Tommy D’Aprile has had a few fender scrapers, caught on fire before and bumped a wall or two in his doorslammer days but on Friday evening at the ADRL Hardee’s Georgia Drags, he experienced his first official, full-fledged crash.

D’Aprile, driving temporarily for Mel Eaves, slid the nitro-burning Camaro into the wall when oil apparently got under the tires. A day after the fiery wall impact, D’Aprile was making the rounds at the track.

“I’m a little sore on my left side,” said D’Aprile, who is the full-time driver for Mel Bush Motorsports. “The car left, it was on a good run. As evident by the computer and the pictures we’ve seen, it either broke or lost an oil line or what have you, but it sprayed completely under the left side of the car which got the left tire spinning and right hooking and it just drove it left hard. That was it; I was along for the ride after that.”

Tommy D’Aprile has had a few fender scrapers, caught on fire before and bumped a wall or two in his doorslammer days but on Friday evening at the ADRL Hardee’s Georgia Drags, he experienced his first official, full-fledged crash.

D’Aprile, driving temporarily for Mel Eaves, slid the nitro-burning Camaro into the wall when oil apparently got under the tires. A day after the fiery wall impact, D’Aprile was making the rounds at the track.

“I’m a little sore on my left side,” said D’Aprile, who is the full-time driver for Mel Bush Motorsports. “The car left, it was on a good run. As evident by the computer and the pictures we’ve seen, it either broke or lost an oil line or what have you, but it sprayed completely under the left side of the car which got the left tire spinning and right hooking and it just drove it left hard. That was it; I was along for the ride after that.”

This weekend’s outing marked the first time in his career that D’Aprile had driven a car with nitromethane in the tank.

Photos of the crash show a car engulfed in flames with a scary scene for onlookers.  

“The odd thing is that I was at perfect peace with what was going on,” admitted D’Aprile. “I knew something happened and I knew something broke or was leaking oil and there was nothing I could do, and I figured hey I’m in here, ‘I’m tied in good … these cars are built the way they were. I never really thought of anything. The first hit was the left wall, the nitro exploded, because that is nitro in that car. It made a heck of a boom and it came in the car real good and then I guess the only time I got concerned was when it ramped and I was going toward the other wall and I was like, ‘alright one more hit.”

The former driver for Quain Stott never lost consciousness as he made contact with the wall.

“Quain and I used to say that it’s not if, it’s when an accident is going to happen. Eventually when you do this long enough it does happen. It’s part of the game, it’s doesn’t faze me one bit, I know my ability in a race car, and I know we’re going to be just fine.”

And, D’Aprile is fine after his first nasty crash.