Shaking down a brand new racecar can be a tedious and nerve-wracking process, and the faster the car the higher probability of there being problems. Memphis Street Outlaws racer Erin Bussard was working on dialing in his new 1971 split-bumper Camaro known as “The Menace” this past weekend when things took a turn for the worse. His gorgeous Camaro broke traction during testing at Ozark Raceway Park and then all hell broke loose for him in a hurry.
Bussard’s evil-looking Camaro is not one to be taken lightly; under the hood is a big Chevrolet-based Reher-Morrison Racing Engines-built mill with a whole bunch of nitrous being used as the power adder of choice. This is a new car for Bussard, so he made the trip to Ozark Raceway Park to begin the process of trying to work out the bugs when the bugs decided to bite back.
As Bussard completes his burnout and backs up you can hear just how nasty this car is as the big cubic-inch nitrous motor roars to life. After the car launches it makes a slight move to the right, but then gets way loose in the marbles and barely taps the wall. Bussard does everything he can to try and keep the car straight but it begins to rock and then shoots back across the track making hard contact with the left lane wall.
In this footage from Urban Hillbilly Videos, you see just how quickly the situation escalates from the top end point of view, and how close Bussard came to saving the car. It looks like the damage is mostly cosmetic and “The Menace” should be back on the track soon.