Last Saturday night, longtime southern Pro Modified racer and renowned chassis builder Dan Parker was injured while competing in the 8th annual “The Quick And The Scared Outlaws” event at the Alabama Dragway in Steele, Ala. following a horrifying high-speed crash just beyond the eighth-mile finish stripe. Parker, a Columbus, Ga. native who began his journeyman career at the wheel of a  Pro Modified in the mid 1990’s, was driving a nitrous-assisted Corvette owned by Billy George.

According to eyewitness reports, Parker, running in the left lane, drifted to the centerline near the lights on an otherwise stellar pass, and as soon as he corrected back into the center of the lane, the rear of the car appeared to wash out. This sent the Corvette careening nose first into and over the guardrail at a perpendicular angle to the track.

As can be seen in the photo above, the impact and the resulting barrel rolls through the grass broke away everything from the firewall forward, including the entire front clip and the engine.

Parker, owner of Parker Chassis in Columbus, was awake and alert at the scene and was transported by ambulance rather than helicopter due to severe weather in the area to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. All told, Parker suffered two broken ribs, a torn deltoid muscle, breaks in both hands, and unspecified elbow injuries. Dan remains in Intensive Care and is expected to undergo surgery on the injured elbow Thursday or Friday.

Certainly, injuries of any magnitude are never a good thing, but given the devastating severity of the accident – described by many as the worst they’d ever witnessed – it’s spectacular news that one of drag racing’s good guys escaped with none life-threatening injuries and we wish Dan a complete and speedy recovery.