The Dark Past that Inspired a Positive Future

It's been three years since [Name] pulled him out of his car, an incident that shook him to his core and left him feeling broken for a long time. "You know it broke stuff inside of me for a long time," he recalls. The event was a traumatic experience, one that had a profound impact on his life and those around him. His family, in particular, was shaken by the incident, but [Name] notes that it brought them closer together.

As [Name] struggled to come to terms with what happened, he began to realize that his actions after the incident were not what they seemed. "I wasn't honest with my family," he admits. He had a tendency to put on a brave face and pretend everything was fine, even though inside, he was still reeling from the aftermath of the accident. "Hero syndrome" might be one way to describe it – the desire to present a strong exterior when in reality, you're struggling with your emotions.

But as time went on, [Name] began to open up about his feelings and experiences. He started to talk about the incident more openly, including how it had affected him and those around him. This newfound willingness to discuss his emotions helped him process what had happened and find a way forward. "It was a tough part," he says, "but I think that's where the growth came from."

One of the ways [Name] has been able to move forward is by looking at the incident in a different light. He notes that it brought him closer to his family, particularly his son and wife, who are both involved in racing. The experience taught him to be more cautious and appreciative of life, and he's grateful for that.

For [Name], the car itself has become a symbol of what could have been if he hadn't taken certain precautions. "I look at it now," he says, "and I know that it was bad, but also...I think it's a reminder to me that there are always risks in life, and sometimes they can be really scary." He's chosen to display the car on his wall as a reminder of what could have happened, and as a symbol of how lucky he is to still be alive.

The incident has also had an impact on [Name]'s family. His son, who now races himself, has learned from [Name]'s experience and has become more cautious on the track. "He walks the track now," [Name] notes, "and goes around saying, 'Okay, this corner has a lot of dirt.' That's something I used to do when I was racing – it's just a habit that's stuck with me." The incident has also helped [Name]'s family become more supportive and appreciative of each other.

In the end, [Name] feels grateful for what happened. He notes that if he hadn't been pulled from the car at the time he was, his life could have taken a very different turn. "I don't know if I would be here today," he says, "but...I think we're blessed." The incident has taught him to appreciate life and relationships more, and he feels grateful for the positive changes it's brought into his family.

The story of [Name]'s car is a powerful reminder that even in the darkest moments, there can be growth and positivity. It's a testament to the human spirit's ability to adapt and overcome adversity, and a tribute to the importance of relationships and gratitude in our lives.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign and AJ looked back at me and I was like what the was that he's like and all of a sudden the car goes guys right now we're running three entries for every dollar you spend on 1320video.com to win this GTR and 15 000 this is a full bolt-ons GTR making it 650 all-wheel horsepower on 85. perfect amount of power for the street all this can be yours all you got to do is go to 1320video.com right now every dollar you spend is three entries to win this car 15 grand I'm koi Christmas and today I'm telling you the story about how everything went wrong everything also went right well so I got started in racing you know a couple about a decade ago easily started getting into a little more hot and heavy starting with the GTR areas where I really enjoyed it working with cisio performance and those guys out there and really the reason why we started on the GTRs was because that was my wife's car and bought it for her for her I can't remember it's 2011 we got a 2012 GTR for and I got it for her birthday and man she bought her pants on that one that was a good it's a good way to keep a wife and then from there uh like everybody else that has GTR they want it to go faster so we started doing that and we started going full bolt on and then full bolt-on wasn't enough and we had to move out from the 3.8 liter to a 4.1 liter and then it was a 4.3 liter and it was bigger turbos and more a better transmission and then pretty soon we had ourselves a race rocket if you will for my wife's car and then I was jealous because her cars were significantly faster than mine so I had to go buy a GTR and I got into the GTRs and I actually really enjoyed the full bolt-on and I had a blast with that but then I moved to I think it was I forgot what cecio called it um it was a something plus kit and so I moved into that and that was pushing about 1250 horsepower somewhere on there now my wife was pushing like 1600 at the time before she went up to like 2600 when she got this really big you know really big power but it was still it was a lot of fun to drive and I enjoyed it we started going out to the tracks we started racing doing the the drag strip ones obviously going down like the fl2ks and Texas 2ks and uh we'd go to the uh the summit Raceway which I think was in Ohio we go to a couple different places we'd race a lot down there but one place we did get to go race so we enjoyed a lot was driving down to Brainerd brainer International Raceway when I was uh was there I started noticing these Billboards and poster signs and they kind of said they said things like hey we have um Proving Grounds which was one event that they do that like twice a year and improving Grounds was a lot of fun I'm trying I can't remember the name of the the company that would put that on I know the guy's name was Dan or Dana or something like that but anyhow it was a super Super Awesome event and you do it twice a year and you got to do a bunch of different activities they had like drifting and things like that and then the other one they had in summer was called Power Crews and so we did our first Power Cruise and I think it was around 20 14 some around there and we did our first Power cruise and we were we we thought we're the only people with GTRs and that's how I met my buddy AJ because I was over there driving around and I was like wait a second so he parked and I pulled up next to him I said you should do Tiana he's like yeah I said oh man did we just become friends and we started talking I was like are you ex-military and he's like yeah and I'm like oh my God we're like buzzing buddies now just like Step Brothers you know I'm like oh we're best friends so we we I mean it was I I should not like two weeks after that he was up at my house jumping out of an airplane I mean that's how he was like hey man I'm gonna go up there to jump on an airplane can I come set your place I'm like come on and so like a friendship was born and it's been like that ever since I mean we've been next to each other everywhere as a matter of fact we we pretty much moved together we moved out of he was living in Minnesota I was in Wisconsin about two hour and a half hours away he's in the cities I was up in the Twin ports and then he moved to Arizona and I'm like I guess it's time to move to Arizona my wife said there's you get no argument out of me so we moved to Arizona when did Texas 2K and that's when I just bought the uh Ford GT I had a yellow uh GT with black stripes it was like 1300 horsepower well Cisco performance had built it up I took the supercharger out put twin turbos on it and it you know it was just that was a that was a badass car that you you have to know how to drive that car or you will kill yourself there is no it's all driver mod in that car uh the Ford GT has no help at all and that is just so fast I got that and uh other friends of mine is like uh paren um prin and Chris they're over at Chicago motor cars and I was talking to them and I'm like dude you know I really want to I really want to check out a Lambo I want a skittles car you know that's what I call them a skittles cars because we've been driving around the GTRs we've been doing it for so long and my wife was like a thousand plus horsepower over me and I'm like I don't want to get my ass kicked by her all the time she already gets all the I mean 13 20 we sit there and cover all the time you know I was like oh look here's a woman just freaking cracked the 7-1 you know I mean it's like yeah you know not to mention her language on the track is always an amusable is amusing you know so I pretty girls tell you what man when we get back because it was at Texas 2K because when we get back this was like 20 2017 I think it was he goes when we get back I got one I'll send it to you just drive it let me know what you think he knew what he was doing so I get this white one comes in I get it and actually I didn't even drive it at first my son drove it he took it to prom and everything else it was like a 2015 you know it wasn't the perfect Monty it was the regular Huracan and uh but it's still you know it's just it sounded badass it just felt good I was like this car is the so I said I get the car I trade in the the GTR I immediately wrapped this car this crazy color they put these badass wheels on it you know the same wheels that I've got here um and then I did a crazy powder coat and stuff and everybody called it uh Skittles the thing is what everybody was calling it was because it just looked all crazy looked like a tie-dye right took it down to the car show people were like holy this is amazing and then I was like yeah this is great and I was like but it's not quite fast enough I'm like it's it's cool it's a Lamborghini but we need some more power and we need to put a different presence on it right so I'm like all right let's pull the wrap off of this called up I mean geez this wasn't even four months later I pick up the phone and I call up and I call print up and say hey will you take this car back you know that give it now take it back because it's something wrong I'm like can I trade it in and get a different one he's like yeah and I said well I want to get one or the perfumantes you know because I'd put like a 1610 wing on spoiler on the back of that one stuff to make it look cool but it wasn't a perfect Monday I wanted the perfect Monte so he's like yeah I've got one I said great I'm not even take delivery of it send it down to underground racing and I'd met Kevin and Casey but most I talked to Kevin the most and I talked to Kevin I'm like look man would you hook me up with a a package and I think it was a state they call it the stage three uh it was a State Street was what the first one was the stage three and then um I drove around and beat the shot of it and when I finally got it and you got it done for me really quick and I was like this this is great but I want to go faster thank you thank you foreign the difference between driving the GTR and driving the Lamborghini in with power like that because there's similar power the difference was it felt like the GTR when it was going it would go you hit your gears and stuff and it feels like you get to Top Gun and it's like the Lamborghini felt like it's like let's keep going instead of being like like slingshot like it was like pulling you you know and you're just like oh my God it's just the coolest freaking sound you could possibly have imagine being inside those underground racing Lamborghinis so take off in that car and uh and we're doing uh we did the power Crews that year and AJ's with me and we're doing power Crews and we get beat uh well it wasn't with AJ in the car I had another guy in a car named Adam um and we got beat by this mustang and he was like one of those uh Lebanon twin turbo type setups and he was pushing like 1600 horse and he just you know he was going we were neck to neck because obviously I'm a lighter car and everything we're going on the street we're doing it straight supposed to be 100 we're doing like 215. so we're hauling down there and then all of a sudden he hit the scramble button and he's just like I'm gonna blow the car type thing you know and he's like what I was like what in the hell so I picked up the phone and I I think I was at like 1350 horsepower or something like that with ugr so I call up and I talked to Kevin I'm like man I just had a Mustang whoop my ass he's like what and I'm like yeah he's got some power in it but he whooped my ass we're gonna do about he's like koi I can't do anything more to the car you need to put a Billet Transmission in there I said it's coming back baby so we sent it back put the bullet Transmission in it and then I'm like all right we're wrapping this bad boy Invader because I'm coming back with a vengeance baby so we did and we wrapped it up and um I was like we're coming up the design of it you know I was like all right what's I really like purple purple's my favorite color so I want to call it something really cool but then I was like dude let's kind of do like kind of like a retro 80s Miami Vice type look type thing to it so then we did it and then we put Vader on the front of the hood I was like oh man dude because I I got gold chains and stuff not like crazy like that one well actually I have a gold chain now it has Vader on it I should have wore that damn thing I forgot about that so um anyhow I was like yeah so I was like dude let's put the chain cup down right on the front emblem of the Lamborghini so it looks like a pimp chain right so we called him pimp Vader and that's how this thing was basically became what it was so the next year shows up and we're like and I had this car for two let's call it two power cruises okay so next year um we show up with this bad boy and I've got all the juice in it now you know I mean it's been upgraded it's like the stage three plus plus if you will type thing I'm running ms-109 with VP inside the import I mean it's a