Wanna see a shaken up drag racer, look at Leah post crash interview.

[fumanchu182]

Talk about making peace with your lord an savior...

You can see at the end interview she is shaken up, you can hear it in her voice. This could have been a lot worse. Just imagine how fast these rockets are going at the 1/8th mile marker. When going through something like this wonder how slow time went in her mind to process all of it.

 

[T_Trahan44]

Holy hell. That was crazy.

 

[ChargerChallenger]

Pretty impressive how the chassis came apart and the double parachutes saved her from doing tumbles. And that will really screw you up and it’s inevitable when your racing your gonna have a bad crash at some point just ask @Slowpoke387

 

[vortecd]

The shot of the car crossing the finish line in the air was crazy! I watched it Sunday but don't see that in the video posted

 

[Slowpoke387]

Pretty impressive how the chassis came apart and the double parachutes saved her from doing tumbles. And that will really screw you up and it’s inevitable when your racing your gonna have a bad crash at some point just ask @Slowpoke387

I can vouch for that unfortunately

 

[BULL]

Lucky girl!

 

[72 440 Barracuda]

Wow - you can definitely hear it in her voice and she was still shaking... I don't know if I could ever have that kind of composure after anything like that - glad she wasnt injured!!!

 

[DemonSRT]

Talk about making peace with your lord an savior...

You can see at the end interview she is shaken up, you can hear it in her voice. This could have been a lot worse. Just imagine how fast these rockets are going at the 1/8th mile marker. When going through something like this wonder how slow time went in her mind to process all of it.

Glad shes ok.

 

[DGatzby]

Agree glad she is okay. It did not look right from the start. It was at 200-250mph. Wow.

Decades ago we watched Shirley do a blow over at BIR. Everything disintegrated except her cage, and it went thru the finish line! She raced in her spare the next day.

 

[ChargerChallenger]

Agree glad she is okay. It did not look right from the start. It was at 200-250mph. Wow.

Decades ago we watched Shirley do a blow over at BIR. Everything disintegrated except her cage, and it went thru the finish line! She raced in her spare the next day.

It’s in your blood to be able to do this and just Look at Jesse Combs who died and she point blank admitted she wasn’t afraid to die and that’s the mentality you have to have.
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/29/7554...-combs-she-was-a-badass-always-pushing-limits

 

[Xylander]

I used to drive top fuel and blown alcohol funny cars back in the early to late 90s. My last drive was in an IHRA Top Fuel back in 1997. Similar thing happened to me. Structural failure in the front of the chassis broke at near 300mph. I didn't catch air, but I ended up in the wall on the right lane and impacted while turned backwards. Broke the engine and threw oil and alcohol fire all through the cabin.

I got out with minor burns and no real injuries... but unlike some of these folks, I am not afraid to die... but I am afraid to get roasted alive by invisible3,500 degree alcohol fire. I was never going to be a pro (I drove for a team that was sponsored and ran by a large garage in the Gainesville area). I only drove for them about 15 times per year when I needed to sit in for the regular driver. I normally drove my own cars in the Pro Street class. But that day was the last time I ever put a car on the drag strip of any kind. I've been to a few races in the past 25 years, but I have never driven through the traps again. Some folks can call it chickening out, and it might be. But trust me... your life changes when you're in the middle of an invisible alcohol fireball for what seemed like 20 seconds until you can literally start to see parts of the car and your gloves beginning to disintegrate. Track safety saved my life that day. All I got was 10 burned/blistered fingers and some nerve damage.

 

[Speedy!]

Saw something a while back that they re RE Weld the front end after so many passes.

 

[ChargerChallenger]

When I first read the thread few words in and not The Whole sentence I thought this was about @1971demon man being beat by his wife in her C8

 

[jroyk]

She praised the chassis builder for the cage, but what about the rest of it? Appeared to buckle in the middle.

 

[DGatzby]

Right in front of her compartment it looked like it simply busted.

 

[Markp]

That was a bad weld in the chassis that probably caused that.

 

[BULL]

That was a bad weld in the chassis that probably caused that.

That along with the harmonics that were set up in the frame (you can see them in the slow motion)

When the wave got to that section, you can see it change, it's the transition between the end of the driver's capsule and the forward section, the change in stiffness between the two distinct areas sets up a stress-riser.

Breaky breaky

 

[Speedy!]

It was a TV show with Antron Brown. Maybe Top Gear or Wheeler Dealers, I can't remember. He shows the team replacing the front end on his car and describes how often they had to re-weld it because of all the flexing.

 

[ChargerChallenger]

From the pros

“We get about 20 or 25 runs on a funny car frame before it needs work,” Fitzpatrick said. “A dragster frame lasts about 70 runs.” The team doesn’t use a laser to measure deflection or sophisticated mathematics to determine how much strain the chassis has endured. It’s much simpler than that, a matter of a racing team’s common sense more than a college graduate’s engineering expertise.

 

[Mean Cat]

WOW, I bet her undies were soiled, glad to see she's ok.