(Photos by Ben De La Vega and Denny Parker) – BangShift reader Ben De La Vega is the track announcer at Arroyo Seco Raceway in Deming, New Mexico and sent us an email last week to say that he had some photos of a wild transmission involving racer Denny Parker’s Super Bee. According to Ben, when Denny hammered the throttle on the green light, the transmission exploded in nuclear fashion leaving a trail of fluid, parts, and general badness for the track workers to clean up. The true horror came when everyone looked inside the car.
When the trans blew up, it smashed up the transmission tunnel like an aluminum can, actually breaking it open in a couple of areas. In the areas that the metal was sawed open, parts and boiling hot fluid entered the car and got all over Parker. Luckily, he was not injured, aside from having his foot hit so hard it was knocked off of a gas pedal that had been bent and generally mangled by all of this bad stuff happening.
From the racing perspective, the truly crappy thing is that Parker was making a bye run into the final round! Parker’s car is typical of what lots of bracket cars are, which are totally stripped out muscle cars with minimal (read: NONE) interior and some switch gear and sheet metal panels. It ain’t artsy, but it works. Obviously, the car was not required to have a transmission blanket and blow shield, but instances like this are a reminder that an SFI rated trans case and blanket are pretty good investments. Parker got away lucky with no injuries.
Scroll down to see the photos of the transmission and the interior damage to the car!
Yikes. This post had me go right over to Summit and look up the cost of a transmission blanket for my 904.
Was there when all this happened… Never seen a tranny boom that big… Last pic is of my pops donating to the cause. Always help a racer in need….
The 904 has much smaller diameter drums, so it’s probably not as likely to explode. The 727 drum is huge.
But yeah….these pics should sell some safety equipment. I’ve been looking for a shield for my 400
904 overrun does not have the same problem as 727 mass. You are fine.
A 904 will never explode like that. The rotating mass is nowhere near heavy enough to make this happen unless you can spin it over 20k rpm
Meh..I’ve seen far worse…
Does the guardrail stop at 100 feet?
Y’ouch. That is why my car got a scatter shield on the clutch while it was still a 13 second car. That last picture is pretty awesome.
Yeah, guardrail is what you see, no more
Its much easier and cheaper to purchase and install a transmission blanket and/or blow-proof bellhousing than it is to find a lower leg donor to replace damaged or missing body parts.
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Safety first!! Thanks for sharing the pics.
OUCH!!!!
Don’t they have transmission blankets anymore? They used to be required.
I remember back in 1968 we all cheated and didn’t use scatter shields. That is until a boy had his clutch explode about mid track and lost both his legs.
rear sprag let go? looks like the cast front drum fragmented- talk about a hand grenade! wow!
Had a clutch go boom in my Chevy II, when I was a kid…..a piece came thru the tunnel, hit the back of my sneaker, & stuck in the bottom of the drivers door panel……put it back together when I got the bread, but they wouldn’t let me run again ’til I got a blow-proof bell
I’ll be investing into a trans shield for my 727. I’m glad that he was able to walk away from it.
Tanny blankets are like Master Card. Never go racing without it.
I got to spend time with Garlits and we talked of many things…… he has a lot to say about what can happen when your tranny goes…….https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151573050035093&set=pb.770990092.-2207520000.1386463297.&type=3&theater
I seen a clutch explode on a gasser and it blew the tranny off the block and it went out the bottom of the car rupturing the gas tank. The car erupted in a fire ball and the driver bailed before the car stopped. The car burned to the ground. I talked to the driver after and he said when he hit fourth gear the stick disappeared through the floor. This was in the late sixties at Cayuga Ontario.
scatter shield needed, and purchase a aluminum high gear drum for the torqueflight. When sprag rolls over, stock drum can’t take the rpm.
727’s are why scatter shields were invented !!!!! And made mandatory under 10.00 sec.cars.
Scattershields are for stick cars, transmission shields are for automatics. I have a CSR shield on my 727 because I know someone walked away from a 727 explosion. Mine has a bolted in sprag w/ stock drums and the car runs low 11’s. $315 is cheap insurance.
Saw an A/SA big block 69′ Camaro do that at Mission Raceway in Canada a few years ago. Sent shrapnel through the dash AND windshield.
Parker’s car is typical of what lots of bracket cars are, which are totally stripped out muscle cars with minimal (read: NONE) interior and some switch gear and sheet metal panels.
That “bracket Car” interior isn’t typical of any full bodied muscle car I ever raced against. I mean, that interior looks like the tranny, or a “Sawzall took it out!