What would you do if you happened to find your drag Camaro trying to escape from the tarmac by taking off into space? I have no idea, because I’d probably have passed out long before even reaching the point where the nose lifted from the ground. But Tim Slavens barely blinked an eye—and he even managed to save the damn thing.
I’ll give you context in a moment, but you just need to stop what you’re doing and watch.
This wild situation took place at South Georgia Motorsports Park’s Lights Out 12 drag race event last Wednesday, February 24. We don’t know the full specs of Slavens’ 1969 Chevy Camaro, but Autobahn reported that it’s about 3,500 hp. Whether or not that number is 100 percent accurate, the V8 engine under the hood is packing a lot of power—enough for the Camaro to almost take flight.
Drag racing crashes where cars go flying are some of the scariest you’ll ever watch. Based on the way the car was bouncing, it kind of looked like Slavens knew there was a problem and tried to correct it, and sometimes that can go wrong. The parachute of the Camaro also launched according to plan, which can also present problems for a driver trying to keep the car corrected. When the wind catches in the chute, it can drastically slow the momentum of the car and cause it to do some fairly unpredictable stuff very quickly.
But watching the video of Slavens, it barely looked like he batted an eye. The nose of the Camaro goes up, the parachute goes out, and Slavens pulls it back into his lane like a champion. Man didn’t even touch the wall. He didn’t even glance at it. Slavens walked away unscathed.
And you know what’s even better? He got back behind the wheel the next night and ran a cool 3.893-second eighth-mile at 193.52 mph.