The silence hung over the track like a lead curtain. You could have heard a pin drop for minutes as the NHRA Safety Safari tended to both John Force and Jonnie Lindberg after one of the scariest funny car crashes anyone can remember seeing in years. Amazingly both men were OK with Lindberg walking away from his destroyed hulk of a ar and Force visiting the hospital for tests but getting out early enough to meet Courtney Force’s winning team for dinner on Sunday night. So what the hell happened? How did two cars get destroyed?
As you will see, Force’s car suffers a titanic explosion as he crosses the finish line. At more than 300mph the car is annihilated and he is unable to steer or guide it. As the body-less funny car crosses the track, competitor Jonnie Lindberg is in the other lane. Force crosses ahead of Lindberg and smashes the wall. Force’s slick than impacts the windshield area of Lindberg’s body and this is where things really go from bad to awful. After taking more evasive action, it looks like Lindbergh would be in the clear but Force’s unguided missile of a car heads back across the track where the parachutes get tangled with Lindberg’s and the two cars go into a sickening kind of spiral dance smashing both walls.
We do not see lots of two car accidents in the NHRA but when we do see them, they are scary. John was removed from his car very carefully for fear that he may have been pretty injured. Thankfully he was not and that lead curtain of silence we mentioned before was there only as crews were taking their time getting him out, not because he was seriously harmed.
We do not know what this does to Jim Head and Jonnie Lindbergh’s plans of running the whole season. They are a small team and to have a car completely and utterly destroyed in this manner is devastating to them. We’ll keep you posted when we know more. Until then? Watch this.
Good night John Boy , good night Courtney , good night Daddy , good night Brittney , good night Daddy , good night Robert , good night John Boy , good night America .
Yes these things do happen at a NHRA event but John /force needs to sit down with his family to discuss his future in drag racing. He has nothing to prove but so much to lose.
Does the Head team pay a fine and get docked points for track cleanup? What about Force? Do they just let big wrecks slide?
This is the third major accident by the JFR team in the last 3 races (hight, brittany, and now john) along with several other close calls late in the 2017 season.
NHRA is doing a great job of putting drag racing out of business with their crazy rules, expenses, and wrecks.
Worse, this delays the live TV broadcasts with these lengthy clean ups.
Happily, no major injuries this time.
The track insurance companies don\’t ignore these problems either.
The NHRA carnival is well on the way to extinction.
I agree Boris. Nitro cars are out of control. They\’re trying to ram too much fuel down the engine\’s piehole. They either lose fire, go up in smoke or blow up. Something has to give or the NHRA will fade into history. They struggle to assemble a 16 car field. How about a second tier of nitro cars that are less expensive to build and campaign ? Keep the elites but have a Joe Six-Pak nitro category. We wanna see some racin\’ damnit !
I can imagine why they took Force to the hospital. Watching how badly he was bounced around in the car was pretty scary.
Not a fun crash, but it looks to me like the tethering of the two cars together actually helped slow the cars down and keep them from overturning and/or leaving the track…
John Force should paid for Jim Head car to be fix. He cause the whole thing.