Television has made navigating an un-prepped roadway with thousands of horsepower look relatively easy, but make no mistake, it is anything but, and that was no more evident than when a Texas drag racer took his supercharged Corvette to a recent Shift S3ctor 1/2-mile speed event in Texas in October.

Larry Webb, the owner of Hose Connection in Texas, is a racer himself and a supporter of Matt Hartford’s NHRA Pro Stock team, and he had the wild idea this year to take what is effectively a Top Sportsman-style Corvette, built by Jerry Haas Race Cars, and run it on a 1/2-mile. This was, in fact, Webb’s third attempt at this, as he first turned up at Shift-Sectors’ Kansas event with a 1/4-mile rear gear in the car and went just 172 mph. Not content with the outcome, he swapped the blown machine over to a 3.00 gear for the Texas race to get more top-end speed and endurance out of the car, and proceeded to top 222 mph on the first attempt at the Abilene Regional Airport runway.

Photo: Shift S3ctor

But it wasn’t without some — in the words of the 1320 Video gang, “sketchiness” — as despite the big, meaty slicks on the back of the car, undoubtedly the largest tires on any vehicle on hand that day in Texas, the car refused to gain traction until it was well up to speed. As you’ll see in the various interior and exterior clips, every time Webb would lay into the throttle, the car would try to swap ends on him — even at speed — forcing him to exercise a whole lot of patience and discipline with the throttle pedal. In the end, his best (and final) run topped 226 mph, running through the traps at upwards of 7,500 rpm, to win the rear wheel-drive category by a mere one mile-per-hour.