(Photos: DragCoverage.com/William White) – If there is one thing that we have learned over our so-called careers spent at race tracks it is that you literally have to be on your toes at all times. It is easy to fall into a sense of security, a routine, or a nearly robotic mentality when doing everything that you do off the track because it all gets kind of mundane after a while. Driving to the staging lanes, pulling into the lanes, dialing your car in while sitting there, etc. Such was likely the case for most racers at I-22 Dragway in Alabama the other night when they were in the staging lanes waiting to run. That laid back environment was shattered when a driver got his foot jammed between the accelerator and brake pedal of a sportsman dragster, hurtled into the lanes, and mangled a BUNCH of cars, some bad enough that the look like write-offs.
The reports on DragCoverage.com states that the driver had a malfunction in the staging lanes that caused the throttle to hang open but a quote late in the story seems to indicate that the driver (the car owner’s son) just got his foot in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is an unfortunate accident because of the amount of damage and because there were some injuries. People in their cars sans helmet had their heads bashed off of roll-cage bars when the impact came.
What happens from here? We have no idea but unless they have race car insurance, we’re guessing lots of these people will be on their own to get the cars fixed up. We feel bad for everyone involved.
Click here for the full DragCoverage story with lots more photos
I would be very pissed off !!! To have a stupid accident in the staging lanes should never happen !!!!
Reminds me of a guy I knew who ran the converter up in his just-purchased BB Vega in the driveway, whence the engine torque jammed the throttle linkage open and the car took off…fortunately another car blocking the way into the street was one of his own. There was some weeping involved afterward, both nice cars heavily damaged, for nothing.
There is some assumed competence involved for any type of racing to be able to happen, whether it be building the car or handling it later. Getting your foot caught between the pedals means, the pedals are mis-placed, you’re wearing the wrong shoes and…you need to go back to school. (Or, you’re 90 and it’s time to stop driving.) I feel bad for that driver (and the guy who put him in that seat) as a human being*, but feel worse for those unlucky guys in front of him.
*I once handed my first daughter a loaded shotgun, when I believed she was ready to handle it. Crap, it wound up on the ground two feet behind us, hitting butt-first…with a second barrel loaded. Another time I had her behind the wheel of the manual-trans El Camino getting on the freeway, to make the 3-4 shift she pulled on the steering wheel to help get the clutch in, and the thing flipped right out of her hand and we were two lanes over in an instant…luck only, saved us.
I didn’t make those mistake with the second kid.
funny, this isn’t the story people that were there are telling. lack of tech inspections {no neutral safety switch}, caused this.
The root cause is not lack of tech inspection but lack of following the rules.
Well that’s exactly what it is – a “story.” And people are spreading around a lot of discord based solely on assumptions. The car, in fact, had a working neutral safety switch.
Years back I was racing my bike at New England Dragway. I was the 1st bike in line. As the bikes staging lane opened, I push up the hill to the flat-there was a Camaro in front of me and a rear engine dragster at the waterbox. The cars were shut down for couple of minutes due to a clean up. When the dragster refired, it JUMPED backwards! And it had a pushbar on it that was just a piece of tubing out like a spear. Well it impaled the Camaro-and push it back towards my straddling my bike. The Camaro stopped about a foot from me! You ever have one of those “holy shit that was close” moments where you’re shaking afterwards? This was it. Thank god the car was between us.
Two things missed in tech-no neutral switch and no reverse lock out.
had the racecar ran into twice last year back to back weekends.
first guy was in the staging lanes testing the trans brake …3 times before it let loose around 5000 rpm and crashed into the back of the racecar my wife was sitting in. his comment “its a no fault zone” and i don’t owe you anything.
second guy backed into the pass side of the car while it was stopped to pick up time ticket. this guy at leased ponied up some cash the next day.
so this cost me a lot of cash to fix the car and for angermanagement classes!
many years ago when i was an apprentice mate of mine was goaded into doing a burnout in his Bathurst HK Monaro (if he’s reading this he’s going to track me down and kill me – no names but his son is a current V8 Supercar pilot… enough clues, he knows who he is!!) Anyway, hot 327 going flat out, biig burnout in an area too small for big burnouts and we thought wow, he’s brave.. when’s he letting off?’ but throttle had jammed open…across the car park, narrowly missing students, up a grass verge into a big waste bin which went down the other side of the grass to slam in to the staff carpark and one of our instructor’s immaculate Toyota Crown that he loved…golly gosh did HE get told off…