two to one mix type setup in there I mean you're talking freaking rocket fuel I mean it obviously because the thing they couldn't put the damn fire out but we would load up I mean for us to get ready to go into Brainerd it's a full-blown event I got a big Duel not the duel I got the big 250 double car I got a double car and a single uh trailer we've got the we've got the Ford GT loaded up on there we've got the R34 load up there which is a thousand horsepower made by Cisco as well you've got uh and then you've got Vader which is this bad boy so we got those three cars there right and Vader you know is is pushing some reasonably you know pretty good power but you know I've got that underground racing gestapo claws so I'm not allowed to tell you how fast it was but I'll just say it had all of it you know what I mean so we're getting ready we're heading down we got all the stuff we got all the cars we've got our trailers we've got a you know a pull behind you know like a 43 foot camper and stuff we're staying I mean this is a show I mean when you go to when you go to Power Cruise there's a lot of people there A lot of cars you got about 800 cars I think that year was like one of the biggest years he had to air we know all the guys here from Australia uh pretty much that's gup he's the main guy that runs it and the other thing that was big about it for me was AJ was leaving he had already been he already used my truck and everything and drive down to Arizona and moved his stuff he'd already left you know earlier that year everything was like maybe May or June you know and I was like hey he's like cool I got to come back up to get some stuff you know and he's got his boy with him uh Gabe and he's like hey I gotta come back get some stuff I got to get a couple things here do this that everything else get ready for the house to sell that kind of stuff and I'm like dude do you want to come up power cruise and let's let's rip it and he's like yeah and I was like dope well I tried to do something a little bit more exciting besides this year and we've done it now for many years and it's because everybody always asks me hey coy can I get it right in your car because that's the thing everybody wants to ride in the car so this year I'm like you know what dude I'm spending all this money and everything I'm gonna charge for it right but I'm not going to charge anybody they give me whatever they want it's a donation and then all the money was going to um I'm trying to remember it was uh the crews for Cancer all the money went to the cruise for cancer which you raised like over five grand in two days because I didn't make the third day but we go um we have this this big list everybody signing up and then they gave me a donation like one person gave me a thousand bucks you know I mean they're like hey here's a thousand bucks thank you very much it's great it's going to a good cost right and we did it and I forget it was for what um a young boy that had leukemia so we do this thing called a cruise for cancer up in the Twin ports to get a little sideline uh and we do it every year and all the money comes together for that and then we give that to we choose a kid I don't but you know the group does chooses a kid and we give that to them some you know somebody that's dying from cancer or leukemia or what's a similar they're saying you know something that's going really really wrong right and it's been it's an absolute great thing for people to do well AJ's like yeah dude I'll get done with my stuff I'll come up there you know I'll come see you that sounds good and I'm like okay so that was Thursday right and Thursday you just kind of get there and set everything up you can't go do anything until Friday so Friday morning is the first day you get to go out there and do do your racing so I've already got people all lined in a minute and then you got to take your little classes your safety class right it says if you get in an accident or fire like that don't get out of your car yeah well I didn't so anyhow damn that hit me right there um so anyhow we uh we drove around at our stuff and that night I was sitting there and I was like man I swear that like this car is not firing on all cylinders you know I mean I feel like it's it's moving but it's not it's not like just you know it's got more right I know it's got more so AJ's like well let's check the spark plugs out in the morning it must have been like freaking four o'clock in the afternoon or something like that right on Friday and I'm like I don't think I have enough of them I think I've got like eight so AJ's like calling every texting calling whatever every single autopod store auto parts store within the area because we're trying to make sure we've got the right the right spark plugs right and he finds two more so we get them and then that morning it was early I just put on my flight suit because we were wearing these flight suits it was so much fun about flight suits like the real Air Force issue flight suits for my son and my and for my wife and for myself we had these little names we might have like uh Darth Vader on it like that on the home of patch you know and my son says I forgot what his was and I think my wife actually was like eat a bag of dicks or something like that no I said no lift Alex I said no lift Alex because she does talk like that so so I'm like oh man we um we started changing out the spark plugs and I think it was the uh number 12 torque or something like that that we lost that we couldn't we were trying to get down there because it had fallen down and we're like oh crap I'm like well I don't think it's gonna mess anything up I don't know if the torque was the one that was the big problem or not but who knew so if we get all the spark plugs changed and they're already they're already sitting ready doing like their very first like runs around and it's taking a little bit longer than we anticipated because we had to move a couple stuff we'd never done it before and we got everything just dialed in just right so I'm like hey AJ you uh let's go take this thing out on the street to make sure everything's good now I had not been in a a major car accident or something and I put it this way I've been driving cars that are you know four four digit horsepower cars for like so long now that it didn't seem like anything to me you just get it you step on the gas it's like people like oh my God it's so powerful I'm like it's not that fast and once you've drove Air Force One when I won Texas 2K uh roll racing and you do 230 miles an hour down the strip in a car like that you realize this ain't in powerwise right but it really is but you don't think about it right you feel indestructible so you know this particular car didn't even have a roll cage in it you know I didn't have any it had a fire suppression system in it we forgot to pull the switch but didn't have the roll cage or anything like that in there and because of what we're doing on this track you don't wear any helmets no safety gear no nothing it's just your seatbelt Rock alone you go and you're not supposed to you can't like cross each of those Lanes do the Apex stuff like that you stay in your lanes that's what you're supposed to do not everybody does what they're supposed to do but it is what it is right so we go out on the highway and the way this car works is that you have to warm it up for like say five to ten minutes right and then you have to drive it for 10 miles before you get it that's what Kevin told me to do and that's what I do every single time and we never we never had any problem with the cars I mean every car that I've had from underground race and never had a problem with it it just drove as it's supposed to drive if I listen to the rules you know I mean that's why you get the rules so we track it down and we go down we go up uh I forgot what that highway is we go up that Highway and we go for about 10 minutes and we do a loop around we come back and it's like you ready to get it and he's like yes hit it and we hit it and we were it was like and we looked at each other like and both our arms our hairs were standing up and we're like oh it's hitting on all cylinders now and I'm like yes it is he's like oh we're about to go mess someone up I get the first one I'm going with you first go buy real quick go buy the trailer real quick let me drop some stuff off real quick let's just get in line and so I go back there and one of my old employees his name is we called him Big Ben Ben Gregory he's like six foot ten he's a massive tall guy and he's like okay I'm ready for a race I'm like hey hold on man we just changed everything out we changed the spark plugs out so now we're gonna go you know give this thing a wheel so we go around and we hit it the first time and we're just like oh my God this is this is gonna be fun and everybody there knows AJ and I I mean I say like we're the most popular people on the planet but we always bring them probably the more exotic cars that are out there um and and they're obviously really fast and we get along with everybody I mean when you get done racing stuff you go grab yourself a solo cup fill up some Southern Comfort Diet Coke that's my my choice of poison and we walk around he talked to everybody you go to Camp fires and you have yourself a good time that's the whole point again it's like an engagement you know so we go out there we go to track we go around boom I forgot what turn that is I think it's like turn nine or something like that and we make the turn and these guys in this uh I forgot the guys names but they're in the white um Evo there's a couple of them in there and you know they're pushing some power too I mean not this power but they're pushes of power and they're all I mean they might have been eight nine hundred thousand horsepower somewhere around there right and so we pull up next to each other and AJ's sitting on the passenger side he's filming I'm on the left stage he's sitting there filming and we come around in this one corner there's a bridge and that's how you come into the place so you go and basically what you do is right when you get up to the bridge and everybody guns it right coming around and we get it and I hit it I'm in like second gear it's like get it it's like when you get it you don't pull the paddles like that you just step on the gas and it's gone right and you just kind of manure it and we got it and it was like second gear and then third gear and I think we're doing a little over 100 maybe about 110 or so and right then you heard whoop just like that and I looked at AJ and AJ looked back at me and I was like what the was that he's like and also the car goes and the car starts spinning as soon as it happened I grabbed the wheel and tried to bring it back and I'm holding the wheel to the point where for two weeks my all my re my my forearms were so sore to just even grabbed like a glass and take a drink out of because I've been holding it for so hard and I'm like we're gonna hit that wall we weren't even close to the wall but I already knew in my head I'm like we're gonna hit that wall on my foot on the brake everything there's we're done right and I mean it just felt like we had so much freaking time from the point that happened so when I hit the freaking wall right and it really wasn't that fast I mean we saw the video of it which we found AJ's phone inside the car after this thing got destroyed and he's got he had he built the phone so it would work because it was on fire and everything was completely screwed and it shows it was like less than a second and a half like one point one point five seconds less than that before when that happened when we hit the wall but it felt like it was like forever so I looked at AJ and I mean you have a thousand things going through your head I'm like he's supposed to go home tomorrow to fly back to Arizona to be with his wife in his Littles you know because he's got Littles and I'm like I'm looking at him and I'm like son of a you know I'm mad at myself now right there's nothing I could have done what happened happened but there is a way to like mitigate risk you know let's try to figure out the best way so I I mean all this is going through my head in this short period of time and as I looked over to AJ I said brace we're going to hit the wall he's like oh and I saw him like put his hands up like this right we have the windows down right obviously and I'm holding the wheel and I'm like all right do I let the car hit on the back end right which is the motor and everything and I'm like that's gonna be a bomb that's not a good idea because we got the racer fuel in here and everything's in there now I probably could have done a little bit better job but you know what happened happened I knew better to hit the front because I'm like if we hit the front we're going to just we're gonna die because we're going way too fast to hit that K barrier like that it's just not going to be good and I'm like it's I can't hit it on AJ's side it's not his fault I'm the responsible part of here I'm driving the car this is my this is my choice you know I made the bed I sleep in it so I'm like all right I'm gonna take it and hit the wall and I saw it sliding in and I shoo not right before I hit that wall man I got scared as shh it came in so fast and I was like and I leaned over so I wouldn't be against the wall right here or against the door I should say so I leaned over and that was it that was the last thing I can remember was I remember was like that loud sound and the next thing I know I'm like AJ you're ripping my ass you're ripping my ass AJ you're ripping my this is literally what I'm telling him I had my flight soon I had it tied around like this and he's dragging me from the car I can't see anything like nothing I can't see anything at all dragged me from the car and my pants came off so he's pulling my ass she could cross the graph across the the road and it's just ripping it to shreds like a grater right that I'm bleeding all my ass right and I didn't even know the accident even happened you know I knew the accident hit but I didn't know the severity of it right I'm like what are you doing