Nitrous Mustang Rides the Wall at North Star Dragway! Look Out Cameraman!

North Star Dragway in Denton, Texas has built a pretty stellar reputation as one of the quickest tracks in the nation, especially when it comes to radial racing. The eighth mile facility was the site of the first radial pass in the 3.7 second range and has been the site of several record runs and countless personal bests. However, there’s more to making a car go down the track than a good, sticky surface.

It’s hard to say exactly, but it seems like this car’s setup might have needed a little tweaking before this run, or there’s always the chance something broke in the drivetrain. Either way, this particular pass didn’t go at all as the driver expected and left the Mustang hatch in pretty bad shape. As soon as the driver drops the hammer, the fox body breaks loose. He lifts out of the throttle to settle the car down, then jumps back on the gas. It looks like the car is going to hook up at that point, but only a brief moment later, breaks loose again. The driver, unable to react quickly enough to the tirespin, stays in the gas too long, causing the rear of the car to step out to the right and drive the car hard into the left side retaining wall, directly in front of the cameraman, who’s standing only a foot or so on the other side of the barrier.

Unfazed by the car headed straight for him, the cameraman doesn’t miss a single frame of the incident, capturing this awesome close-up look at the wreck as it happens. There are a couple of angles of the crash, and even a great slow-mo replay that shows just how hard this car slammed the wall and how close it came to taking out the camera operator. Luckily there were no injuries, but damage to the car looks to be fairly significant.