At the recent TX2K23 event held at the now-defunct Houston Raceway Park, Palm Beach Dyno’s Ken Bjonnes was testing the performance of the shop’s Project Overkill Shelby GT500 Mustang when during a run, the car went out of control, resulting in a significant impact into the retaining wall. Bjonnes was uninjured, but the future of the project car looks grim.

The 2020-newer Shelby Mustangs set a high bar for performance from the factory, and performance shops have taken them to 9-second elapsed times with just bolt-on components and a new engine calibration. Others, such as Ken Bjonnes of Palm Beach Dyno, have taken them well beyond that.

Project Overkill is as it sounds: take a 760 horsepower 2020 Shelby GT500, add a Hellion Sleeper twin-turbo kit with a ton of boost and make 1,400 horsepower—nearly double what the factory offered in the car.

The Shelby GT500 not only received a twin-turbocharger system, but also an upgraded engine from TKM Performance, and on Palm Beach Dyno’s dynamometer, it churned out 1,408 horsepower and 959 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels.

Since then, Bjonnes has taken the car to various events to test its performance on track. He has clocked 8.80s on the dragstrip and logged a 178 mph trap speed in standing 1/2-mile, all while learning how to get the car’s engine management and drivetrain management systems to work together with the additional horsepower.

At TX2K23, though, the car veered from one lane to the next during a run. Bjonnes attempted to regain control of the car, but ultimately could not and impacted the retaining wall. The track safety crew was on the scene right as Project Overkill came to rest.

Bjonnes came out relatively unscathed, only complaining about a sore hand afterwards. The crash caused damage to just about every panel on the car, with the worst of it being at the front of the car where the main impact occurred. Both framerails were skewed and even began tearing away from the cabin structure. Despite exceeding the performance, and likely the crash, envelope that Ford designed the car for, it held up well and Bjonnes’ mild injuries are proof.

“It was such a beautiful car, I really did tear up,” said Bjonnes. “It’s not about the money, it’s about the time and effort, not just by me but by everyone who has touched this car, or helped with it gave me a deal on parts. The car represents a lot.”

Bjonnes went on to note that despite his relatively unscathed state, he made several safety errors that he realized once he watched the in-car video footage. Bjonnes mentioned not having his visor down, not wearing his gloves, and perhaps most importantly, not wearing his head and neck restraint system that he usually races with.

“Every time you get in the car, you have to do it,” Bjonnes said on Palm Beach Dyno’s YouTube channel.

Regarding the wreck, Bjonnes is still trying to pinpoint exactly what went wrong, as the track surface was not an issue. He’s currently looking at several factors, and noted that he is sending out the car’s anti-lock braking module to retrieve the crash data from it and will compare that with the datalogger he had onboard the car during the run.

“It was a special car to me and to a lot of people,” Bjonnes said in a post-crash video. Bjonnes noted that the crash video “looked brutal,” but that “inside the car was not bad,” and he thanked Ford for its safety efforts. “I’ve got a lot of thinking to do. I don’t want to trash the car, but I’m not sure it can come back the way it was.”