Somehow Ben Mens managed to keep this car off the wall - no major damage done!

Even the most seasoned drivers have a bad day from time to time. Ben Mens has been a drag racer for more than half his life, and been through his fair share of tough situations over the years. Mens competes in Milan Dragway’s DTS Heads-Up Series in the All Motor class, and after qualifying at the fifth event of the season, Mens was in the second position heading into eliminations with an awesome 8.19 blast at over 165 mph. Racing got rained out on Friday night, pushing the elimination sessions into Saturday, which is where things got interesting.

In the first round, Mens was up against Mark Fry with a great chance to advance. But, as he told us, things don’t always go your way. Ben explained, “In the first round it hiked the front end pretty good and I short shifted it to bring it down. It appears it drifted or was pointed towards the right and I shifted 3rd gear when it came down and it must have stepped out of the groove and washed out on me. I knew I was ahead of Marc Fry and needed to get back out of his lane. That then sent me towards the right wall and I knew I did not want any of that and tried to correct again. It got light and I thought I was going over and steered into it and locked the brakes up when I felt all four back on the ground. I lost the battle and the war but saved the weapon to fight another day.”

A wild ride for sure, but good to see that nobody was injured. Cars can be repaired!