you're ripping my ass he's like Coy the car is going to blow up we gotta go I'm like you're ripping my ass he goes like because you're heaviest a car is going to blow up I gotta so these toys dragging me and that's just you know AJ's a retired Blackhawk pilot you know did his two tours over there you know a real good man and he's a guy that understands he doesn't run from danger he runs into Danger I didn't realize realize that I had split my head open as wide as I had and to the point where and I've seen the videos afterwards and obviously I was at the hospital and got the 30 stitches and stuff you know I I didn't realize that I'm like AJ I'm sort of talking to him like I couldn't see I could hear everything but my I was completely blind and since then I have to wear glasses now um because that obviously damaged something but I couldn't see anything and he goes and he's like cool you're bleeding really bad man I got I can't let you go I said dude can I just lay down he's like no you cannot lay down and I'm like what and I'm like What's in my hand and he's like he has his thumb in this hole in my head to keep it from bleeding because it was just born down blood and I'm like what the you know and he's like I can't and I'm like Duke and so I can't remember somebody finally showed up and sat behind me so I can lean back because I I had no my body just felt like right you know it just was jelly only thing I thought about was oh am I gonna die because I couldn't see so I asked AJ probably like seven eight times hey man am I gonna die no you're not gonna die quick I'll be okay am I gonna die no man you're not gonna gay he didn't know if I was or was not I was white as a ghost and I'm already white I was really really really really really really really white and he's just holding on to me like this and I could hear everybody and now you could hear the commotion of people and stuff and the ambulance then the ambulance shows up and my neck was all jacked up and ever since that happened my back's been just jacked so um they get me in the in the in the gurney I think it's what it's called you know a little stretcher lay me down they put this big crazy brace around my neck and stuff I mean well I don't even know what happened to AJ I didn't know the car was on fire I didn't even seen the car I didn't realize that AJ had just literally changed the rest of his life because of me I mean his hands are permanently because he had to go through the fire and I was on fire because it all came out of the gas tank and it was all up up my window and over the Flames were 20 feet up in the air and it was the racing field I couldn't put it out and and I just remember get in there and it wasn't until they they brought the the amp the actual stretcher and banged it on to bring it in the ambulance when they did that all of a sudden I could see again and I saw the the light above and I'm like where's AJ and AJ was up in the front and they're like dude and I couldn't see him because I couldn't turn and all I could hear was man you're really burnt really bad are you okay he's like I don't know man I'm hurt a lot bad but I'm okay that's fine let's get into the hospital right and I didn't even see the severity of his hands how bad he was burnt and he looked like you know like the drum that goes around on the on on the the score with the fire on you know I mean like a pig I mean it was jacked so my wife gets in the car and you know it kind of shed a little more fun on it you know have a little spin on it and my last name is Christmas first name is obviously koi but I like having fun with it so they're like all right let's see how let's see how are you feeling buddy you're feeling okay you know and I'm like yeah yeah and they're like all right man look you got a really you really smacked your head button so we need to ask you a couple questions to make sure you're okay can you give us your name I said yes it's Henry Halloween and my wife goes koi Christmas he's laughing I'm laughing they're like ah he's fine he's fine so we fight we've shed some light on it right we had some fun and I gotta tell you the one thing I will say is that AJ and I have made a I mean obviously we've bled together so we're bonded for life it's just how it goes I know anybody that's gone through that kind of thing it doesn't matter you can't get mad at each other I cannot talk to him for eight months and the next day I talk to him it's like we haven't even missed a date and that's not the case but you see what I'm saying we get into the hospital Jay and I like I gotta take a piss you know they're like what you should have thought about before you got in the accident I'm like what the really you know they're like yeah we can't let you move you can't get up we gotta we're checking you guys internally so they're doing CT scans and all these different scans on us and stuff to make sure that there's nothing like moved and broken like it's ruptured or something really wrong right and uh amazingly enough I didn't have anything broken on me I I messed my body up real bad I had some burns on my back and obviously I split the hell out of my head but now I grew hair back here which is kind of cool so I'm not have a bald spot anymore so if anybody wants to know how to do it just roll a Lamborghini or skateboard it across the cave barriers what you're gonna do so I uh I remember the last time I had saw AJ in the hospital they hadn't saw my head up yet and him and I were sending videos to each other because we couldn't leave our beds and they had him in another area because he's going to get ready to put in a helicopter and flown the helicopters over to Hennepin County for the burn center because his hands and everything's all jacked and they're like the ladies are like hey could you guys you know stop doing this right now because you're cracking us up you're I mean the nurses were just dying because they had given him some drugs so he was all I had never seen AJ like that he was just like goofy as and we're sending videos to each other and I was like hey man like my first video I sent him I was like man I'm really sorry dude you're not gonna get to go home now you're not gonna have any sex for a little while either I'll put you in the hospital for a while I'm really sorry about that dude my bad you know he's like oh man don't worry about it he goes what's the lesson we learned today I'm like I don't know and he's like we do not drive a car for 24 hours after we change the spark plugs and I'm like that's a good point we're not driving cars once we change spark plugs now so now I I swear to you we've done this on other cars we changed spark plugs they sit for 24 hours we do not drive we think it's a bad Omen that's our thing that's our thing right and it makes us last still even though it's a bad thing so yeah we just got done and he and he we're talking about the whole not changing the spark plugs out right and then they tell me they're like hey look your buddy's got to go to Hennepin County he's leaving and I'm like what do you mean I'm like you can't fly the helicopter because that's what he used to do in the Army was by the helicopter so I'm like you can't find a helicopter like he is they're like no no we're flying him down there I think he's gonna fight helicopter and they're like no he's he's got to go down for the burn center he's burnt real bad and like can I see him before he leaves they said yes and so he comes on and he's on his drugs and he's all wrapped up like a mum and he's walking in like I'm okay I'm okay I am okay and he's all dancing oh that was weird all right all right my name is AJ Santiago and this is how I save this life my name is AJ Santiago and this is how to survive a burning Lamborghini crash step one have a friend like me that's a good point don't get knocked out don't stay awake the whole time all right um so where do I start all right so the morning of August 3rd 2019. now up until this point in time I had actually moved from Minnesota to Phoenix and I was on my way back to Phoenix just to get pick up another vehicle and then I was going to be driving down to back to Phoenix when I got a call from Koi and he said hey power Crews is going on you can't miss power Crews we do this every year you got you got to see you got to be here for this and I said you know what you're 100 right so I called my wife and said hey we're gonna go hang out on track for a little bit and then uh and then we'll be on our way back down to Phoenix um that morning uh now the car the Lamborghini the uh the Vader was breaking up you know it was uh making power but it wasn't running like it like it normally would um so uh so we came to the conclusion that we're gonna change the spark plugs in it you know try to fix whatever the Miss was and uh and sure that worked so uh so we changed the plugs the car was doing great running fantastic we took it out for a test hit on the street ran like a champ um uh I mean a matter of fact I mean we were joking about it because we're like dude it's it was hidden like it was on 20 cylinders like 10. it had 20. and whatever ugr said it made for power it was making double that it was fast because it was just stupid um and it felt good you know because I was like boom problem solved did my job now let me let me get you know back to Phoenix um but of course you know we had to do that we had to do the one uh you know um I almost caught sacrificial um uh parade lap you know just to make sure it was good um so we did and of course you know uh and I think Corey was telling it earlier you know as we um got the car on track you know we kind of took it easy going around the track um and there was a white Evo uh that was like hey they know the car they know us you know they want to make good um YouTube videos you know internet gold like the rest of us so they're like hey let's let's do a run and uh and then I was in the passenger seat so I remember going they were on my right and I said hey we're just testing you know so you'd stay ahead of us you know we're not gonna We're Not Gonna Be side by side to stay ahead of us and they were like oh come on and you know and I said nah nah go ahead and I said I'll record you I'll record you guys and they're like okay so they stayed about a car ahead of us as we got to the straightaway where you accelerate you know for the short period of time and it was the short straight because had we been on the second straight the result would be way different um because the the first straight was a really wide area that they used for parking of semis and stuff like that during certain events at Brainerd so that wide area they just had you know blocked off with these Jersey barriers um so as we approached that bridge you know they got on it and they started moving out so it was like all right you know our turn you know so we can keep our separation and and you know have our little safety window that we want it and uh and that that honestly proved to be well probably number 10 things that went wrong but went right you know what I mean because had we let our egos get a hold of us and say hey yeah we'll run you stay right next to us and then we go at the same time and as you see in the footage of the car losing control we would have just taken them right into the wall with us you know and that Evo that had three passengers in it would have crashed also and there'd be five of us that are all up right um so it was Paramount how how it went down that they stayed in front of us um and when you watch the video you know we go into the bridge we get on it they get on it they're you know doing their thing we're catching them um but when the car loses control and we start to rotate and go behind them I mean we we missed we we were pretty close to them and um yeah it would have just been a way way different animal um but the bridge that bridge shot yeah when you watch yeah you guys can you can see it you see it it's just we just missed them and that was intentional that they were a car ahead of us because we intentionally did not want to be alongside them um yeah I mean it was it was it was the way it was meant to be you know what I mean and so many things like that happened example as they continued on and we lost control right um the car turned around we were now facing the wrong direction we both knew it was all going to go wrong um time slowed down to where raindrops you know if it was raining they would never hit the ground because it was so slow I remember I in my mind I was going through so many different thoughts and it's it's the stuff that goes to your mind when you're about to die I'm guessing right you you think about so many things that are irrelevant but clearly important to you right because your brain is choosing what things to trigger and um and there were all these little things and and I just remember and I and if I didn't mention it I was filming right because the evil was next to it says hey go in front of us and I'll film you so they were out in front of us I was filming with my smartphone my iPhone when the car rotated and I knew that was about to hit the fan I dropped my phone probably instinctually right because I I just I just held on you know grabbed onto the door and the roof and um the car rotated as we approached the wall I remember seeing the Wall come faster and faster and uh and koi said we're gonna hit the wall and and I don't remember if I even responded or not I think he said or yeah probably one word response I mean it's just it's all happening right there and you can hear it in that video you can hear it in the video Yeah and uh and so that in-car footage we were able to save and I'll get to that later but um in that moment it was quiet it was peaceful I was thinking about a million things and for whatever reason like it wasn't scary you would think oh you're about to die it's scary right it wasn't it was peaceful and quiet because it was that calm before the storm because a second and a half later we smacked that wall and I'll never forget the smack because it was the pro the most VI it was the most violent thing I'd ever heard like you don't I've been in a car accident before um it's not like that it