In the last quarter century, there have been a number of spectacular crashes that NASCAR fans will never forget. At the top of the list is Dale Earnhardt’s tragic last-lap crash in the 2001 Daytona 500 that cost him his life at the far too young age of 49.
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Then, in only his second career NASCAR Cup event, there was Michael McDowell’s spectacular crash when it barrel rolled 13 times during qualifying in 2008 at Texas Motor Speedway. And McDowell climbed out of the car under his own power, uninjured!
But perhaps the nastiest, most wicked crash that the sport will likely never forget occurred on August 22, 2002, when Mike Harmon was practicing for the Busch Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, when his No. 44 GIC-Mixon Motorsports Chevrolet got loose and went head-on into an unsecured Turn 2 infield entry gate.
His right front tire was going flat and he was trying to slow the car down when physics took over and he slammed into the gate. At the time, an extremely shaken fellow Busch Series competitor Kenny Wallace told the Associated Press, “That’s the worst wreck in NASCAR history.”
How did Harmon wreck it?
Harmon’s car essentially disintegrated into two parts from the impact, with the engine and column coming apart and landing several dozen feet from the car. The steering column somehow wound up under Sauter’s car. But that wasn’t all of it.
After Harmon bounced off the wall and rolled back down the banking, with Harmon’s driver compartment fully exposed due to the impact of the crash, fellow racer Johnny Sauter was trailing Harmon and could not avoid the wreckage, basically t-boning what was left of Harmon’s car.
At first, many in attendance held their breath and the track grew eerily silent, because it appeared as if the initial crash didn’t kill or severely injure Harmon, the resulting follow-up impact from Sauter’s crash, many likely thought, may have done so.
But miraculously, even with all the bent metal around him, Harmon somehow, some way, missed being hit by Sauter’s car by mere inches. Not only that, Harmon then climbed out of the car under his own power and then another miracle happened: he was taken to the infield care center and was released, having suffered just some soreness and a cut on his shoulder.
Meanwhile, Sauter’s mangled car rolled to a stop about 200 feet in front of Harmon’s car and caught fire. Fortunately, rescue workers got Sauter out immediately and, Miracle No. 3, he also emerged uninjured.
After being cleared by doctors, and instead of going home, Harmon came back to qualify his backup car later that afternoon. But unfortunately, after qualifying 41st in the 43 driver field, he ultimately finished 42nd, completing just 33 laps before electrical issues brought his car and his race to a premature end.
Now, nearly a quarter-century since the wreck…
NASCAR celebrated, no, wait, that’s the wrong word, because there’s nothing to celebrate about the crash, other than the fact that Harmon and Sauter both were uninjured.
Rather, a better word for it is to say August 22 marked the 23rd anniversary of Harmon’s wreck. Harmon still has the wreckage of that fateful car and brings it out every now and then to show individuals just how terrible the wreck was.
But in a surprising twist, his first thoughts after climbing out of the car unscathed, boggle the imagination.
Harmon recalls the crash and shows the wreckage
“To be honest with you, I was mad at that time but I didn’t realize how bad it was,” Harmon said in an interview two years ago. The reason he was mad was because he destroyed a brand new race car that had logged just three laps around Bristol before the terrible wreck.
“You know, I just got out and walked off and I knew I had to go to the Infield Care Center. (NASCAR) wouldn’t let me go race again till we went downtown to the hospital. I didn’t see what everybody else saw, so I was there and when they checked me out and everything, released me, told me I was good to go.
“We started out and the receptionist saw it coming on the news and that’s the first time I’d actually seen it. That’s about when knees, like, buckled on me, when I saw what everybody else saw. But, you know, I wasn’t mad no more, let’s put it that way.”
Harmon then delivered the car to be put on display at the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, adjacent to Talladega Superspeedway.
