If you have been around the sport of drag racing for any length of time in either the spectator or racer capacity, you know that one of “those weekends” is bound to come up here and again. Of course we’re referring to races that are fighting rain, track conditions, crashes, pollen, locusts, plagues of various types, etc. We’re kidding about the plagues but the other stuff can combine to make life tough on everyone and such was seemingly the case last weekend at Richmond Dragway in Sandston, Virginia. This track was hosting the IHRA Summit Pro-Am tour and after battling rain and other elements, they were also having to deal with a couple of big crashes. Both of those are shown below. Happily both of the drivers were ok but their cars were all but scrap by the time they were done.
In the first crash you will see a top sportsman Firebird cross in front of the competitor in the other lane, hit the wall hard, and then erupt into flames after rolling over a couple of times. The fire was bad enough but the impact and rolls were truly scary. The driver scampers out under his own power. The second crash involves what looks to be a very clean roadster that is competing in the IHRA’s Super Rod category. This is the same as the NHRA’s Super Gas class and is heads-up index style racing. That little roadster works out of the groove early and then things go from ugly to horrendous when it rolls over the wall and ends up on the grass outside of the track. Again, the driver was ok.
The race was eventually finished and as best we know these were the only two cars to get into trouble. MotorManiaTV was there on the live stream duty and they were the ones who captured this action. Rough stuff for sure.
Man the response time of the safety crew to the top sportsman crash was a little slow. Kinda scary guys!
tom
Tough crashes…best of luck to the drivers.
Of course the roadster crash highlights everything that’s wrong with throttle stop racing. Beside being really stupid to watch and baffling for the casual spectator it also means you have 1000 hp coming on full throttle down track where there is less prep and likely less traction. I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often.
Isn’t it time for this throttle stop racing to go away. Make a 7 sec. car go 9.90?
Safety guys slow and shorts on, fighting fire really!.
Slow response time and their all wearing shorts an short sleeves .Good thing the driver didn’t need rescue.
There are so many things wrong here, it’s amazing. First off, it was a known fact that water was wicking it’s way onto the track surface. You can see the roadster start spinning it’s tires maybe from this. Fuel cells in the fronts of cars like this Firebird had is nuts. The biggest amount of accidents are cars going frontend first into the barriers, pulling a fuel line loose and the electric pump feeding the resultant fire from sparks. Having, or actually not having, the track personnel properly trained in situations like this. And what in the hell were they using to trying to use to put out the fire ? Dry chemical powder or even CO2 would have done a better job.
I understand people not liking the throttle stop racing but I noticed the car being out of the groove a bit and a correction then the coming loose. Both car were back on the throttle when the crash started. It looks like was not coming off the stop when it got loose. I will say I would prefer as a racer in these classes if they did away with the timed stops and went back to having adjust the carb, airflow or a manual stop on the gas pedal.
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