(Photos by Cole Reynolds) While most of the time things go as planned during hot rod and racing events, sometimes they do not. Such was the case Sunday for Tony Scalici, who’s bitchin Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am was hauling ass around the Road Course at California Speedway during the USCA Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car event. Coming down the front stretch Tony had a bit of fire coming out the back of his car. Folks standing around watching were probably wondering if it was normal un-burned fuel coming out the tail pipes, but on this run it became apparent that whatever was going on was not good.
Cole Reynolds happened to be in the right place at the right time to get all the photos of this poor thing flying by on fire, coming to a stop, and getting put out by the wonderful safety crew at California Speedway. As bad as it looks in the photos, we’re still hopeful that it is mostly rear plastic bumper and exhaust wrap that burned the worst. We’ve seen car fires completely destroy them beyond repair, but we don’t think that is the case here.
Check out all the photos below.
Tony, after you finish drinking a beer and staring at this thing, we hope you start putting it back together for more racing soon.
Friedbird
We spoke to Tony this morning, only 2 days after the event and the car is already torn down to be repaired for his next scheduled event! -Ben @ Speedtech Performance
The safety guy on the left need a refresher on using an extinguisher.
We heard you have a Firebird,so we put fire in your Firebird to get you fired up.
God bless Tony I’m just glad your safe. Love you
I obviously have no idea what happened but , I’ve been there . When your going down the road with your car on fire , people will get out of your way ! I had a fuel filter rupture and had a fireball come out of the back side of the hood and another come out from under the car in the back . My youngest son was with me . He was really scared when we were still going rolling at about 20mph and I told him to get his seat belt off ! We were fortunate it wasn’t a total loss an Indy policeman put it out with the biggest fire distinguisher I ever saw !