Canadian Pro Mod racer Justin Bond has stepped up his performance significantly in 2021 behind the wheel of his Jerry Bickel Race Cars-built 1969 Camaro. Bond has been qualifying well throughout the season and even picked up a win at the final Southern Nationals, but things didn’t go according to plan during the Lucas Oil Nationals when he hit the wall in the first round of eliminations.
Pro Mod racers are a different breed, they have to wrestle a door car down the track that’s trying to go every direction but straight at a high rate of speed. Bond has plenty of experience piloting these machines and knows what it takes to make a successful pass.
A Pro Mod will humble the best drivers on the planet in a split second at any point on the track. Bond’s run looked like it was going to be your average pass until he pulled the chutes. According to Bond, one of the parachutes got tangled up with the car’s wheelie bars after they were deployed and that’s all it took to shoot the car towards the wall. This crash could have been much worse considering Bond had just laid down a 5.763 at 247 MPH.
In this footage from the NHRA, you can see just how quickly the Camaro made a violent left turn when the parachute didn’t deploy properly. Bond did a fantastic job bringing the wounded car to a safe stop as it crossed the track, preventing it from striking the other wall and causing more damage to the Camaro. The team has already evaluated the condition of the car and is working on a plan to have it ready for the next NHRA Pro Mod race at the U.S. Nationals.