is a different violent impact from over your your left shoulder like maybe maybe like if a football player tackled you and you were just brushing your teeth and you had no idea what's going to happen right like so get you out of your get you out of your seat that it scares you to death and um I stayed awake during the entire event the car hit the wall instantly it felt like a nuclear bomb went off I felt this flash of heat and it was Windows Down nice beautiful day flash of heat kind of glazed over me um I was holding on the car was inverted upside down and as it rolled back over I was trying to understand what the you know I was just waiting for like hey just turn my lights out because I don't know what my last memory is going to be but you know I'm just waiting for that and you're done right um we hit the ground the car starts to slide and then it stops and all of the violence is over it's peaceful and quiet again except for a campfire firing in my ear and I'm like holy I'm holding onto the door right I'm just like I'm live dude and I remember going Coy we got to get out of course on fire I can smell the fire so I open the door I get out and uh I run around the back side of the car now the car is already engulfed in flames um I'm cognizant of where I am but I'm wearing flip-flops shorts and a t-shirt because I was not supposed to be out there I was not ready for track day this wasn't uh test and tune this was charity rides you know doing a good cause doing a good thing we've got to test the car real quick let's do a lap not a big deal right um I come around the back side of the car and the driver's side's engulfed in flames the rear wheel is missing um when I came around I was expecting to see him kind of exiting the car at the same time you know we just kind of you know make a way and go holy except that's not what I saw when I came around the back side of the car I noticed that the door was still shut and what caught my attention was the fact that I could see him humped on the steering wheel the door handle was still in um but it was all melted and and it was going quick I didn't know I knew what kind of fuel was in the car because we had just filled it up so my my initial thought was this thing is one and a half seconds away from blowing the up and we're going to be you know this is going to be like a Paul Walker thing like instantly like like the size because I'm an engineer right so my brain is thinking the fire and the fuel and the electronics and everything going and like this is just a recipe to kill us both now we survived this crash but now we're both gonna die in this explosion so I go to the car and I open the door handle and uh I opened the door and Corey's in there and when I first saw him he had blood on the back of his head he was just humped on the steering wheel and I was like he's dead as like here we go I got my dead best friend and he's in this car he's gonna burn to the ground right and I'm like well you know not on my time and uh you know people have heard stories of of things that I've done in the past in the military and they know and I know that I don't think nobody behind ever no matter what and uh and here was it was another instance of that so um the craziest part so he's he's in the car and this is happening like so fast you know we it slowed down for the for the impact but this is happening so fast the car is burning quickly and the fire is getting out of control very fast and I go in I unbuckle his seat belt and pull him out of the car now when I pulled him out of the car I'm five foot five you know 160 pounds he's you know 220 pounds six one he didn't weigh a dime he was weightless when I pulled him out of the car it was incredible to me that he didn't weigh anything the roof was collapsing the roof was pushed down the wind the driver's Windows only this tall didn't matter he came out of the car with ease and when I pulled him out of the car I got him out of the vehicle and the second I got him out of the car he instantly weighed a million pounds and and hindsight looking back obviously you write the adrenaline is what helped me take him out of the car because if we had to do it as a dry run today or tomorrow anybody in my in our size class it's an impossible task to do if you ever carry someone that was sleeping or whatever like my child you pick them up and they're 60 pounds of sleep they weigh like their million pounds there's no way there's just no way right but here we go there's another thing that just happened to go right you know adrenaline was hitting at the right time pulled him from the car now when I got him out of the car he turned into a million pounds again um and I was wearing flip-flops you know I fell um I got back up and I was just thinking a lot of the car I got him out of car now let's get in this car before it blows the up um so I'm dragging him and as I'm dragging him um a couple of things happen now one part is he woke up which was awesome because up until that point he was the doodle dead weight um and I was for certain that he was dead first certain he was dead um but he wasn't and and I remember being so like oh like you're alive but we got we're now we're definitely not going to make it because now you're alive but we're gonna burn next to this car and blow up so let's go and he's he's talking about his ass and he's like oh my my suit has come down and I'm like come on we gotta go I don't we ain't got time for that and uh and interestingly enough um I wasn't the only one there now some people was what I don't know if you get tunnel vision in some of these moments right but I remember other people being there and I remember other people helping me and I didn't know if it was like angels and you know like this house crazy but hear me out um I just remember people helping me but I knew that we were by ourselves but there was people helping us and um we got away from the car and I sat him up and he had a big hole in his head and I was like well okay and what you know we're checking them off here okay uh hit hit K rail burst into flames check uh survived the crash check oh he's gonna burn to death let's drag him out oh he's alive now it's always got a hole in his head so um he's got a hole in his head it's it's gushing out blood on the back of his head and I'm like okay I can do this so I stick my fingers in there and I jam it all shut and I'm holding closed and I'm talking to him and he keeps asking me am I gonna die AJ am I going to die I said no you're not gonna die I said we were gonna die a second ago in that car when we were burning and gonna blow up but we're good now we're good and what I didn't know is at the time he couldn't see anything uh and he didn't articulate that he just kept saying am I going to die because I can imagine he just woke up getting dragged out of a car with me tearing his ass on the ground um now he's blacked out and he can't see anything but he he he can feel things and he could feel pain but he can't see anything so you know is this where you go when you die so I can understand his fear but um but I just reassured him that you know everything's gonna be okay um the hard part was done I thought at least um that we're gonna be fine you know and people started coming up and asking you know oh my God you know and it's crazy people would come up with their cell phones out you know right in my face and they're like oh my God are you all right I'm like no we just had a car accident let me have your shirt give me your shirt I need your shirt I need something for to put on his head you know and people are taking their shirts off and I'm using their shirt as a rag and uh and I'm like hey let me have can I have your water and they're like yeah here you go they're using water and we're trying to make it work um and in the meantime you know it's crazy this is a racetrack if when you watch the video cars are still speeding past us hey what you I've done Motorsports long enough to know that when it was an accident red flags go out all the corner workers tell everybody to stop and you get off the track so you make way for emergency vehicles watch the video watch all the extra footage the car is flying past the whole time whole time and I'm like man like they're not nurses a car on fire you know people out there trying to make it happen whatever but um they're not going slow either no no they should they could they were there faster than the animals they could have swung by we could have thrown them in the car done a lap to the hospital before the ambulance showed up but um but that's not how it worked out it actually worked out um so many so many good things came out of it the airbags in the car did not go off we hit the wall and we were guessing somewhere between 110 and 120 miles an hour okay um backwards none of the airbags went off um and that was a blessing you know at first we thought what the you know is there a malfunction what's going on what happened that the airbags didn't go off but had the airbags going off a couple of things could have happened right I could have been knocked unconscious by one of them there was curtain bags front bag Knee Bag bags all over the place it could have hindered me getting out of the car it could have delayed my reaction getting out it could have covered his window so when I got out and I came around and looked to see if he's still in the car I just see a curtain and I go oh he must be out somewhere he's over here but he's not he's throwing the car burning to death right um it could have it could have been that snag Hazard when I'm trying to get him out that you know we're getting caught up in these bags there but but they didn't go off you know and it's like the gift and the curse right like it should have but what uh whatever um people you know we hear people see the video and people go oh you know you guys should have been fully up kidded helmet and everything if he was wearing a helmet you know he's 6-1 in the car the roof is already right there when we flip this thing over and the roof comes in it punctured the back of his head if he was wearing a helmet and had another two inches of cushion there I probably would have compressed the spine and broke his neck was right he could be a paraplegic you know you'd be rolling around in a wheelchair um or dead you know it could have gone so differently but it went it went just as bad as it needed to be right um from there it was uh so up until this point in time I had no idea I was injured so um I'm helping him and then people are coming up and helping us and it wasn't until one of the one of the people that came up said hey are you going to be all right and I said yeah I'm all right I'm gonna be fine why like he he's got a hole in his head we're trying to fix this and they said well what about your arms and uh and that was the first time I'm holding it sitting there holding his head that's the first time I looked down and I noticed that all of the skin on my arms was missing and uh I think they probably call it shock right because you don't know until you know and then when I saw it and I looked down I realized that all the skin on my fingers and on my arms were missing um it hurt then it hurt before then I didn't even feel it and your neck yeah and yeah yeah it burned so that explosion that came through when we impacted the wall that initial impact a huge Fireball like I said came through the cabin it came in the back window it broke the back window came in the back window and it went out my window because I was trying to figure out how I had got burned across the whole side of my head and the back of my neck my ear my eyelashes were gone from the glass or whatever yeah there was cuts um it was absolutely ridiculous but that the the footage after the fact helped us understand what happened um of course the burns on my hands and everything came from um the fire but yeah I didn't realize how bad it was um and I and I continued you know we I I was first went into the ambulance you know because they said hey let's let's get you guys taken care of and you know help showed up they put me in the ambulance they started working on me they had him on the stretcher because of his neck they were worried that his that um you know maybe he had hurt his neck or broke his neck or something like that um or there was only a white person only stretcher I don't remember it was something like that right but um it's like hey you got you you just get into trouble you can walk yourself in there um but no they were fantastic that actually the crew was fantastic and they got me in the um ambulance and I remember the poor guy uh that was helping me he was I can tell he's he's done it for a while but maybe this might have been the realest thing he's ever seen right and this is Brainerd Minnesota maybe there's not that many incidents or something but I was in pain and I was very vocal about it letting him know that was in a severe pain and inside the ambulance they have a little safe on the wall where they put the narcotics and they lock it in there so people can't get it and he was trying to get the combination to open this thing he kept messing it up and messing it up and he was wiping his eyebrows he was like he's like I'm sorry man I'm going I'm coming and he's trying and I said hey man I'm gonna be all right I'm gonna be all right it hurts take your time and he took a deep breath put the coat in perfectly opened the safe um he I think he gave me Demerol or something like that gave him something he made him stupid oh my God the second he put it in me it fell to me I was like oh this is I can do this I'm all right now I'm okay before that I was like man you're gonna help me out man but it hurts so bad um but he took care of me so Kudos I wish I knew his name I'd give him a shout out because he was fantastic he started patching me up um I was way too up to to be patched up but he was doing what he could do you know because in Burns I guess infection is the number one thing you're you're exposed your raw skin and they want to make sure you don't get anything in there and I got his blood in there a bunch of raw dirt a bunch of VP 109 and all mixed in there um so uh