NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

 We're going to tell you about the two machines you see here. Sick Seconds, 2.0 on the right owned by Tom Bailey and the Sorceress on the left owned by Rod Tschiggfrie out of Dubuque, Iowa.

These are 4,000-horsepower street-legal cars, in terms of both of these guys actually drive these down the highway and they can tow trailers and run fives for the quarter mile, which is truly amazing. Both run turbocharged powerplants.

If you look right here, you can see them rocket down, the race back, no problems at all. But here's problems for Bailey. As he goes through the finish line and had a situation that got ugly really quick, He was able to get himself out of the car.

This is a full tube-frame style Pro Mod style chassis. The car is registered and insured in Michigan where Tom lives. And as you can see a problem under the hood, caused that massive fire. Fuel-injected cars use a lot of fuel pressure under there. And it looked to me like it was being fed very strongly. Yes, it was. Unfortunately that is a saw way to see that car leave the race track.

Bailey’s fire was caused by a failed O-ring on an injector that allowed a massive 150-psi fuel leak. Bailey was unharmed in the incident, and credits the NHRA Safety Safar for saving the car. He said, “We know now that it was only a matter of time before this kind of [fuel system] failure was going to occurred. It was going to happen. Being at the Gatornationals with the Safety Safari on standby was the best-case scenario, and that team is the reason I still have a race car to rebuild. At any other event the car would have likely been a total loss.” You can watch the in-car footage from Bailey's car  HERE.

The car is already being repaired with a new front clip, and every wire, hose, or plastic piece in the engine compartment will be replaced. The components inside the car will all get thoroughly tested, and the car is scheduled to return to racing by July.

Tschiggfrie’s car is also back in the shop prepping the Olds 442 for the next round of NHRA match racing. Tschiggfrie reports that a new intake manifold is being designed, and he hopes to get the engine on the dyno in hopes of seeing nearly 5,000 hp at the crank.