Grudge racers are fairly well known as daredevil, only-lift-if-it’s-on-fire-or-upside-down drivers (maybe). With hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of dollars at stake, the adage, “it’s better to lift and race tomorrow” doesn’t always apply to these guys. I guess if you’ve bet this months mortgage payment on a race, you damn well better do everything you can to win.

Well, sometimes that leads to some pretty spectacular — albeit often avoidable — crashes. The driver of this Malibu – making its very first appearance at the track – just might wish he had lifted in this case. Sure, he may have lost a large chunk of money, but the amount riding on the race was likely a drop in the bucket of what he ends up losing. Watch as the G-body loses control and sticks the nose into the wall past half track, turns on its roof, then burns seemingly forever.

It’s hard to tell, but the driver of the Malibu does escape the confines of the wreckage just as the flames erupt, but with the track, Texas’ famed Yello Belly Dragstrip, apparently not having a single fire extinguisher on hand, all he can do is watch as the car literally burns to the ground. Agonizing minutes tick away as the fire department, apparently located a couple of states away, rushes to the scene. The video cuts away a couple of times, so we have no way of knowing exactly how long it took the first responders to arrive, but there is another video of the race that is over nine minutes long and they aren’t visible on that video at all.

It’s hard to place all of the blame on the track for not having fire extinguishers on hand, though, as it would have obviously taken a small army of them to put out this inferno. We’re thankful to see the driver escaped and seemed to be uninjured, except perhaps his pride and his pocketbook.