Both the sight of and the thought of being in the drivers seat when you take a look at this photo should elicit an instantaneous “HOLY @#$%!” What you’re looking at is essentially the entire transmission protruding into the cockpit of NMCA Super Street competitor Mike Yedgarian’s 2000 Pontiac Firebird following a recent test session. What exactly led to the destruction that you see here hasn’t been and may not be completely determined, but Yedgarian indicated some manner of driveshaft failure as the culprit at this point. Regardless, that was surely one frightening experience for Mike to suddenly find the very shifter he was grasping to suddenly be up close and personal with his helmet chin strap.

Yedgarian recently made his return to competitive NMCA action at the NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl in Joliet to rousing success. Following a bad crash last year at zMax Dragway, Yedgarian made the trek to Chi-town with a fairly new engine combination and turbo engine guru Steve Petty in tow. Mike would proceed to grab the top qualifying spot with a stellar 6.752 at 214.25 MPH, then worked his way through eliminations with consistent six-second laps before dispatching Nick Scavo in the final round to complete his comeback.