Jun 2012 27

What would pass through your head if a car was coming straight for you?  Surprisingly, I thought “how dope is this?”  Covering the Formula Drift event in NJ this past weekend, there was a wild crash between Tyler McQuarrie and Chelsea Denofa.  Tyler smacked his rear bumper into the guard rail and Chelsea tried to avoid Tyler, also hit the railing and then uprooted what was left of Tyler’s rear.  Tyler’s car just about cart wheeled the guard rail.  And I caught all of this with my camera just feet away from the crash.  Now it’s pretty typical to shoot these cars as they near the apex on the bank then turn your head quickly for the oncoming rubber onslaught.  But to see such an explosive crash pitching debris yards away, I was amazed I barely flinched.  Something about holding a camera in front of me made me feel protected and if the cars somersaulted, hopefully someone would develop the pictures after my demise.  Pic, pic, pic, DUCK!  When Tyler’s car mounted the guard rail for a brief second, I lowered the camera to get a truer view of his direction before raising it back up for the aftermath pictures.

The most kick-ass thing about all of this is the million Go-Pro cameras mounted over both drift cars caught the action.  As I stared right at Tyler’s car barreling down my lens, I noticed all the cameras and now you can pick me out from both drivers’ videos.

Check out Tyler’s view:

Tyler’s lead run starts at 51 seconds in the video linked to the picture above; if you scroll slowly through 1:04-1:05, you can see me just behind a cone 

Check out Chelsea’s view:

Right around 16 seconds, Chelsea’s camera is pointed straight at me (screenshot above).  There’s a slow-mo version of the crash at the end of the video.

It’s insane how violent it looks in the videos and how close Chelsea was to punting Tyler’s car over the guard rail!  Still, how dope is that???

You can check out my pictures of the crash here.  If you want more info about the crash, MotoIQ radio is going to have Chelsea, Vaughn Gittin Jr (NJ winner), and Joon Maeng on tonight at 10pm EST.  You can check out the live stream here and I may even pop in for a few minutes.