COMING FRIDAY, 9:00 PM, EST. ON THE HISTORY CHANNEL. 

The images still flicker across the mind’s DVD.  A Funny Car is nose first against the right guardrail, bouncing off the concrete as the car makes its way down Englishtown Raceway Park’s 1320-foot racing surface – and every inch of remaining asphalt before finally bouncing into the trees.

Johnny West would have had the best view of anyone in the large crowd if he hadn’t been knocked out when his Banzai Chevy Beretta Funny Car turned into a battering ram and whacked the wall not far from the starting line in the final round.

COMING FRIDAY, 9:00 PM, EST. ON THE HISTORY CHANNEL. Repeats: Saturday, February 16 - 1:00 AM, EST, Saturday, February 16, 8:00 PM, EST.

The images still flicker across the mind’s DVD.  A Funny Car is nose first against the right guardrail, bouncing off the concrete as the car makes its way down Englishtown Raceway Park’s 1320-foot racing surface – and every inch of remaining asphalt before finally bouncing into the trees.

Johnny West would have had the best view of anyone in the large crowd if he hadn’t been knocked out when his Banzai Chevy Beretta Funny Car turned into a battering ram and whacked the wall not far from the starting line in the final round.

He’s seen the TV replays, but “I still don’t remember any of the run.  It knocked me out as soon as I hit the wall,” he said. “All I remember is them putting me in an ambulance and hauling me away.”

So why has an accident that occurred in 1990 at the New Jersey track resurfaced?  Thank the History Channel and its “Shockwave” program that focuses on, appropriately, those who walked away from various calamities.

Johnny West . . . Come on Down.

“I think they are trying to capitalize on survival issues with major catastrophes and, God be willing, He helped save me,” said West, who climbed out of the driver’s seat in 1995 to concentrate on making his car go fast from the mechanical – and less dangerous – side of racing.  “It was a pretty disastrous crash and it indicates how safe our sport was 17 years ago, and still is, as far as all the NHRA and SFI rules go with chassis specifications.”

It didn’t take long for West’s ride to turn vicious.  “The fuel line came off as soon as I hit the throttle,” he recalled, “putting fuel under the right tire. The car smoked the tires and the left tire just drove me into the wall and kept me there.  I went into the trees when the guardrail ended.

“The front end was bent (from the initial impact) and that kept the car going right.  It just kept tagging the wall, rubbing up against it, and that’s what kept me going in that direction.  Luckily it didn’t turn the other way and send me across the track.”

The various impacts did, however, take their toll.

“I broke my arm, a couple or ribs . . . and my pocketbook,” he lamented. “It was never a big deal for me to drive.  I did it because I couldn’t afford to pay somebody to drive the car.  I found it more lucrative to have drivers come in with their sponsorship money rather than for me to drive full time.”

West is still active in the mechanical side of the sport, serving as co-crew chief on Clay Millican’s Top Fuel dragster.

A date for the show's airing has not been announced.

WATCH THE VIDEO OF THE ACCIDENT