Just a couple of weeks ago, Dragzine brought you a story on this Canadian Pro Modified Mustang owned by Jim Bell and piloted by Jim Obalek. The Mustang, consisting of one of Mike Moran’s wind-tunnel-tested Pro Mod bodies, sits atop a Jerry Bickel-built chassis and is powered by one of Pro Line Racing’s twin-turbo engines. The team has been working on the new-car bugs, and this past weekend in Mission, British Columbia, Canada, the car was prepped and ready to go. According to speedzonemagazine.com, “at around 5.3 seconds (into a 6.12/224 mph run), The car went lean (fuel pump related) and it torched a head. From there, fuel and then oil ignited and Jim Obalek was along for a wild fiery ride. The car’s body suffered substantial fire damage, the engine will need work, but Obalek did a great job of keeping the car off the wall (he was blind for a good portion in the shutdown due to smoke), preventing any chassis damage. And he got out of the car okay. The safety crew got to the car very quickly and put out the fire in very short order.”

Pro Mod racing is a dangerous undertaking. With the unreal elapsed times and speeds the cars are capable of and thire on-the-edge nature taken into account, there’s always the chance of parts failures, fires, and the like. Thankfully today’s safety systems that are required are designed to minimize the chance of damage should something untoward occur. Nice to see the fire safety crew on the scene quickly, and we’re happy to hear that Jim Obalek will be fine and the car will be able to be rebuilt.  

Thanks to Robert Fedyk for shooting this video.