Ford Mustang AIX Outlaw race car takes flight in Willow Springs crash

If you partake in track days, it is important to remember that anything can and will happen. Sure you're fast and can carve up the turns but unless you have had a high speed off-track adventure you might not know how to react. And if there is an impact, do you have enough safety equipment to walk away just like the driver of the AIX Outlaw Ford Mustang did at Willow Springs did a few weeks back?

Steve Butscher was out there running his Mustang Race car at a NASA event when something started to go wrong. He carried too much speed into turn #8, went wide and then dropped a tire into the dirt. He was doing 208 km/h (130 mph) at the time and decided to keep it straight and not roll the Stang when he knew there was no way to get it back on track. The desert floor is smooth and fast and a few hundred metres later he hit a dirt bump placed in front of a block wall. He hit the wall doing an estimated 100 km/h and the Fox body soared high into the air.

The car flew a total of 21 m (70 feet) and then began to flip before it bounced off a block wall. The onboard camera was ejected and caught some amazing video of the crash aftermath. Butscher is one lucky guy but he also did his due diligence with safety concerns. He spend a year designing and building the cage in the car that he was inspired to craft after watching a Mitsubishi Evo in a horrible crash at Willow Springs. He also has all of the proper safety equipment including: a Sparco racing seat, 5-point harness, window netting and a Hans device. It is unreal to see that he suffered nothing more than some bruising and soreness that only one Advil was able to knock-out.

To check out the full explanation and video of what happened hit the jump.