FORKS — The West End Thunder drag races have had four injury-free years. That doesn’t mean spectators haven’t seen a couple of spectacular crashes.
For only the second time in those four years, a racer crashed at the track during the final day of the 2009 season Sunday at Forks Municipal Airport.
Randy Parker of Graham, racing in the nostalgic dragster division, crashed while going more than 155 mph. Even though the car rolled over three times and broke in half, Parker was able to walk away with just some bruises.
“I’m sure he was stiff the next day,” West End Thunder president Phil Arbeiter said.
“Those cages the drivers sit in are pretty snug inside,” Arbeiter, also the Clallam County No. 1 District fire chief and former Forks mayor, said.
West End Thunder, a nonprofit group that runs the summer drag races, keeps a fire engine and ambulance at the track for just these kinds of occasion.
Neither was needed for this crash.
Thanks to the safety equipment required for these cars and drivers, Graham was able to walk away, Arbeiter said.
“It was exciting,” Arbeiter admitted about the crash, “but we always hope something like that doesn’t happen.”
The circumstances have to be just right for a car to leave the track like that, according to the fire chief.
The track is just one-eighth of a mile long, or 660 feet, and Graham was driving more than 155 mph when he let up on the gas.
“[The dragster] bounced a little bit, like they normally do, from the speed he was going,” Arbeiter said.
“When one wheel hits the ground first, from going that fast, it’s just one of those things. When the chute deployed, it took [the car] sideways.”
Graham won’t be racing that dragster again.
“It pretty well totaled the car,” Arbeiter said. “It will be pretty expensive to put it back together.”
Graham’s racer is called a nostalgic dragster because the engine is in front like the older dragsters had them. Modern dragsters have the engine in back for safety reasons.
There are several categories of racers at West End Thunder, including street racers, dragsters, shifters, pros and super pros.
All are required to have a certain degree of safety equipment, depending on the classification, and all cars are inspected before they are allowed to race.
And so far that formula has kept West End Thunder injury-free despite the speed these cars go.
West End Thunder is a popular activity for North Olympic Peninsula residents. There were 900 spectators on Saturday and just under that amount for the final day Sunday.
The organization usually schedules four or five two-day events every summer, usually one weekend a month from June through September.
West End Thunder members will take about two weeks off before getting together to map out the schedule for the 2010 season, Arbeiter said.