so they got us enough they got us in the ambulance and they got us to the hospital um once we got to the hospital um you know they said hey you know a couple of things were going on they needed to notify our significant others um or for me at least because I was there I was there with my son only which he got ended up getting left at the racetrack but he figured it out um but to create one of my craziest pieces is and I've told this story before they uh I was wearing a wedding band made out of tungsten now all you car guys out there I get it you guys know right tungsten is the I got it because I work on so much my rings would get scratched up and my wife be like oh my God your ring looks also messed up so I got a Tungsten one right because it doesn't scratch it's the hardest that's fantastic until your hands are been burnt to crisp and my fingers are starting to swell up and the lady came in and said hey I need to cut off your wedding band or you're going to lose your finger and they had me doped up on all this stuff so I laughed at her and I was like ha ha good luck cutting this off because this is what they make the tool to cut it off out of you know so she was like oh so she went got a doctor they came back they're talking and uh while they were trying to figure out how to figure out if they're if I was gonna lose my finger or not I just pulled the ring off with all the skin attached and uh and she turned around and I said I got it and she was like oh and she grabbed a little specimen cup and I dropped the ring in the specimen cup and uh and so so now I wear I wear a little silicone one so you know Pro tip if you're going to be a car guy wear a rubber ring rubber rings and go to the bathroom before you go and go to the bathroom before you go racing in an accident um but uh so so my interviews were I guess pretty severe I got third degree burns uh on a lot of portions of my body um dragging this out of the car so they said I had to get on a helicopter and fly into the city we were about an hour and a half north of uh of the Twin Cities so I need to get to the burn center um that was a yeah that was an exciting trip uh from there it was you know stitching up his head patching up my Burns and then flying you out huh and flying you out and flying me out yeah flying me back home um and you were so goofy I was I was kind of goofy apparently you're so high but I mean you know all in all you know we we learned a lot of different things from this um you know we learned number one uh if you're gonna change the spark plugs you know wait 24 hours before you drive the car um I think you cover that one right oh yeah um and that's just our little rule is kind of funny but uh but live by example right it's so crazy you know something like this to survive something like this and I'll be 100 honest you know like yes it sucks that the car is damaged yes it sucks that these different things got you know kind of up my trip back to Phoenix but you know it broke stuff inside of me for a long time um you know like this is the tough part you know when I came home you know um I was not very honest with my family um you know hero syndrome or whatever they want to call it you know you you know everything's fine you know I'm good I'm the hero of the day whatever you want to call it um inside I was an absolute wreck um yeah you just didn't want to address it yep he didn't want to you know it wasn't until that damn thing rolled back in here I try not to think about it at all you know I haven't seen this vehicle since I pulled him out of it three years ago yeah okay um I haven't seen the car I never saw the car after the incident when I pulled him from his seat I turned my back to it that was the last time I ever seen it what's it like for you to experience having a carpet hopefully I mean it brings up a lot of bad emotions but at the same time it's I guess I kind of look at things a little differently now you know since all the things that happened I don't look at it as just a negative thing of like oh look at the car oh my God almost died in it I also looking to go man you know I mean there's a lot of life that's come from it I mean I look at life differently now I act differently and I mean I've been through a lot of stuff with eight heart surgeries and things like that going through that I I I've always approached life optimistically but I mean this brought AJ and I closer than we ever could be I mean we'll I mean we're going to be old old men when we die and still know each other you know I mean that that's uh that like really ships never go away and I think about how my family acts you know because that scared the hell out of my family just like his family I mean scared the pants out of them and you know you you saw my son a little bit ago and and you saw how he is I mean everybody saw it and I feel like it's a it's a blessing I know it's a it was a bad thing that happened and it's tearful and it hurts you know what I mean and I wish it didn't happen it was also extremely expensive but you know now so you want to throw a dollar figure on there but it was very expensive the part that about it though is that I look at it and now because of that my son who races my wife who races other people that we know who race they go oh that can happen to koi that can happen to me yeah and so it's an eye-opener to him and it's like dude I got to make sure I check all my stuff properly let me make sure you know my son walks a track now you know he walks the track and goes around and says okay oh man you know this corner right here it's got a lot of dirt on everything else I'm going to take this corn a little slower so I don't zip off of it or something like that or have an accident or maybe there's some oil or something people pay attention a little bit more and I feel like it helped out quite a bit and I know it helped the show Power Crews quite a bit because they made some adjustments because they're like dude that was the worst crash that they ever had and they've had bad crashes like I said just people got but nothing like where they had ambulances carting people off and stuff and helicopters flying him home you ever find him to the Hennepin so I I don't it's a bad thing I'm gonna tell you the hood is going to come off and it's going to go on my wall you know what I mean it's going to be a reminder to me you know just like the Pacemakers reminded me I'm still kicking that's reminding me it's still kicking you know I mean I'll probably have AJ sign it so I can have something famous from them you know what I mean but I mean otherwise I mean it's it's it's it's a car right it's what came out of the car to me that's more important I I don't know I think I think we're very blessed and uh and I think you know it must have been what it was supposed to happen because the things we're doing now in our lives our attitudes I think are extremely positive and our kids are I think they hold us a little tighter and our wife's a little tighter because we're a little happier I'm quite Christmas and that's a story and that's how my best friend saved my life this is so ridiculousforeign and AJ looked back at me and I was like what the was that he's like and all of a sudden the car goes guys right now we're running three entries for every dollar you spend on 1320video.com to win this GTR and 15 000 this is a full bolt-ons GTR making it 650 all-wheel horsepower on 85. perfect amount of power for the street all this can be yours all you got to do is go to 1320video.com right now every dollar you spend is three entries to win this car 15 grand I'm koi Christmas and today I'm telling you the story about how everything went wrong everything also went right well so I got started in racing you know a couple about a decade ago easily started getting into a little more hot and heavy starting with the GTR areas where I really enjoyed it working with cisio performance and those guys out there and really the reason why we started on the GTRs was because that was my wife's car and bought it for her for her I can't remember it's 2011 we got a 2012 GTR for and I got it for her birthday and man she bought her pants on that one that was a good it's a good way to keep a wife and then from there uh like everybody else that has GTR they want it to go faster so we started doing that and we started going full bolt on and then full bolt-on wasn't enough and we had to move out from the 3.8 liter to a 4.1 liter and then it was a 4.3 liter and it was bigger turbos and more a better transmission and then pretty soon we had ourselves a race rocket if you will for my wife's car and then I was jealous because her cars were significantly faster than mine so I had to go buy a GTR and I got into the GTRs and I actually really enjoyed the full bolt-on and I had a blast with that but then I moved to I think it was I forgot what cecio called it um it was a something plus kit and so I moved into that and that was pushing about 1250 horsepower somewhere on there now my wife was pushing like 1600 at the time before she went up to like 2600 when she got this really big you know really big power but it was still it was a lot of fun to drive and I enjoyed it we started going out to the tracks we started racing doing the the drag strip ones obviously going down like the fl2ks and Texas 2ks and uh we'd go to the uh the summit Raceway which I think was in Ohio we go to a couple different places we'd race a lot down there but one place we did get to go race so we enjoyed a lot was driving down to Brainerd brainer International Raceway when I was uh was there I started noticing these Billboards and poster signs and they kind of said they said things like hey we have um Proving Grounds which was one event that they do that like twice a year and improving Grounds was a lot of fun I'm trying I can't remember the name of the the company that would put that on I know the guy's name was Dan or Dana or something like that but anyhow it was a super Super Awesome event and you do it twice a year and you got to do a bunch of different activities they had like drifting and things like that and then the other one they had in summer was called Power Crews and so we did our first Power Cruise and I think it was around 20 14 some around there and we did our first Power cruise and we were we we thought we're the only people with GTRs and that's how I met my buddy AJ because I was over there driving around and I was like wait a second so he parked and I pulled up next to him I said you should do Tiana he's like yeah I said oh man did we just become friends and we started talking I was like are you ex-military and he's like yeah and I'm like oh my God we're like buzzing buddies now just like Step Brothers you know I'm like oh we're best friends so we we I mean it was I I should not like two weeks after that he was up at my house jumping out of an airplane I mean that's how he was like hey man I'm gonna go up there to jump on an airplane can I come set your place I'm like come on and so like a friendship was born and it's been like that ever since I mean we've been next to each other everywhere as a matter of fact we we pretty much moved together we moved out of he was living in Minnesota I was in Wisconsin about two hour and a half hours away he's in the cities I was up in the Twin ports and then he moved to Arizona and I'm like I guess it's time to move to Arizona my wife said there's you get no argument out of me so we moved to Arizona when did Texas 2K and that's when I just bought the uh Ford GT I had a yellow uh GT with black stripes it was like 1300 horsepower well Cisco performance had built it up I took the supercharger out put twin turbos on it and it you know it was just that was a that was a badass car that you you have to know how to drive that car or you will kill yourself there is no it's all driver mod in that car uh the Ford GT has no help at all and that is just so fast I got that and uh other friends of mine is like uh paren um prin and Chris they're over at Chicago motor cars and I was talking to them and I'm like dude you know I really want to I really want to check out a Lambo I want a skittles car you know that's what I call them a skittles cars because we've been driving around the GTRs we've been doing it for so long and my wife was like a thousand plus horsepower over me and I'm like I don't want to get my ass kicked by her all the time she already gets all the I mean 13 20 we sit there and cover all the time you know I was like oh look here's a woman just freaking cracked the 7-1 you know I mean it's like yeah you know not to mention her language on the track is always an amusable is amusing you know so I pretty girls tell you what man when we get back because it was at Texas 2K because when we get back this was like 20 2017 I think it was he goes when we get back I got one I'll send it to you just drive it let me know what you think he knew what he was doing so I get this white one comes in I get it and actually I didn't even drive it at first my son drove it he took it to prom and everything else it was like a 2015 you know it wasn't the perfect Monty it was the regular Huracan and uh but it's still you know it's just it sounded badass it just felt good I was like this car is the so I said I get the car I trade in the the GTR I immediately wrapped this car this crazy color they put these badass wheels on it you know the same wheels that I've got here um and then I did a crazy powder coat and stuff and everybody called it uh Skittles the thing is what everybody was calling it was because it just looked all crazy looked like a tie-dye right took it down to the car show people were like holy this is amazing and then I was like yeah this is great and I was like but it's not quite fast enough I'm like it's it's cool it's a Lamborghini but we need some more power and we need to put a different presence on it right so I'm like all right let's pull the wrap off of this called up I mean geez this wasn't even four months later I pick up the phone and I call up and I call print up and say hey will you take this car back you know that give it now take it back because it's something wrong I'm like can I