wowza...


Drag racing champ Antron Brown survives fiery crash in Pomona

By Jim Peltz February 17, 2013, 2:15 p.m.

Antron Brown, drag racing's reigning top-fuel champion, walked away from a fiery crash Sunday during the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona.
Brown's 300-mph dragster had just reached the finish line ahead of David Grubnic in the second round of final eliminations when the 8,000-horsepower engine on Brown's car exploded.
The blast sent the car, which had burst into flames, sharply to the left into Grubnic's lane and it turned upside down as hundreds of pieces flew off the dragster at Auto Club Raceway.
Brown's car then drifted down the rest of the drag strip because of its forward momentum, with the car finally stopping in the safey sand trap at the end of the track.
A shaken Brown, 36, then got out and gingerly walked away as Grubnic and safety workers made sure he was unharmed.
Brown drives for the Don Schumacher Racing team, which now outfits its dragsters with plastic canopies that cover the drivers' heads, and it appeared the canopy helped protect Brown as he slid down the track in flames.
In winning the National Hot Rod Assn.'s top-fuel title last year, Brown became the first African American to claim a major U.S. motor racing championship.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/sports...,3476923.story

 

aaand the video

 

Thank goodness he survived.

 

wow, glad he walked away from that

 

that ***** Cray!

 

my goodness, so glad he's ok!

 

Wow, those safety gears and the car did their job to save the driver!

 

Guess Toyota forgot to recall the sticky paddle thingie on that dragster.

 

Anyone knows how this car is Toyota powered? Was it modified from some Toyota road car motor, or was it purpose-built from scratch to be a race engine?

Crazy incident BTW. Amazing that the driver was unharmed.

 

Does that still count as a win?

 

It's not Toyota powered. It's sponsored by Toyota. All engines have to meet certain specs, they are based, by rules on the design of the late '70's 426 Hemi but are 500 c.i. with hemispherical head, alluminum block and heads. Two magneto's, two sparkplugs per cylinder with a huge blower that it takes about 1000 h.p. just to turn over. http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...e/viewall.html If you've never seen/heard a Top Fuel dragster or Funny car event in person, the amount of sound that is produced is absolutely amazing,

 

True.....and, if course, even with ear-protection, those who are often around and/or drive such vehicles sometimes suffer hearing damage as they age.


300 MPH quarter-mile speeds, BTW, have become run-of-the-mill now for Funny Cars and Top-Fuel eliminators. And, of course, engine-explosions are always a possibility when you are running that kind of power with nitro-fuels.

 

Holy ****!! Glad he survived that!! It really shows how much saftey they put into that sport to be able to walk away from a car that exploded going 300mph!

 

That's so insanely fast

 

Thanks for the info. Pretty insane stuff. I had a feeling that the "Toyota-powered" wording in the title was misleading and it seems that's indeed the case.