Even at huge speeds, drag racing is a game of inches. Normally we are talking about inches of differential between the cars crossing the finish line but in this case we are talking about inches between the cars in the same lane, side by side! This is footage taken from the IHRA television show featuring the 2009 Rockingham race. The two voices you will hear are Ken Stout and former IHRA president Aaron Polburn. This race was kind of unique because due to a host of factors, it was converted to an eighth mile contest the morning that these runs were made. This was the IHRA World Finals and the weather had been a disaster all weekend. Unable to get the track where they wanted it, officials made the call to move the finish line for all categories and it was on. Even after these efforts, the sportsman eliminations for the weekend were still finished on Monday. But we digress.
As we are looking at the video, the driver on the left side of the screen is Smax Smith. Smith has raced top fuel for many years, primarily in Europe but over the course of the last couple seasons he’s making an effort to run more here in the USA. On the right side of the screen is Todd Paton. You are familiar with Todd because we have had him on BangShift a bunch. Todd works for Racepak and has wheeled heavy duty drag cars for many years. From top fuelers to nostalgia nitro funny cars and alky floppers he has done it all. As you will see, the decision to shorten the race had a major impact on how Todd Paton’s day (and potentially life) turned out.
Todd’s run is pretty uneventful. He gets down the 660′ track first and for a split second all was well. On the other side of the course, it was trouble for Smith. The car was driving itself toward the centerline and he was unable to stop it, apparently working against a throttle pedal that was stuck in the wide open position. As Paton is decelerating, Smith is accelerating into his lane and nearly up and over top of him. In a gusty piece of driving, Smith was able to prevent a complete disaster by guiding his car away from Todd’s after the lightest touch to the front wing. Technically that is a crash but in the face of what “could have been” it doesn’t count.
This defines the term “close call”.
