At last weekend’s Match Race Madness event at Barona Dragway in Southern California, we saw the Santos Racing Toyota, driven bySantos Renovales, going up against Dennis Roach in his ’68 Chevelle. These are both serious cars that are well known in the Southern California grudge and race scene. When they left the starting line, Dennis had to pedal, but so did Santos and the little Toyota was never happy again. By the 1/8th mile he was along for the ride, no matter what he might have thought from the driver’s seat, and it got ugly ugly ugly from there. This may be one of the most violent flips I’ve seen this year. He walked away and was talking immediately afterwards. Dennis Roach, seeing all this going wrong was just trying to avoid the little Toyota, and did without crashing. The Toyota is dead, but we’re pretty sure the team will be back with something else sooner rather than later.

Reports that this was an end over end crash were incorrect. The car hit the left side wall virtually straight on, and the video shows that it was in the air rolling multiple times. Absolutely insane.

There are two videos right here. The first is from the starting line, but watch the last few seconds because when this car flips it looks scary. The second video is from further down track. I will warn you that from 2 minutes, to 3 minutes and 10 seconds, the second video shows nothing as the cameraman was running the with the camera still running. When he gets to the top end you get to see all the carnage, and it’s crazy.

Thankfully everyone walked away from this one and the cage did it’s job. That’s why we have safety gear and should use it.

What is really cool in the second video is the conversations between the drivers afterward. The family’s response, and the behind the scenes look you normally never get after a crash like this. It’s really sort of surreal.