Ford Mustang Splits in Half During Illegal Street Racing Crash, Driver Walks Away

Roll cages can save lives. Street racing can end them.

byKyle Cheromcha|
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If you were draw up a list of dangerous conditions for some healthy competition, it's hard to top the mix seen in this video of an illegal street race that ended with a drag-built Fox body Ford Mustang—minus a roll cage—split in half after smashing into a power pole. Amazingly, the driver escaped with relatively minor injuries.

Popular drag racing YouTube channel 1320 Video sometimes deals in this kind of extracurricular idiocy, but rarely does it end as badly as this nighttime battle somewhere in Louisiana. The setting is a four-lane divided parkway lined with power poles and large streetlights. The competitors are two older Mustangs that appear to be heavily modified for drag racing, with blown motors, bulging hoods, and massive drag slicks out back. Neither driver is wearing any safety gear, and the doomed 'Stang doesn't even have working headlights.

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Things go wrong within seconds. The driver in the right lane loses control and spears off the road before the car plows into the pole with a sickening crunch. A second angle, shot from further down the road, shows the Mustang struck the pole on its right passenger door at about a 45 degree angle. As the cameraman sprints towards the cloud of dust and smoke, it becomes clear the car has been almost completely bisected. It had been built for racing without a roll cage.

Incredibly, the driver is alive and relatively unscathed, though he appears disoriented and collapses to the ground after spectators help him out of the wreckage. It's later revealed that he broke his jaw and one of his shoulders, and it's an understatement to say that it could have been a lot worse. The pole must have missed him by inches as it sliced through the cabin. It's also fortunate that no one was standing in the path of destruction.

Save it for the track is the usual prescription here, but this car would have been just as dangerous in a crash on a sanctioned strip. Still, it must always be spelled out: street racing is illegal, dangerous, and incredibly dumb.

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