How many times have we seen drivers whomp the throttle just one time too many or take that one last shot at “saving” a run that has been junk from the hit of the throttle? We’ve seen it a ton and more often than not it ends in tears and a busted up racer. This Aussie drag racer uses his brains and driving skills to keep from mangling what looks to be a clean and bad fast Holden Torana drag car. As you can plainly see there is a failure in the rear end right off the hit of the throttle. Either an axle broke or a locker broke or something of that nature because one tire start to fry and attempts to shove the car towards the wall. The driver corrects and pedals one more time before taking evasive action to prevent the situation from getting worse.
With the car pitched sideways he gets on the brakes and steers to try and keep the car in his own lane while the competition streaks down the course. The best part of this whole thing is that the guy doesn’t even hit one of the timing blocks in the middle of the track. He misses the 330′ block by mere inches but he does miss it. Yes, all of this happens by the 330′ mark and if the guy had kept wrestling and pedaling it much further we’d pretty much guarantee a wreck because the speeds would be high enough that the tiny front tires and drag suspension would never have allowed him to stop or keep the thing off the wall.
Let this one serve as a lesson, kids! He who understands when a run is lost lives to race another day in the same car. He who tries to be a hero when it is a waste of time often has to explain to his wife why there’s so many credit card charges the next month. Lift and live!
It actually broke a lower control arm – the owner built the whole car and can drive 😉