DRAGZINE broke the news of the first NHRA Factory Experimental (FX) build in December of 2022 with Geoff Turk’s Blackbird X Dodge Mopar Challenger Drag Pak, and Turk was the first competitor of the new class to fire his car up and make a lap. On the second day of shakedown runs, however, things went awry as the car slammed into the wall at virtually a 45-degree angle following a 7.24-second, 194 mph pass. And though the initial assessment was several months to make repairs and debut in 2024, Turk told us that he is now looking to make the class’ debut at the NHRA event in Norwalk, Ohio this summer.

“It was a comedy of errors,” Turk said of the crash that totaled his brand-new build. “I made a bad decision putting the chute deployment switch where I did. On the first pass, I hit it no problem. On the next pass, the first full one, I stayed in it, hit the speed trap and the car bounced to the left. I tried to correct it to the right and I missed the button, then missed the button a second time, and tried to correct the car back to the center at about 190 mph.” Turk then began to apply the carbon-fiber brakes to slow the car.

“With the carbon brakes, there are no brakes when you first apply them. Once they start biting, you’re supposed to ease off, but then the front tires locked. I let off the brakes and they stayed locked and the car steered itself into the wall.”

Thankfully, Turk had all of the required safety gear on and had re-worked the front structure after the car’s PRI Show debut to make it stronger.

“I don’t really remember getting out of the car,” Turk said. “We had GoPros, Racepak and Holley data to piece together what happened.”

Despite the incident, Turk did complete a full pass, though not an optimal one.

“The car was overweight, it didn’t have a good tuneup in it, didn’t launch it hard and it went 7.24 at 194 mph. The next pass would have been at least a 6.90.”

Once back at Horsepower Haven (his home in Kentucky), Turk and chassis builder Dave Zientara began disassembling the Challenger.

“When I make mistakes, I work, so I was out there with maybe a broken foot and some aches and pains,” Turk explained. “Dave Zientara was out there with me working on it and I went to bed at 10. When I went out there the next morning, he had it completely disassembled, he had a list of parts that were needed, and also what needed to be fixed on the car. We thought we would be out much later in the year after a rebuild, but now we have a plan and it’s looking like middle of June.”

Currently, BlackbirdX is on its way to Zientara’s shop, ET Tuning/ET Extreme in St. Louis, and Turk was actually on his way to BES Racing Engines to have the Gen III Hemi engine checked out when we called him for this story.

“We’ve had lots of input from a lot of great people. These cars are going to be fast and fun. They’re not impossible to drive, I just made a mistake. People are rallying around to fix it, the response has been phenomenal, and hopefully we’ll have it out before the first race in Norwalk.”

One thing is for sure, BlackbirdX is gonna’ fly, as well the rest of the NHRA’s new FX class.