This is quite possibly the closest “near miss” ever caught on film at a drag strip. No, we’re not talking about a near crash, we’re talking about a video guy nearly being killed by a flying hunk of supercharger. The truly amazing part is the fact that the dude who was almost decapitated by the flying parts captured the whole thing on his own camera. Filmed by Randy at 907 Video at Alaska Raceway, the video defies description and makes our blood run cold every time we see it.
John Dixon in the Trophy Hunter AA/FA is the accidental and unintentional star of this one. He completes his burnout and backs up without drama. After staging the car and launching the machine explodes in a flaming conflagration which is bad enough on its own. The blower explosion is so violent it literally blows the case apart and a huge chunk of it escapes the comfort of the ballistic bag flying on a trajectory that looks like it’s about to take the top of Randy’s head off.
You will see the incident in real time and then in a frame by frame replay and that’s where the real blood curdling stuff happens. Clearly if this hunk of supercharger case had contacted Randy’s body in any way he would have been grievously injured and if it got him in the noggin, likely worse than that.
Standing next to high powered drag racing cars shooting photos and video is alternatively thrilling and scary. The thrilling part is having your guts rattled by the cars, the scary part is seeing stuff like this and realizing how dangerous it is.
I wish we could force every one of the idiots who stand mere inches away from 2000+ HP cars as they do burnouts in no prep events to watch this. It’s only a matter of time before one of these cars blows up violently or looses control maiming and possibly killing multiple people. And I will guarantee you that they or their surviving family members will sue everyone involved. Drag racing is an awesome sport but history has shown it can turn extremely violent in milliseconds. I pray organizers wake up before disaster strikes.