Drag Racer Drives Out of Huge Slide

Doorslammer driver somehow keeps Fletcher Cox’s Mustang out of the wall after a lurid half-spin.

Fletcher Cox might have to rename his small-tire turbo Mustang “Brown Dust” after driver Shawn Ayers made one of the most clenching saves you’ll see at the Yellowbullet Nationals.

Cox, an NFL defensive lineman and avid drag racer, picked veteran racer Ayers to drive his “Gold Dust” Mustang last year. This run at the YB Nats might have justified Cox’s choice.

Everything from the start of TheRacingVids’ capture looks good on the hit of the throttle. The bullhorn exhausts spit flames on the two-step and then the turbo Mustang launches beautifully.

Things go wrong, however, about 150 feet in. Right around the shift point, it seems, the car gets super loose and slides toward the center line. Ayers catches the car just in time to punt the 330-foot block into low-earth orbit. From there, he hangs onto a wild tank-slapper as the sliding Fox Body scrubs off speed. The car slides for at least 300 feet — the length of a football field, coincidentally — before stopping with the car facing down-track.

Anybody who says drag racers just point the car down the groove and go is a fool. Ayers drove the hell out of the Mustang in this wild ride. Keeping the gold side up and not smeared down the concrete wall? That’s one whale of a driving job, exactly what you’d expect from a radial-tire ace like Shawn Ayers.

ALSO SEE: What the Forum Has to Say About this Epic Save

NFL star Cox splashed into the doorslammer world with a nitrous-fed Camaro running in the X275 class. He later bought this Mustang as a nitrous car but had it converted to a monster turbo setup. After an initial blue finish, Cox added custom gold paint in tribute to his late brother.

The Mustang has been a major player in eighth-mile racing. The 102-millimeter turbo hanging off the engine is surely defensive-lineman sized. We can appreciate that and we can’t wait to see Ayers making more passes in Gold Dust.