A scary-looking qualifying crash during Saturday’s first session at the Lucas Oil Winternationals at California’s In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip left NHRA Funny Car drivers John Force and JR Todd uninjured.

Force, who initiated the contact when his Peak Chevy Camaro crossed the center line past the finish stripe, was subdued and repentant, while DHL Toyota Supra driver Todd was unintentionally ambushed and angry.

Force’s car jumped around in the right lane and past the finish stripe crossed the center line into Todd’s lane, behind him. He swung around on Todd’s left side, between Todd’s car and the left guard wall, then crossed in front of Todd. Their parachutes became entangled, and Force’s car lurched to the right. Todd was dragged along as Force’s car smashed into the right-side wall. Todd somehow didn’t make contact with anything but Force’s car.

“It had been moving around,” Force said of his race Camaro. “Then boy, all of a sudden, it struck the tires and made a hard left on me and hit the wall. That caused a ricochet, and it came across [the track]. I saw JR’s ’chutes, and I thought I only got the header. I didn’t realize how hard I shoved him into the wall. I’m sorry about that.

“I’m OK. He’s OK. That most important,” Force said. “We’re both just trying to stay in the show.”

Force said, “I hate that. There's a lot of things going. We're trying to keep these cars right, keep them straight. I don’t think I overdrove it . . .  but I’ll have to look at the video. I’m smarter than that. I’m just sorry to hit his car.”

Todd said, “I’m more mad than anything,” because his Supra was a brand-new car. “The thing’s awesome to drive. It really picked up our performance. Now we’ve got to unload the back-up car and an old body and try to win this thing for DHL and Toyota and just everybody that supports us. I can’t thank them enough.”

Todd shared his perspective: “Came up on the finish line, get the ’chutes out like I normally do, come up on the speed cone, ’chutes hit, and the next thing I know ,I feel someone on my left side, which is kind of odd, being in the left lane. There’s not much room between the car and the wall. And next thing I know, I'm getting hit and trying to get spun around. Just really unfortunate.”

Both drivers exited their cars on their own power and were , and both teams were forced to haul out their back-up cars.

Force’s run remained valid because he didn’t cross the center line until after the 1,000-foot course.