In life and in drag racing, things happen in the blink of an eye. In Brandon Pesz’s case, it was quicker than that.

As Keith Haney was out of town on a business trip, good friend Brandon Pesz was tapped as driver of one of the most talked-about, hyped-up cars that has ever entered small tire competition: Haney’s nitrous oxide-huffing Camaro known as Enigma. For those of you that follow the revolving door of drag radial cars and stars, you know the story. In a quick recap, Haney called upon his good friends at Larry Jeffers Race Cars to build a purpose-built Radial vs. The World car to compete with the world’s quickest and fastest on small tires. After a long build, photos were revealed with Haney’s smiling crew standing beside the top secret, Enigma, as it rolled out of LJRC packing a Reher Morrison punch topped off with loads of Switzer Dynamics nitrous oxide.

In Haney’s second pass in qualifying during Lights Out 7, he lost control of the car and smacked the left hand retaining wall, causing damage to the car. But, the team repaired it and battled on, ending the weekend with a quarter-final finish and opening a lot of eyes in the radial world. The car returned home, went back to Jeffers’ shop for repairs, and was fresh and ready to damage at Tulsa Raceway Park‘s Radial Revenge Tour.

In the first round of qualifying, Enigma repeated what it did in Georgia, going straight off the trailer to a 3.89-second blast at 195 miles per hour with the candles lit all the way through the 660 feet. As KHR rolled back to the lanes for the final pass of the night, Pesz turned loose of the transbrake and ripped off a 1.010 short time, but soon went into a small power wheelstand afterwards. As soon as the wheels touched back down, the ride got real for Brandon.

The car immediately snapped to the left and got up on two wheels, making a nearly 200 degree rotation on the right tires only. At that point, the car went completely airborne, and knocked the wheelie bars against the left side retaining wall, as the underside of the car smacked into the top of the wall, bouncing and barreling back onto the Tulsa Raceway Park concrete surface on all four wheels. Pesz coasted to a stop and got out of the car unhurt but was done for the weekend due to damage sustained in the frightening ride behind the wheel of the Enigma.

Haney and company have already vowed to make the needed repairs and return to racing as soon as possible.

Lead video credit: 1320Video