Little Known Crash Might be One of NASCAR’s Scariest

During the course of a race, drivers never really know what’s going to happen. When we look at a sport like NASCAR, things can escalate in a hurry as drivers hurl their way around the track at insane speeds in extremely close proximity. As we see time and time again, rather large clusters can end up going sideways. Cars can go airborne and fires can even break out!

Over the years, we have gotten pretty spoiled with our safety equipment. In fact, the death of Dale Earnhardt in 2001 not only was a situation where a legend met an unfortunate demise. It also seemed to be a catalyst for producing better safety equipment and redesigning cars to be safer as well. No drivers have died on the track since. Most of the time, we kind of just assume that drivers are going to be alright even after high flying accidents.

Back in 2002 during the Bristol Busch race, though, that wasn’t the case. On a practice run, a driver by the name of Mike Harmon ended up making contact with the wall. This wasn’t just any wreck, though. Instead of bouncing off of the wall and back toward the track, this time, the wall actually moved. This caused Harmon’s car to tear itself apart. Before long, another competitor, Johnny Sauter, who didn’t have time to react plowed through the wreckage.

While the incident was scary at the time, the fact that both drivers were able to walk away allows us to look back at this one with a breath of relief. It’s pretty wild to see something like this at a short track like Bristol that doesn’t operate under high speeds like other tracks.

Watch below as the car literally splits in half. Just moments later, we watch Harmon exits the car as the cockpit seemed to be the only portion of the vehicle that was protected.