Oklahoma native Curtis Mitchell had a weekend he’d just as soon forget about at the Mo-Kan Dragway’s Hot Summer Nights VII event on Saturday night, as he stuffed his nitrous oxide-assisted Pontiac Firebird into the wall during qualifying for the Big Tire category.

Mitchell, a regular at the Asbury, Missouri facility during it’s Big Tire heads-up special events, was running in the right lane during the opening round of qualifying when his machine drifted out of the groove near the guardrail. The veteran racer briefly lifted off the throttle and then stabbed it once more trying to reach the stripe — a move which ultimately sent the car careening across the centerline and hard into the opposing guardrail with the passenger side of the car.

The Firebird briefly caught fire after coming to rest, but was quickly extinguished as Mitchell climbed from the battered car. Videographer Sean Melton of Urban Hillbilly Videos captured the aftermath of the accident, showing the extensive damage to the Jerry Bickel Race Cars-built Pontiac and to the track itself: the impact knocked the concrete footers for the railing out of the ground and tore a small section of the steel like a tin can. The wheelie bars and other parts of the car can also be seen stuck in the guardrail — evidence of a battle in which both fighters landed a few direct blows.

Longtime drag racing fans are likely to find Mitchell’s car familiar; former Pro Stock ace Bruce Allen campaigned the car way back in 1999 with the NHRA out of the Reher-Morrison camp. The car still sports the very same livery of Pennzoil’s one-time performance octane booster brand, The Outlaw.

Other than some bumps and bruises and a hit to his pride, Mitchell was uninjured the crash.