Scary Moment When The Throttle Sticks During Burnout

After watching this video, it became once again crystal clear why there is a blindfolded cockpit orientation test as part of every NHRA license application process. I remember walking through mine with a member of NHRA’s tech staff at Silver Dollar Raceway in Reynolds, GA at the age of 17, and I’m fairly certain I could still crank that car, turn on the water pump, fan, put it in gear, pull the chute and kill the ignition all with my eyes closed.

I get it, throttles do hang. It can be something like a bent butterfly in the carb, which I’ve seen in person, or a bend in the throttle cable that is too tight and causes the cable to bind, or any of several other causes. It’s one of those things that can happen with zero warning, with no changes having been made recently to “cause” it. It just happens, and that’s why you have to be prepared for it at any time.

I don’t typically indict a driver without pretty solid evidence that he or she was in the wrong, and I have to say I believe this guy just panicked. You can see, after the throttle sticks and he crosses lanes and smacks his competitor, the car itself sort of freezes for a second. That’s because the car had slowed and the front brakes were holding it still, but they will only hold a car for so long when the rear tires are spinning and insane speeds on a sticky track, so the car takes off, this time back toward the starting line. To me, the fact that the driver had the brakes locked down hard enough to hold it still temporarily tells me he was in a state of panic.

When discussing this incident on social media (because who doesn’t love a spirited debate with random people from around the world?) many viewers believed the driver had a heart attack, seizure or some other medical condition that caused him to lose physical control of his motor function. I’m here to tell you that absolutely does happen. However, I read a local news article about the incident and there was no mention of any medical emergency, and again, seeing that the driver had the brakes locked down points to panic.

Now, before we jump on the bandwagon condemning this guy, let’s all step back and think about what we would do in this situation. Watching from the comfort of your couch or office, it’s incredibly easy to proclaim exactly what you THINK you would do if you found yourself suddenly in an out-of-control drag car. And you’re wrong. You don’t know, unless you’ve been in this situation, you have no idea what you would do.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, nobody was seriously injured in this spectacularly terrifying incident, although there was some pretty severe damage to both cars and the track itself.