Best "save of the year" award for Dixon

In the era of globalization, it is quite common for professional drivers to be invited to race in foreign countries, and help raise the caliber of their event. Locally, we have been fortunate to have drivers like Jimmy Alund (European pro stock champion) and Pat Musi (American pro stock legend) elevate our drag racing here in Curacao.

When Larry Dixon accepted to drive the Santos Cranes fuel dragster at Willowbank Raceway, in Australia, he never expected all of the wheel studs to shear off on one of his rear tires during qualifying. As the tire gets separated from the rail, this pulls a massive and immediate 360 in front of his competitor in the other lane.

Luckily the dragster hits nothing and Dixon, a three-time NHRA Top Fuel champion, was able to drive it back into his lane. Dixon estimated that he must have been doing about 150 mph when he did his pirouette, which was caused by a broken axle.

This is one of the most incredible and wildest drag racing videos I have seen in a long time. The video below was taken by a local Junior dragster racer named Caleb Ober. He among with all the other folk in attendance, will never forget the day when "Larry Dixon suffered the most incredible non-crash in drag racing history", as this has been called in the media.



The video below is from a better angle.



To see the onboard footage, please click here.

The Rapisarda racing crew managed to fix the dragster and Dixon returned to run a 4.60 just a few hours later.

Thanks for reading.

Source: Bangshift, CompetitionPlus.
Video courtesy of:  Caleb Ober (Aussie Jr Dragster racer) , CompetitionPlus