It was a rough start to the 2019 season for Mike Castellana, literally. His Al-Anabi Performance sponsored Camaro broke a rear axle, lost a wheel, and piled into the wall during qualifying, ending his weekend and sending the team scrambling to make repairs.
This was one of the stranger pro mod crashes we have seen in the last few years for a couple of reasons. The first was that Mike virtually never finds himself in trouble. He’s one of the most experienced guys out there and he never gets over his head. The second reason was the apparent cause of the wreck, which was a failed rear axle. These are things that typically do not break and this is the second race we have seen a high powered car have a failure. Tommy Johnson Jr. was the first one we saw in Phoenix.
The massive tire shake, the busted axle, and then the wall contact mean that this team will be in hustle mode preparing themselves to compete at the Four Wide Nationals in Charlotte which is the next stop for the NHRA E3 Spark Plugs drag racing series to be contested.
How crazy was pro mod this weekend? Quickest bump spot in history, world record reset multiple times, and in the final round Stevie Fast Jackson reset the world record and lost the race to Todd Tutterow in the process.
It was insanity.
