As we continue to look back at some of the hairiest moments of NHRA drag racing over the last 10 years, we land in Pomona circa 2012 to see one of the most wildly insane top alcohol dragster crashes anywhere, ever. The driver was Mike Austin and as a long time competitor and experienced driver, Austin was not new to this whole dragster racing thing. As we’ll see, Austin leaves the starting line and his car starts to move around. Veteran drivers being what they are, he hangs with it in an attempt to save the run. In this case, there was no saving the run.
As the car heads down track gathering steam it washes out from underneath Austin and heads for the wall at an awkward angle. In fact, this was an angle so awkward that once the car hit, it launched over the wall and proceeded bounce off of walls at Pomona that cars have never hit before.
The impacts are so violent that at one point you can see the transmission get ripped off the back of the bellhousing and exit stage left. Continuing on that theme, the car careens into a line of cement barriers designed to keep competitors from RUNNING UNDER THE SCOREBOARD! The spot where this car landed is absolute no-man’s-land in Pomona, outside of some safety workers and a camera operator nothing happens in that spot.
Austin is able to extricate himself from the wreckage of his once beautiful car and he is talking with safety workers soon thereafter. This right here is the definition of bad.
That guy didn’t want to get shown up by the Winged Express who would have been up next.