trade it in and get a different one he's like yeah and I said well I want to get one or the perfumantes you know because I'd put like a 1610 wing on spoiler on the back of that one stuff to make it look cool but it wasn't a perfect Monday I wanted the perfect Monte so he's like yeah I've got one I said great I'm not even take delivery of it send it down to underground racing and I'd met Kevin and Casey but most I talked to Kevin the most and I talked to Kevin I'm like look man would you hook me up with a a package and I think it was a state they call it the stage three uh it was a State Street was what the first one was the stage three and then um I drove around and beat the shot of it and when I finally got it and you got it done for me really quick and I was like this this is great but I want to go faster thank you thank you foreign the difference between driving the GTR and driving the Lamborghini in with power like that because there's similar power the difference was it felt like the GTR when it was going it would go you hit your gears and stuff and it feels like you get to Top Gun and it's like the Lamborghini felt like it's like let's keep going instead of being like like slingshot like it was like pulling you you know and you're just like oh my God it's just the coolest freaking sound you could possibly have imagine being inside those underground racing Lamborghinis so take off in that car and uh and we're doing uh we did the power Crews that year and AJ's with me and we're doing power Crews and we get beat uh well it wasn't with AJ in the car I had another guy in a car named Adam um and we got beat by this mustang and he was like one of those uh Lebanon twin turbo type setups and he was pushing like 1600 horse and he just you know he was going we were neck to neck because obviously I'm a lighter car and everything we're going on the street we're doing it straight supposed to be 100 we're doing like 215. so we're hauling down there and then all of a sudden he hit the scramble button and he's just like I'm gonna blow the car type thing you know and he's like what I was like what in the hell so I picked up the phone and I I think I was at like 1350 horsepower or something like that with ugr so I call up and I talked to Kevin I'm like man I just had a Mustang whoop my ass he's like what and I'm like yeah he's got some power in it but he whooped my ass we're gonna do about he's like koi I can't do anything more to the car you need to put a Billet Transmission in there I said it's coming back baby so we sent it back put the bullet Transmission in it and then I'm like all right we're wrapping this bad boy Invader because I'm coming back with a vengeance baby so we did and we wrapped it up and um I was like we're coming up the design of it you know I was like all right what's I really like purple purple's my favorite color so I want to call it something really cool but then I was like dude let's kind of do like kind of like a retro 80s Miami Vice type look type thing to it so then we did it and then we put Vader on the front of the hood I was like oh man dude because I I got gold chains and stuff not like crazy like that one well actually I have a gold chain now it has Vader on it I should have wore that damn thing I forgot about that so um anyhow I was like yeah so I was like dude let's put the chain cup down right on the front emblem of the Lamborghini so it looks like a pimp chain right so we called him pimp Vader and that's how this thing was basically became what it was so the next year shows up and we're like and I had this car for two let's call it two power cruises okay so next year um we show up with this bad boy and I've got all the juice in it now you know I mean it's been upgraded it's like the stage three plus plus if you will type thing I'm running ms-109 with VP inside the import I mean it's a two to one mix type setup in there I mean you're talking freaking rocket fuel I mean it obviously because the thing they couldn't put the damn fire out but we would load up I mean for us to get ready to go into Brainerd it's a full-blown event I got a big Duel not the duel I got the big 250 double car I got a double car and a single uh trailer we've got the we've got the Ford GT loaded up on there we've got the R34 load up there which is a thousand horsepower made by Cisco as well you've got uh and then you've got Vader which is this bad boy so we got those three cars there right and Vader you know is is pushing some reasonably you know pretty good power but you know I've got that underground racing gestapo claws so I'm not allowed to tell you how fast it was but I'll just say it had all of it you know what I mean so we're getting ready we're heading down we got all the stuff we got all the cars we've got our trailers we've got a you know a pull behind you know like a 43 foot camper and stuff we're staying I mean this is a show I mean when you go to when you go to Power Cruise there's a lot of people there A lot of cars you got about 800 cars I think that year was like one of the biggest years he had to air we know all the guys here from Australia uh pretty much that's gup he's the main guy that runs it and the other thing that was big about it for me was AJ was leaving he had already been he already used my truck and everything and drive down to Arizona and moved his stuff he'd already left you know earlier that year everything was like maybe May or June you know and I was like hey he's like cool I got to come back up to get some stuff you know and he's got his boy with him uh Gabe and he's like hey I gotta come back get some stuff I got to get a couple things here do this that everything else get ready for the house to sell that kind of stuff and I'm like dude do you want to come up power cruise and let's let's rip it and he's like yeah and I was like dope well I tried to do something a little bit more exciting besides this year and we've done it now for many years and it's because everybody always asks me hey coy can I get it right in your car because that's the thing everybody wants to ride in the car so this year I'm like you know what dude I'm spending all this money and everything I'm gonna charge for it right but I'm not going to charge anybody they give me whatever they want it's a donation and then all the money was going to um I'm trying to remember it was uh the crews for Cancer all the money went to the cruise for cancer which you raised like over five grand in two days because I didn't make the third day but we go um we have this this big list everybody signing up and then they gave me a donation like one person gave me a thousand bucks you know I mean they're like hey here's a thousand bucks thank you very much it's great it's going to a good cost right and we did it and I forget it was for what um a young boy that had leukemia so we do this thing called a cruise for cancer up in the Twin ports to get a little sideline uh and we do it every year and all the money comes together for that and then we give that to we choose a kid I don't but you know the group does chooses a kid and we give that to them some you know somebody that's dying from cancer or leukemia or what's a similar they're saying you know something that's going really really wrong right and it's been it's an absolute great thing for people to do well AJ's like yeah dude I'll get done with my stuff I'll come up there you know I'll come see you that sounds good and I'm like okay so that was Thursday right and Thursday you just kind of get there and set everything up you can't go do anything until Friday so Friday morning is the first day you get to go out there and do do your racing so I've already got people all lined in a minute and then you got to take your little classes your safety class right it says if you get in an accident or fire like that don't get out of your car yeah well I didn't so anyhow damn that hit me right there um so anyhow we uh we drove around at our stuff and that night I was sitting there and I was like man I swear that like this car is not firing on all cylinders you know I mean I feel like it's it's moving but it's not it's not like just you know it's got more right I know it's got more so AJ's like well let's check the spark plugs out in the morning it must have been like freaking four o'clock in the afternoon or something like that right on Friday and I'm like I don't think I have enough of them I think I've got like eight so AJ's like calling every texting calling whatever every single autopod store auto parts store within the area because we're trying to make sure we've got the right the right spark plugs right and he finds two more so we get them and then that morning it was early I just put on my flight suit because we were wearing these flight suits it was so much fun about flight suits like the real Air Force issue flight suits for my son and my and for my wife and for myself we had these little names we might have like uh Darth Vader on it like that on the home of patch you know and my son says I forgot what his was and I think my wife actually was like eat a bag of dicks or something like that no I said no lift Alex I said no lift Alex because she does talk like that so so I'm like oh man we um we started changing out the spark plugs and I think it was the uh number 12 torque or something like that that we lost that we couldn't we were trying to get down there because it had fallen down and we're like oh crap I'm like well I don't think it's gonna mess anything up I don't know if the torque was the one that was the big problem or not but who knew so if we get all the spark plugs changed and they're already they're already sitting ready doing like their very first like runs around and it's taking a little bit longer than we anticipated because we had to move a couple stuff we'd never done it before and we got everything just dialed in just right so I'm like hey AJ you uh let's go take this thing out on the street to make sure everything's good now I had not been in a a major car accident or something and I put it this way I've been driving cars that are you know four four digit horsepower cars for like so long now that it didn't seem like anything to me you just get it you step on the gas it's like people like oh my God it's so powerful I'm like it's not that fast and once you've drove Air Force One when I won Texas 2K uh roll racing and you do 230 miles an hour down the strip in a car like that you realize this ain't in powerwise right but it really is but you don't think about it right you feel indestructible so you know this particular car didn't even have a roll cage in it you know I didn't have any it had a fire suppression system in it we forgot to pull the switch but didn't have the roll cage or anything like that in there and because of what we're doing on this track you don't wear any helmets no safety gear no nothing it's just your seatbelt Rock alone you go and you're not supposed to you can't like cross each of those Lanes do the Apex stuff like that you stay in your lanes that's what you're supposed to do not everybody does what they're supposed to do but it is what it is right so we go out on the highway and the way this car works is that you have to warm it up for like say five to ten minutes right and then you have to drive it for 10 miles before you get it that's what Kevin told me to do and that's what I do every single time and we never we never had any problem with the cars I mean every car that I've had from underground race and never had a problem with it it just drove as it's supposed to drive if I listen to the rules you know I mean that's why you get the rules so we track it down and we go down we go up uh I forgot what that highway is we go up that Highway and we go for about 10 minutes and we do a loop around we come back and it's like you ready to get it and he's like yes hit it and we hit it and we were it was like and we looked at each other like and both our arms our hairs were standing up and we're like oh it's hitting on all cylinders now and I'm like yes it is he's like oh we're about to go mess someone up I get the first one I'm going with you first go buy real quick go buy the trailer real quick let me drop some stuff off real quick let's just get in line and so I go back there and one of my old employees his name is we called him Big Ben Ben Gregory he's like six foot ten he's a massive tall guy and he's like okay I'm ready for a race I'm like hey hold on man we just changed everything out we changed the spark plugs out so now we're gonna go you know give this thing a wheel so we go around and we hit it the first time and we're just like oh my God this is this is gonna be fun and everybody there knows AJ and I I mean I say like we're the most popular people on the planet but we always bring them probably the more exotic cars that are out there um and and they're obviously really fast and we get along with everybody I mean when you get done racing stuff you go grab yourself a solo cup fill up some Southern Comfort Diet Coke that's my my choice of poison and we walk around he talked to everybody you go to Camp fires and you have yourself a good time that's the whole point again it's like an engagement you know so we go out there we go to track we go around boom I forgot what turn that is I think it's like turn nine or something like that and we make the turn and these guys in this uh I forgot the guys names but they're in the white um Evo there's a couple of them in there and you know they're pushing some power too I mean not this power but they're pushes of power and they're all I mean they might have been eight nine hundred thousand horsepower somewhere around there right and so we pull up next to each other and AJ's sitting on the passenger side he's filming I'm on the left stage he's sitting there filming and we come around in this one corner there's a bridge and that's how you come into the place so you go and basically what you do is right when you get up to the bridge and everybody guns it right coming around and we get it and I hit it I'm in like second gear it's like get it it's like when you get it you don't pull the paddles like that you