Extreme Pro Stock racer Trevor Eman rolled to the starting line Saturday morning with his mountain motor-powered Mustang. He lit both pre-stage beams, the right red-light lit and his side went green on a single run.

Eman then braced himself to leave the starting line but this time was different.

Instead of releasing the clutch and the accompanying g-forces kicking in, he held on as his golf cart pulled forward to ease the car down the track.

Eman was the lead driver in a missing man tribute parade honoring Bert Jackson, the Glen Allen, Va.-based driver killed during Friday evening qualifying at the ADRL Dragstock VIII event in Rockingham, NC.

A little over twelve hours earlier Eman was in the same left lane as Jackson, just past half-track, lost control of his Pontiac GXP and made contact with the right lane retaining wall. The throttle apparently hung up on Jackson’s car and according to ADRL officials the car traveled the length of the wall and into the woods, where the speeding race car impacted several row of trees.

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Extreme Pro Stock racer Trevor Eman rolled to the starting line Saturday morning with his mountain motor-powered Mustang. He lit both pre-stage beams, the right red-light lit and his side went green on a single run.

Eman then braced himself to leave the starting line but this time was different.

Instead of releasing the clutch and the accompanying g-forces kicking in, he held on as his golf cart pulled forward to ease the car down the track.

Eman was the lead driver in a missing man tribute parade honoring Bert Jackson, the Glen Allen, Va.-based driver killed during Friday evening qualifying at the ADRL Dragstock VIII event in Rockingham, NC.

A little over twelve hours earlier Eman was in the same left lane as Jackson, just past half-track, lost control of his Pontiac GXP and made contact with the right lane retaining wall. The throttle apparently hung up on Jackson’s car and according to ADRL officials the car traveled the length of the wall and into the woods, where the speeding race car impacted several row of trees.

Varying eyewitness accounts suggest Jackson was fighting to control his out-of-control car up until the time the car went into the woods. At this time, according to a high ranking ADRL official, the parachutes separated and deployed once the car impacted the woods suggesting Jackson could have been rendered incapacitated with the first wall impact.

Just a few hundred feet off of the starting line, Eman had a front-row seat as Jackson impacted the wall. He lost vision from the smoke of Jackson initial impact of what transpired further downtrack.

“I had just gotten bumped out of the field, so I was pretty upset before the run already,” said Eman, competing in only his second full season on the ADRL tour. “I knew this was the session to get up high into the field.”

For Eman, the run could have been redemption from a season where in the last 50 runs has never been able to piece more than two consecutive full runs in a row.

On the fateful run, Eman broke a transmission.

“We blew the transmission just before second gear, and prior to Friday night we hadn’t broken a transmission part in nearly a year. Initially that angered me, and I was looking at the shifter and the gauges. Then I looked up and saw Bert was in trouble. That really freaked me out. I just didn’t know what to think.”

Eman believes on Friday night he learned a harsh reality of the sport early in his career. Jackson’s death represented the first on-track fatality in the history of the eight-year old doorslammer racing series.

“It was the first time we’d seen anyone pass away in our category,” said Eman. “It was the first time I had someone wreck next to me. It really sucks, that’s the only way I can describe it.”

Eman went to the starting line against Jackson on Friday evening trailing 0-2 in head-to-head races. He hoped to put at least one win in the victorious column, if only for personal morale. Instead, Jackson extended his racing dominance over the Aruban to three wins.

“He beat me again on that run,” said Eman. “He beat me in Virginia and did it to me again. But you didn’t mind losing to Bert. He was genuinely one of the nicest guys you would ever meet. Never saw the man with a beer in his hand. Never heard him cuss … he was the kind of guy who would never hurt a fly. It was an honor to be able to race with him all these years. It really sucks that we had to lose him. I know he’s in a better place now.”