Over the course of 2010 through 2019 there were plenty of nasty wrecks in drag racing but this one still stands in my mind as one of the worst. Is it THE worst? Perhaps that is up for debate and perhaps we’ll have that conversation in this next coming stretch of time.
Tim Tindle was a great pro mod racer. The competitor out of Florida drove loads of different stuff and in 2013 inked a deal with Danny Rowe to drive one of his cars. He was on the track next to Troy Coughlin Sr. when he took the worst ride of his life, bar none.
You’ll see the car get loose, wander a little and then get into the wall. The thing that makes this wreck so bad is that the car climbed up on the wall and rode it. This does not sound like a bad deal until you consider that the NHRA mandates all the walls increase in height down track. This means that there is a ramp-style pickup to go from “low wall” to “high wall”. When Tindle’s car hits that the whole thing takes flight and lands with disastrous consequence.
Whenever a car leaves the ball-yard it makes the blood run cold. Hitting the wall is bad enough, vaulting over it and then launching skyward is wholly another. I am not sure if Tindle ever drove in NHRA pro mod competition again after this. He recovered from the wreck, it was not that he had longterm injuries, just perhaps to his wallet.
A bad one. The worst one? Stay tuned.