just step on the gas and it's gone right and you just kind of manure it and we got it and it was like second gear and then third gear and I think we're doing a little over 100 maybe about 110 or so and right then you heard whoop just like that and I looked at AJ and AJ looked back at me and I was like what the was that he's like and also the car goes and the car starts spinning as soon as it happened I grabbed the wheel and tried to bring it back and I'm holding the wheel to the point where for two weeks my all my re my my forearms were so sore to just even grabbed like a glass and take a drink out of because I've been holding it for so hard and I'm like we're gonna hit that wall we weren't even close to the wall but I already knew in my head I'm like we're gonna hit that wall on my foot on the brake everything there's we're done right and I mean it just felt like we had so much freaking time from the point that happened so when I hit the freaking wall right and it really wasn't that fast I mean we saw the video of it which we found AJ's phone inside the car after this thing got destroyed and he's got he had he built the phone so it would work because it was on fire and everything was completely screwed and it shows it was like less than a second and a half like one point one point five seconds less than that before when that happened when we hit the wall but it felt like it was like forever so I looked at AJ and I mean you have a thousand things going through your head I'm like he's supposed to go home tomorrow to fly back to Arizona to be with his wife in his Littles you know because he's got Littles and I'm like I'm looking at him and I'm like son of a you know I'm mad at myself now right there's nothing I could have done what happened happened but there is a way to like mitigate risk you know let's try to figure out the best way so I I mean all this is going through my head in this short period of time and as I looked over to AJ I said brace we're going to hit the wall he's like oh and I saw him like put his hands up like this right we have the windows down right obviously and I'm holding the wheel and I'm like all right do I let the car hit on the back end right which is the motor and everything and I'm like that's gonna be a bomb that's not a good idea because we got the racer fuel in here and everything's in there now I probably could have done a little bit better job but you know what happened happened I knew better to hit the front because I'm like if we hit the front we're going to just we're gonna die because we're going way too fast to hit that K barrier like that it's just not going to be good and I'm like it's I can't hit it on AJ's side it's not his fault I'm the responsible part of here I'm driving the car this is my this is my choice you know I made the bed I sleep in it so I'm like all right I'm gonna take it and hit the wall and I saw it sliding in and I shoo not right before I hit that wall man I got scared as shh it came in so fast and I was like and I leaned over so I wouldn't be against the wall right here or against the door I should say so I leaned over and that was it that was the last thing I can remember was I remember was like that loud sound and the next thing I know I'm like AJ you're ripping my ass you're ripping my ass AJ you're ripping my this is literally what I'm telling him I had my flight soon I had it tied around like this and he's dragging me from the car I can't see anything like nothing I can't see anything at all dragged me from the car and my pants came off so he's pulling my ass she could cross the graph across the the road and it's just ripping it to shreds like a grater right that I'm bleeding all my ass right and I didn't even know the accident even happened you know I knew the accident hit but I didn't know the severity of it right I'm like what are you doing you're ripping my ass he's like Coy the car is going to blow up we gotta go I'm like you're ripping my ass he goes like because you're heaviest a car is going to blow up I gotta so these toys dragging me and that's just you know AJ's a retired Blackhawk pilot you know did his two tours over there you know a real good man and he's a guy that understands he doesn't run from danger he runs into Danger I didn't realize realize that I had split my head open as wide as I had and to the point where and I've seen the videos afterwards and obviously I was at the hospital and got the 30 stitches and stuff you know I I didn't realize that I'm like AJ I'm sort of talking to him like I couldn't see I could hear everything but my I was completely blind and since then I have to wear glasses now um because that obviously damaged something but I couldn't see anything and he goes and he's like cool you're bleeding really bad man I got I can't let you go I said dude can I just lay down he's like no you cannot lay down and I'm like what and I'm like What's in my hand and he's like he has his thumb in this hole in my head to keep it from bleeding because it was just born down blood and I'm like what the you know and he's like I can't and I'm like Duke and so I can't remember somebody finally showed up and sat behind me so I can lean back because I I had no my body just felt like right you know it just was jelly only thing I thought about was oh am I gonna die because I couldn't see so I asked AJ probably like seven eight times hey man am I gonna die no you're not gonna die quick I'll be okay am I gonna die no man you're not gonna gay he didn't know if I was or was not I was white as a ghost and I'm already white I was really really really really really really really white and he's just holding on to me like this and I could hear everybody and now you could hear the commotion of people and stuff and the ambulance then the ambulance shows up and my neck was all jacked up and ever since that happened my back's been just jacked so um they get me in the in the in the gurney I think it's what it's called you know a little stretcher lay me down they put this big crazy brace around my neck and stuff I mean well I don't even know what happened to AJ I didn't know the car was on fire I didn't even seen the car I didn't realize that AJ had just literally changed the rest of his life because of me I mean his hands are permanently because he had to go through the fire and I was on fire because it all came out of the gas tank and it was all up up my window and over the Flames were 20 feet up in the air and it was the racing field I couldn't put it out and and I just remember get in there and it wasn't until they they brought the the amp the actual stretcher and banged it on to bring it in the ambulance when they did that all of a sudden I could see again and I saw the the light above and I'm like where's AJ and AJ was up in the front and they're like dude and I couldn't see him because I couldn't turn and all I could hear was man you're really burnt really bad are you okay he's like I don't know man I'm hurt a lot bad but I'm okay that's fine let's get into the hospital right and I didn't even see the severity of his hands how bad he was burnt and he looked like you know like the drum that goes around on the on on the the score with the fire on you know I mean like a pig I mean it was jacked so my wife gets in the car and you know it kind of shed a little more fun on it you know have a little spin on it and my last name is Christmas first name is obviously koi but I like having fun with it so they're like all right let's see how let's see how are you feeling buddy you're feeling okay you know and I'm like yeah yeah and they're like all right man look you got a really you really smacked your head button so we need to ask you a couple questions to make sure you're okay can you give us your name I said yes it's Henry Halloween and my wife goes koi Christmas he's laughing I'm laughing they're like ah he's fine he's fine so we fight we've shed some light on it right we had some fun and I gotta tell you the one thing I will say is that AJ and I have made a I mean obviously we've bled together so we're bonded for life it's just how it goes I know anybody that's gone through that kind of thing it doesn't matter you can't get mad at each other I cannot talk to him for eight months and the next day I talk to him it's like we haven't even missed a date and that's not the case but you see what I'm saying we get into the hospital Jay and I like I gotta take a piss you know they're like what you should have thought about before you got in the accident I'm like what the really you know they're like yeah we can't let you move you can't get up we gotta we're checking you guys internally so they're doing CT scans and all these different scans on us and stuff to make sure that there's nothing like moved and broken like it's ruptured or something really wrong right and uh amazingly enough I didn't have anything broken on me I I messed my body up real bad I had some burns on my back and obviously I split the hell out of my head but now I grew hair back here which is kind of cool so I'm not have a bald spot anymore so if anybody wants to know how to do it just roll a Lamborghini or skateboard it across the cave barriers what you're gonna do so I uh I remember the last time I had saw AJ in the hospital they hadn't saw my head up yet and him and I were sending videos to each other because we couldn't leave our beds and they had him in another area because he's going to get ready to put in a helicopter and flown the helicopters over to Hennepin County for the burn center because his hands and everything's all jacked and they're like the ladies are like hey could you guys you know stop doing this right now because you're cracking us up you're I mean the nurses were just dying because they had given him some drugs so he was all I had never seen AJ like that he was just like goofy as and we're sending videos to each other and I was like hey man like my first video I sent him I was like man I'm really sorry dude you're not gonna get to go home now you're not gonna have any sex for a little while either I'll put you in the hospital for a while I'm really sorry about that dude my bad you know he's like oh man don't worry about it he goes what's the lesson we learned today I'm like I don't know and he's like we do not drive a car for 24 hours after we change the spark plugs and I'm like that's a good point we're not driving cars once we change spark plugs now so now I I swear to you we've done this on other cars we changed spark plugs they sit for 24 hours we do not drive we think it's a bad Omen that's our thing that's our thing right and it makes us last still even though it's a bad thing so yeah we just got done and he and he we're talking about the whole not changing the spark plugs out right and then they tell me they're like hey look your buddy's got to go to Hennepin County he's leaving and I'm like what do you mean I'm like you can't fly the helicopter because that's what he used to do in the Army was by the helicopter so I'm like you can't find a helicopter like he is they're like no no we're flying him down there I think he's gonna fight helicopter and they're like no he's he's got to go down for the burn center he's burnt real bad and like can I see him before he leaves they said yes and so he comes on and he's on his drugs and he's all wrapped up like a mum and he's walking in like I'm okay I'm okay I am okay and he's all dancing oh that was weird all right all right my name is AJ Santiago and this is how I save this life my name is AJ Santiago and this is how to survive a burning Lamborghini crash step one have a friend like me that's a good point don't get knocked out don't stay awake the whole time all right um so where do I start all right so the morning of August 3rd 2019. now up until this point in time I had actually moved from Minnesota to Phoenix and I was on my way back to Phoenix just to get pick up another vehicle and then I was going to be driving down to back to Phoenix when I got a call from Koi and he said hey power Crews is going on you can't miss power Crews we do this every year you got you got to see you got to be here for this and I said you know what you're 100 right so I called my wife and said hey we're gonna go hang out on track for a little bit and then uh and then we'll be on our way back down to Phoenix um that morning uh now the car the Lamborghini the uh the Vader was breaking up you know it was uh making power but it wasn't running like it like it normally would um so uh so we came to the conclusion that we're gonna change the spark plugs in it you know try to fix whatever the Miss was and uh and sure that worked so uh so we changed the plugs the car was doing great running fantastic we took it out for a test hit on the street ran like a champ um uh I mean a matter of fact I mean we were joking about it because we're like dude it's it was hidden like it was on 20 cylinders like 10. it had 20. and whatever ugr said it made for power it was making double that it was fast because it was just stupid um and it felt good you know because I was like boom problem solved did my job now let me let me get you know back to Phoenix um but of course you know we had to do that we had to do the one uh you know um I almost caught sacrificial um uh parade lap you know just to make sure it was good um so we did and of course you know uh and I think Corey was telling it earlier you know as we um got the car on track you know we kind of took it easy going around the track um and there was a white Evo uh that was like hey they know the car they know us you know they want to make good um YouTube videos you know internet gold like the rest of us so they're like hey let's let's do a run and uh and then I was in the passenger seat so I remember going they were on my right and I said hey we're just testing you know so you'd stay ahead of us you know we're not gonna We're Not Gonna Be side by side to stay ahead of us and they were like oh come on and you know and I said nah nah go ahead and I said I'll record you I'll record you guys and they're like okay so they stayed about a car ahead of us as we got to the straightaway where you accelerate you