Click images to view videos, courtesy of GRS Motorsports and DragToday.com

The racers that hail from the small island nation of Puerto Rico are a lot like John Force in the early 90’s in that they could almost single-handedly fill an “And They Walked Away” video with the footage captured at their racing events. Some devastating crashes have occurred down there in recent months and fortunately, to our knowledge, all of those racers survived with little more than minor injuries. Over the weekend, footage was captured from several angles of another harrowing crash involving one of Puerto Rico’s ultra quick import racing machines.

Luis Negron was competing at the Salinas Speedway at the wheel of his “El Elegido” Modified Mazda RX-7 when, on this particular hit down the quarter mile, his machine opted for the scenic route right out of the gate. Negron fought to regain control of the car and while lifting would’ve been the wise decision, nearly looked to have it saved while bravely remaining under power, when a plume of smoke out of the right side of the car indicating possible fluid withdrawal or a fender rub sent the Mazda careening into the left hand retaining wall at a significant rate of speed just beyond the half track mark.

The impact sends debris flying in every direction and in perhaps one of the most graceful conclusions to a high speed crash that we’ve ever seen, the car slides to a stop and softly tips onto the passenger side of the car, at which point the parachute is released and nonchalantly pops out of the pack onto the pavement as if it might still help the situation. And with safety and medical personnel rushing to the scene of the smoldering and demolished race car, what better time to liven things up by cuing the salsa music?