Crashing a Pro Stock car hard enough to blow the body off of the chassis would seem to be the point where a long hospital stay would be required, right? Especially when the crash involves the track barrier and several barrel rolls? Nowadays there’s enough safety gear that the driver will be alright, but in 1986 this kind of incident would cause the entire track to go into stark silence until word came down from the safety crew about the driver. Filmed at the NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta, during the Pro Stock semi-finals, where Bob Glidden’s Thunderbird was meeting up with Butch Leal’s Pontiac Firebird. The race was tight, but the action came at the end of the track when Glidden threw his parachutes out. For whatever reason, the parachutes caught air and upset the Thunderbird, yanking the back of the car hard enough to point the nose toward Leal’s lane and simultaneously setting the Ford up for a rollover. He slid on his roof into the lane barrier at well over 180 MPH before barrel-rolling six times and landing on it’s side. Glidden credited his ability to emerge from what was left of the car to the strength of the Funny Car-style roll cage that had just been put into his car only a little bit beforehand. This is considered to be the worst wreck of Glidden’s long and storied career, and it’s amazing to know that he walked away uninjured from such a violent impact.
That’s the crash where he got out and tossed his jacket over the engine to cover the intake design, right?
I always heard that . It looks like something is covering what is left of the intake at the end of video.
It was no secret and was well know that NOS was in that Manifold. If you watch the video in slow motion you can see a lot of things!
I don’t recall it ever being proven that he was running nitrous. And even to this day, a lot of Pro Stock teams are very protective of their intake manifold design
Uh, right Al. This video is how’s why Pro Stock has lost its way. Ugly, modern, lumpy looking things, can’t tell them apart, no Ford vs Chevy vs Mopar etc
Should read “shows why” not how’s why
I think Al might be confused with the Mopar boys from Wayne county. As they seemed to quietly bow out of the sport !
Glidden was always my Pro Stock fav and this race was one that really hit home as a spectator to me. And yes he did cover up his designed intake as those were custom designed by the teams and generally held advantages !
Wayne County Dodge was my favorite team until they got busted for dealing coke. Glidden ruled for me from then on… even though he drove for the blue oval.
And I grew up in a 68 GTX 440 Super Commander 4-speed 4.10 Dana 60 . Never forget sitting on dad’s lap passing people smoking the tires when he shifted to fourth beside their door!!!