Alcohol Funny Car Takes A Hard Lick At The Gators Nationals

This weekend, the NHRA tour rolled into Gainesville, FL for the 50th running of the Gatornationals. Over the offseason, the historic facility got a bit of a facelift when the track surface was replaced from beginning to end with a brand new, state of the art, all concrete track surface.

Unfortunately, the track was only completed a couple of weeks before the 50th Gators, to to say racers were facing a green surface would be a bit of an understatement. The track seemed to be a bit off or on, with one car going down just fine, only to have the next car skating precariously down the 1,320. As you might imagine, this led to a bit of carnage, and one victim of the new surface was this brand new Alcohol Funny Car campaigned by DJ Cox.

Cox, racing his Camaro in the left lane, staged up for a qualifying run alongside another Camaro. Both cars brought up the RPMs and inched forward into the staging beams, then dumped the clutch as soon as the tree dropped. Both cars left and had to get on and off the throttle, but the all-black car in the right line managed to find traction and hustle on down the track. Cox, however, was wrestling his car to try to keep it off the right had retaining wall when the car unexpectedly shot across the track, smacking the left side wall at and almost 90 degree angle.

The front of the chassis folded up, as it’s designed to do to absorb the impact instead of passing it on to the driver, and the body was smashed and ripped off of the chassis. You can see oil and fire suppressant spraying all over the track as the car slides to a stop, where thankfully DJ climbed out under his own power.

Cox was obviously unhappy with the outcome of the run, with the brand new car being little more than a high dollar paperweight, but as long as he wasn’t hurt, Cox and crew can return to race another day.

 

https://www.facebook.com/NHRA/videos/298354950839203/?__xts__[0]=68.ARA4se-OXLGqHD5Ha59S9NKV3R_GRTLgmSG2Rc9k5slFOzolGfvwTGvwYNjf5LTZKsMS2iRXsUy09O-l3pvXdiameR70Ywo-myAS8yWfGJYQI9ltmji0kp2rOWdKSDew-kS4VxAnrBWJNP6CJElds4xYzNZObZV6DlGRFY_0eGLl6Pr8Zy_9gbmDlXETuI3xyKx9fDvFZzqdH8315TFZcJO7vkiYIYfg6w_WDm25uVGQR-oA9L5sW6OM-Zn5P4vUQYpqXLd9wx-Um77NH-p9x8rEhpyGyDNt0Pwjn4bS5FKgXZPpCvrOjBfYJRhwuL32R_mKKT01PzfJqLTKe2-fIed7KxcJw5bwjuhqAj5uHZ-GameE8xOTbPA9Bg&__tn__=-R