Up until a week ago, Daniel Pharris described his driving status as piloting a Radial vs. The World Corvette. It's a term, he says, will never have the same feeling.

Pharris, during the semi-finals of the Radial Revenge Tour, had the misfortune of becoming the pilot of an identified flying object, an airborne Corvette which pulled a massive wheelstand and took flight. The errant race car flew an estimated 60-feet into the air before floating to a reasonably smooth landing in the shutdown area of Tulsa Raceway Park.

"It really didn't settle in what had happened to me until about an hour afterward," Pharris admitted. "I piloted that car. I was kind of waiting on the FAA to show up to do an inspection.

"When I got out of the car, I held my hands up like, ‘Hey everybody, I’m alright. Thanks for coming."

"As soon as everybody watched me get out, it sounded like I just set the record. The crowd went crazy. It was a good feeling to get out of that car and hear all those people clapping and screaming, it was just unreal. Just an unbelievable feeling. You know you got that many people watching you and running down there to check on you. I felt like I was just surrounded by 3,000 people in my family."

Pharris admitted, although he never hoped for such an experience, wasn't surprised when it transpired.

"Every time I get in that car, or any car really, you’ve got to know part of it is a risk," Pharris said. "You’ve just got to prepare yourself that anything could happen at any time, at any point in the run. As soon as you let off that button, you had better be prepared for something to happen. Whether it’s a wheel falling off, an oil line blowing off, fire or the other guy to come across and hit you. You’ve just got to be prepared."

Pharris said his car had a tendency to wheelstand before the April 1, 2017 incident, and in the past, a simple pedal-job would bring the front-end back down.

"Unfortunately this time when I did pedal it, it didn’t agree with me, and it went on up," Pharris explained. "It’s kind of a weird, eerie feeling flying through the air, you kind of got a little bit of time to think, ‘Okay, well there’s nothing I can do at this point but to brace myself and when it comes back down, get the chute out wherever I’m at on the track and try to get the thing stopped."

Pharris admitted his biggest concern was to get the car down to the ground as smoothly as possible, get it stopped and escape.

"You know it's not a matter of if these cars will crash, it's when will they crash," Pharris said. "That’s the nature of the class, and the style of cars that we’re racing.

"There were a combination of things that happened during that run that caused our car to do that. You know, there was not one factor of making that car do that, that wasn’t there. Whether it was the way I pedaled it, whether it was the time that the car shifted and loaded the motor. You know, there were too many factors there, and not enough chances to bring it back down to earth."

Pharris believes maybe his incident and others should inspire some dialogue regarding additional safety additions to prevent these cars from becoming 2500-pound plus projectiles.

"It has been brought up several times amongst the few guys that have been in that particular situation, about whether its roof flaps or wind flaps or something to keep the cars from A, going over on the roof, B, turning sideways," Pharris explained. "Even though that car never went over backward, it still could have come down and slid sideways and barrel rolled very easily.

"A wind flap or a roof flap, or something like that in that kind of state like NASCAR uses wouldn’t have prevented the car from barrel rolling. But as far as the car coming up and getting in the air, who’s to say a wind flap or some kind of wind device or something would have kept it on the ground. I don’t know.

"It’s kind of hard to test that theory. You don’t want to go out and destroy a car just to test something. But everybody now is saying, ‘Oh well it’s probably not a bad idea to maybe have a wheelie bar."

"For a lot of guys, that’s kind of an ego thing, ‘Well I can go 3.70’s with no wheelie bar, I don’t need that’. Well, even if the car never touches it, it’s a safety item."

Pharris believes the biggest detractor for adding wheelie bars to these Radial cars is the potential to upset the tire. And even the thought of requiring wheelie bars is perceived as blasphemy to the seasoned radial tire racers. Pharris believes today's Radial cars are a far cry from what this type racing began with.

"The spirit of the class, which is what we’re so passionate about, is the fact we can take a stock bodied car, like our Vette, it’s stock rockers, factory quarters, factory rear deck lid, factory rear bumper and run it at Pro Mod speeds and 500 more pounds than a Pro Mod," Pharris said. "That’s kind of the spirit of the class that makes us real passionate about the fact that we can do that with that type of car at that much weight. Just from the outside looking in, a car running 3.70’s at over 210 miles per hour is pretty damn impressive."

Pharris expects to have the Corvette back in three weeks, as it is already at the chassis shop undergoing repairs. The car suffered damage, but was not overwhelmingly broken.

"The strut bars were shoved up; they’ll need to be replaced along with all the shock stuff obviously," Pharris said. "But as far as the main structure and the double frame rail in the car was not hurt."

Whether or not the repaired car has wheelie bars or not, depends on car owner Andrew Alepa.

"I’m going to leave that up to him," Pharris said. "If they want to put a wheelie bar on it, fine. I vote yes, just for the safety of it. You know, I really don’t want to go through that again, obviously."

But, hey publicity is publicity.

"I’m just an old hillbilly from Southeast Missouri letting off a button," Pharris said. "I’m like, ‘God dang,' I never thought making a Vette fly through the sky would give me this much press."