Now that winter is finally behind us, the spring blossom brings the racing crowd outdoors for a great number of events. And with not everything exactly up to speck after months on end of idling, we shouldn’t be surprised by the occasional flying incident here and there.
Not long ago, we’ve witnessed a gradual escalation of mishaps coming from quarter-mile-focused events. Things like Jeeps trying to climb the Christmas tree, 2JZ-swapped Fox Body Mustangs nailing both the save and race win after a huge wheelie, or the Chevrolet Camaro gods carefully watching over a Pro Mod to deliver a thrilling miss. You know, the usual stuff...
But we all know that drag radial racing has a penchant for pleasing the crowds with great wheel stands because the class doesn’t come with the traditional wheelie bars. Of course, there’s also the quest for walking the finest of lines between delivering all the high-power hidden under the hood and making sure the vehicle survives to compete another day.
Because the gets set higher and higher with each outing, sometimes the line gets crossed (either by the driver or due to mechanical tinkering), and we end up with spectacular (but dangerous) stunts. That’s precisely what happened last month during the Texas Radial Round Up event hosted by the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas.
Amateur on-site footage (videos embedded below) shows Kansas racer Tim Webb’s Limited Drag Radial-style twin-turbocharged 1980 Chevy Malibu (as identified by dragzine.com) going against what looks like a white fourth-generation Chevy Camaro (give us a heads up if we’re mistaken).
All is great during most part of the run, but the race for quarter-mile glory takes a spectacular and truly death-defying turn for the worse when the blue Malibu starts flipping backward, catches some massive air under its belly, and takes a hard sideways landing that sends a flurry of sparks across the entire drag strip. Fortunately, Webb came out unharmed from the wreck, according to reports.
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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