[Faline]

Medford, Oregon's Mike Austin goes for a wild ride during Top Alcohol Dragster Round 1 at the 2012 Winternationals. Mike amazingly walked away from this incident.

POMONA, Calif. -- Just call Mike Austin the luckiest man in California on Saturday.

Austin walked away unhurt from a terrifying crash during the O'Reilly Auto Parts Winternationals, where his Top Alcohol Dragster flew over the retaining wall in the first round of eliminations.

Austin, who lives in Medford, Ore., was along for the ride when his dragster made a violent turn to the right from the right lane.

The car turned over on its left side before the nose went over the wall and shot the dragster into the air. At one point, the entire car was more than 10 feet off the ground and twirling around in the air.

Austin's car slammed back down to the pavement between the track and the grandstands. It slid all the way down the support lane, and slammed the underside of the chassis into the base of the timing and scoring tower.

Safety Safari workers rushed to the scene and the crowd sat in silence, hoping and praying Austin was OK. After a few minutes, word came that Austin was alert and speaking to safety officials.

He was helped out of the car and walked away, but safety officials said his first reaction was anger over tearing up his dragster.

Being mad never looked so good.

[MeMyselfandI]

[Dennislp3]

One of the few crashes I have ever seen that didn't result in a flaming inferno lol

[jander]

I'm going to the Gatornationals in March, I hope not to see anything like this... well not this bad anyways.

[Brandjuh]

He was helped out of the car and walked away, but safety officials said his first reaction was anger over tearing up his dragster.

Damn, that guy have luck, that there was no fire. The saftycage is made for this sort of "stunts".

[kellyhound]

lift off

[dimitrije]

it's alive

[Pyramid_Head]

He was lucky, that was a nasty crash.

[Brainplague]

Originally Posted by Pyramid_Head ↗

He was lucky, that was a nasty crash.

Indeed. If it weren't for that safety cage, that last jolt would have been his last.

[nerd]

Ah that was nothing. He never even suffered a large impact - it just scraped everything until he bumped into that barrier. :)