Pro Modified veterans Randy Merick and Jeffrey Cummins walked away from a wild two-car incident at the ADRL’s season-opening Dragpalooza event Saturday evening at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas, when Merick lost control of his 1969 Corvette and collected Cummins’ 2019 Ford Mustang.

Merick and Cummins were facing off in the opening round of eliminations when a textbook case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time played out though the driver’s side window of Texas native Cummins.

Cummins, in his supercharged Mustang, took a bus-length lead out of the gate on Merick and appeared headed to a decisive round win when his car slowed past half track. Merick, trying to make up ground, wandered left out of the groove and lost control, turning across the racetrack on his lid and tagging Cummins’ machine in the process, sending him careening out of control and into the wall.

Such an incident has played out various times in the past, often with a tragic result, so the fact that these two came away unharmed — other than their pocket-books — is the best news of all.