We know there are some people out there that firmly believe drag racing is relatively safe. After all, it only involves flooring the throttle and keeping the car in a straight line, but don?t be confused, drag racing is one of the most dangerous sports in the world. Not only is the risk of literally getting airborne during a race always present, but some cars are just so fast and so extreme that they literally blow up, as happened at last weekend?s qualifying session at the zMAX Dragway.

With the exception of jet powered cars, NHRA funny cars are pretty much as fast as they come and in a good run they can complete the quarter-mile in less than 5 seconds. No, really, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is more than twice as fast as the incredible Bugatti Veyron, so hopefully you now have an understanding of how dangerous the sport is.

As you?ll see from the accompanying video, the car being piloted by Matt Hagan was in the lead but just milliseconds away from winning the session, his car literally blew up sending debris across the track and effectively ending the life of one very expensive drag car.[...]