Jay Leno in 2000kW drag car crash

Even if you’re one of America’s – hell, the world’s premier car collectors and a heck of a nice guy to boot, sometimes it’s just not your day.

Jay Leno’s afternoon started well enough; after all, he was ticking an item off his mist-do list he’d wanting to do since he was a kid.

Stuntman Bob Riggle, now 80 years old, had caught a young Jay’s eye with his performances in the famed Hurst Hemi under Glass machine, a series of mid-engined Plymouth Barracudas built by Hurst Performance between 1965 and 1975.

Based around a Hemi V8 drag engine making a modest 2,500bhp shoved through the passenger door and into the rear seat with sole intention of ripping off some sick wheelies, Jay had lined up a ride alongside the octogenarian stuntman in one of three replicas of a 1968 machine for his TV show.

Up until that point, Bob had only crashed once in his long and illustrious career… but that was all about to change.

From the vision, it looks like the rear of the Barracuda got unsettled over a bump, shortening Bob’s braking margin and forcing him into an early turn, where the big, stiff car caught an edge on a small banked part of the track and flipped over.

Both gents emerged from the upright roll unharmed, though, we’d suggest they’d both need some Nurofen in the morning.

The car will need a reshell, but the monster motor apparently survived to wheelie another day.