Watch This 4,000-HP Corvette Dragster Take Flight and Crash
Funny car decides gravity is just one big joke to it, takes flight.
Drag racing's emphasis on maximum acceleration and straight line speed above all else means the sport occasionally leads to some visually impressive crashes. The sheer amount of power being pushed through the back wheels of the vehicles—especially funny cars, which lack the manic downforce of Top Fuel dragsters—mean it's often easy for drag racing cars to pop wheelies that would make Vin Diesel's Charger jealous. And if a car's nose climbs too high and enough air pressure gathers beneath its undercarriage, the whole dragster can
Case in point: The crash of driver Daniel Pharris's 4,000-horsepower twin-turbo Chevy Corvette funny car at this past weekend's Radial Revenge Tour in Tulsa, Oklahoma. For the first few seconds, everything seems to be going well; indeed, it's competitor Keith Haney in his Camaro in the other lane who seems to be struggling with his ride, fighting a wheelie for a brief moment. Then Pharris's Corvette pitches back, and...well, you can guess the rest.
Thankfully, Pharris walked away from the crash in one piece. His Corvette, however, wasn't so lucky.
"I did everything I could to catch it before it got out of hand but missed it," Pharris said, according to DragZine. "These things aren’t like driving Miss Daisy to the grocery store—more like riding a bull. You have to be prepared for anything with 4000-plus horsepower."
