for 2017. The Summernationals at Englishtown have been part of the NHRA scene for 48 years and over those near five decades there have been moments of triumph, tragedy, and simply bizarre happenstance that no one saw coming. Brandon Bernstein’s violent and bizarre crash back in 2003 was one of those moments. Having taken over the seat in the Budweiser dragster from his dad, Brandon was doing a nice job driving the car through that 2013 season and then the run you’ll see below happened at E-Town and it changed the course of the team’s plans and direction from that point forward.
What made this crash so bizarre is actually multi-faceted. There’s the place it happened on the track, which (distance wise) was pretty close to the staring line, and there’s the angle of it (car on side smashing bottom first into the wall), and then there is the aftermath side when the car leapt the wall and traveled a pretty significant distance on the grass surrounds outside of the strip wall. It is always another level of bad when a car manages to completely leave “the ball yard” during a crash. Thankfully, there were no photographers at that point on the track because someone would have made the wrong decision to stand pat.
The truly crappy thing about this crash for the Budweiser team is that they had really gelled together and managed to win three of the first eight races that year. With Brandon out of the seat for the rest of the season (despite the fact that the team in this video is preparing the car to be tested the following day) his dad hopped in and while he did a fine job, it was Larry Dixon who won the title that year. Brandon will be back at E-Town this year working with Alan Johnson Racing and he’ll undoubtedly shudder at the first sight of the guard wall. That was a BIG and weirdly angled hit!
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE IT ALL GO VERY WRONG FOR BRANDON BERNSTEIN AT E-TOWN IN 2003 –
Alan Johnson,Pat Musi,Reher and Morrison and others went to work for Al-Anabi Racing, a\”racing enterprise\” that was funded by the country of Qatar.
Alan Johnson was the team owner two years ago.
they pulled out \”mysteriously\” and left everyone holding the bag.
http://motorsports.nbcsports.com/2015/02/06/nhra-mysterious-al-anabi-racing-pullout-gets-some-clarity/
Qatar is a big supporter of terrorism against America and the world,\”at a very high level\” according to President Trump today at his White House press conference.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/presidential/20170609_ap_d4e72252fc4645229fe9253d5fccb934.html
This was when I stopped watching and following NHRA Drag Racing.
http://bangshift.com/bangshift1320/breaking-news-al-anabi-racing-funding-terminated-usa-racing-teams-top-fuel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_terrorism
Impossible to leave politics out of NHRA Racing when one of the sponsors wants you dead.
http://www.alanjohnsonracing.com/al-anabi-racing