know for the short period of time and it was the short straight because had we been on the second straight the result would be way different um because the the first straight was a really wide area that they used for parking of semis and stuff like that during certain events at Brainerd so that wide area they just had you know blocked off with these Jersey barriers um so as we approached that bridge you know they got on it and they started moving out so it was like all right you know our turn you know so we can keep our separation and and you know have our little safety window that we want it and uh and that that honestly proved to be well probably number 10 things that went wrong but went right you know what I mean because had we let our egos get a hold of us and say hey yeah we'll run you stay right next to us and then we go at the same time and as you see in the footage of the car losing control we would have just taken them right into the wall with us you know and that Evo that had three passengers in it would have crashed also and there'd be five of us that are all up right um so it was Paramount how how it went down that they stayed in front of us um and when you watch the video you know we go into the bridge we get on it they get on it they're you know doing their thing we're catching them um but when the car loses control and we start to rotate and go behind them I mean we we missed we we were pretty close to them and um yeah it would have just been a way way different animal um but the bridge that bridge shot yeah when you watch yeah you guys can you can see it you see it it's just we just missed them and that was intentional that they were a car ahead of us because we intentionally did not want to be alongside them um yeah I mean it was it was it was the way it was meant to be you know what I mean and so many things like that happened example as they continued on and we lost control right um the car turned around we were now facing the wrong direction we both knew it was all going to go wrong um time slowed down to where raindrops you know if it was raining they would never hit the ground because it was so slow I remember I in my mind I was going through so many different thoughts and it's it's the stuff that goes to your mind when you're about to die I'm guessing right you you think about so many things that are irrelevant but clearly important to you right because your brain is choosing what things to trigger and um and there were all these little things and and I just remember and I and if I didn't mention it I was filming right because the evil was next to it says hey go in front of us and I'll film you so they were out in front of us I was filming with my smartphone my iPhone when the car rotated and I knew that was about to hit the fan I dropped my phone probably instinctually right because I I just I just held on you know grabbed onto the door and the roof and um the car rotated as we approached the wall I remember seeing the Wall come faster and faster and uh and koi said we're gonna hit the wall and and I don't remember if I even responded or not I think he said or yeah probably one word response I mean it's just it's all happening right there and you can hear it in that video you can hear it in the video Yeah and uh and so that in-car footage we were able to save and I'll get to that later but um in that moment it was quiet it was peaceful I was thinking about a million things and for whatever reason like it wasn't scary you would think oh you're about to die it's scary right it wasn't it was peaceful and quiet because it was that calm before the storm because a second and a half later we smacked that wall and I'll never forget the smack because it was the pro the most VI it was the most violent thing I'd ever heard like you don't I've been in a car accident before um it's not like that it is a different violent impact from over your your left shoulder like maybe maybe like if a football player tackled you and you were just brushing your teeth and you had no idea what's going to happen right like so get you out of your get you out of your seat that it scares you to death and um I stayed awake during the entire event the car hit the wall instantly it felt like a nuclear bomb went off I felt this flash of heat and it was Windows Down nice beautiful day flash of heat kind of glazed over me um I was holding on the car was inverted upside down and as it rolled back over I was trying to understand what the you know I was just waiting for like hey just turn my lights out because I don't know what my last memory is going to be but you know I'm just waiting for that and you're done right um we hit the ground the car starts to slide and then it stops and all of the violence is over it's peaceful and quiet again except for a campfire firing in my ear and I'm like holy I'm holding onto the door right I'm just like I'm live dude and I remember going Coy we got to get out of course on fire I can smell the fire so I open the door I get out and uh I run around the back side of the car now the car is already engulfed in flames um I'm cognizant of where I am but I'm wearing flip-flops shorts and a t-shirt because I was not supposed to be out there I was not ready for track day this wasn't uh test and tune this was charity rides you know doing a good cause doing a good thing we've got to test the car real quick let's do a lap not a big deal right um I come around the back side of the car and the driver's side's engulfed in flames the rear wheel is missing um when I came around I was expecting to see him kind of exiting the car at the same time you know we just kind of you know make a way and go holy except that's not what I saw when I came around the back side of the car I noticed that the door was still shut and what caught my attention was the fact that I could see him humped on the steering wheel the door handle was still in um but it was all melted and and it was going quick I didn't know I knew what kind of fuel was in the car because we had just filled it up so my my initial thought was this thing is one and a half seconds away from blowing the up and we're going to be you know this is going to be like a Paul Walker thing like instantly like like the size because I'm an engineer right so my brain is thinking the fire and the fuel and the electronics and everything going and like this is just a recipe to kill us both now we survived this crash but now we're both gonna die in this explosion so I go to the car and I open the door handle and uh I opened the door and Corey's in there and when I first saw him he had blood on the back of his head he was just humped on the steering wheel and I was like he's dead as like here we go I got my dead best friend and he's in this car he's gonna burn to the ground right and I'm like well you know not on my time and uh you know people have heard stories of of things that I've done in the past in the military and they know and I know that I don't think nobody behind ever no matter what and uh and here was it was another instance of that so um the craziest part so he's he's in the car and this is happening like so fast you know we it slowed down for the for the impact but this is happening so fast the car is burning quickly and the fire is getting out of control very fast and I go in I unbuckle his seat belt and pull him out of the car now when I pulled him out of the car I'm five foot five you know 160 pounds he's you know 220 pounds six one he didn't weigh a dime he was weightless when I pulled him out of the car it was incredible to me that he didn't weigh anything the roof was collapsing the roof was pushed down the wind the driver's Windows only this tall didn't matter he came out of the car with ease and when I pulled him out of the car I got him out of the vehicle and the second I got him out of the car he instantly weighed a million pounds and and hindsight looking back obviously you write the adrenaline is what helped me take him out of the car because if we had to do it as a dry run today or tomorrow anybody in my in our size class it's an impossible task to do if you ever carry someone that was sleeping or whatever like my child you pick them up and they're 60 pounds of sleep they weigh like their million pounds there's no way there's just no way right but here we go there's another thing that just happened to go right you know adrenaline was hitting at the right time pulled him from the car now when I got him out of the car he turned into a million pounds again um and I was wearing flip-flops you know I fell um I got back up and I was just thinking a lot of the car I got him out of car now let's get in this car before it blows the up um so I'm dragging him and as I'm dragging him um a couple of things happen now one part is he woke up which was awesome because up until that point he was the doodle dead weight um and I was for certain that he was dead first certain he was dead um but he wasn't and and I remember being so like oh like you're alive but we got we're now we're definitely not going to make it because now you're alive but we're gonna burn next to this car and blow up so let's go and he's he's talking about his ass and he's like oh my my suit has come down and I'm like come on we gotta go I don't we ain't got time for that and uh and interestingly enough um I wasn't the only one there now some people was what I don't know if you get tunnel vision in some of these moments right but I remember other people being there and I remember other people helping me and I didn't know if it was like angels and you know like this house crazy but hear me out um I just remember people helping me but I knew that we were by ourselves but there was people helping us and um we got away from the car and I sat him up and he had a big hole in his head and I was like well okay and what you know we're checking them off here okay uh hit hit K rail burst into flames check uh survived the crash check oh he's gonna burn to death let's drag him out oh he's alive now it's always got a hole in his head so um he's got a hole in his head it's it's gushing out blood on the back of his head and I'm like okay I can do this so I stick my fingers in there and I jam it all shut and I'm holding closed and I'm talking to him and he keeps asking me am I gonna die AJ am I going to die I said no you're not gonna die I said we were gonna die a second ago in that car when we were burning and gonna blow up but we're good now we're good and what I didn't know is at the time he couldn't see anything uh and he didn't articulate that he just kept saying am I going to die because I can imagine he just woke up getting dragged out of a car with me tearing his ass on the ground um now he's blacked out and he can't see anything but he he he can feel things and he could feel pain but he can't see anything so you know is this where you go when you die so I can understand his fear but um but I just reassured him that you know everything's gonna be okay um the hard part was done I thought at least um that we're gonna be fine you know and people started coming up and asking you know oh my God you know and it's crazy people would come up with their cell phones out you know right in my face and they're like oh my God are you all right I'm like no we just had a car accident let me have your shirt give me your shirt I need your shirt I need something for to put on his head you know and people are taking their shirts off and I'm using their shirt as a rag and uh and I'm like hey let me have can I have your water and they're like yeah here you go they're using water and we're trying to make it work um and in the meantime you know it's crazy this is a racetrack if when you watch the video cars are still speeding past us hey what you I've done Motorsports long enough to know that when it was an accident red flags go out all the corner workers tell everybody to stop and you get off the track so you make way for emergency vehicles watch the video watch all the extra footage the car is flying past the whole time whole time and I'm like man like they're not nurses a car on fire you know people out there trying to make it happen whatever but um they're not going slow either no no they should they could they were there faster than the animals they could have swung by we could have thrown them in the car done a lap to the hospital before the ambulance showed up but um but that's not how it worked out it actually worked out um so many so many good things came out of it the airbags in the car did not go off we hit the wall and we were guessing somewhere between 110 and 120 miles an hour okay um backwards none of the airbags went off um and that was a blessing you know at first we thought what the you know is there a malfunction what's going on what happened that the airbags didn't go off but had the airbags going off a couple of things could have happened right I could have been knocked unconscious by one of them there was curtain bags front bag Knee Bag bags all over the place it could have hindered me getting out of the car it could have delayed my reaction getting out it could have covered his window so when I got out and I came around and looked to see if he's still in the car I just see a curtain and I go oh he must be out somewhere he's over here but he's not he's throwing the car burning to death right um it could have it could have been that snag Hazard when I'm trying to get him out that you know we're getting caught up in these bags there but but they didn't go off you know and it's like the gift and the curse right like it should have but what uh whatever um people you know we hear people see the video and people go oh you know you guys should have been fully up kidded helmet and everything if he was wearing a helmet you know he's 6-1 in the car the roof is already right there when we flip this thing over and the roof comes in it punctured the back of his head if he was wearing a helmet and had another two inches of cushion there I probably would have compressed the spine and broke his neck was right he could be a paraplegic you know you'd be rolling around in a wheelchair um or dead you know it could have gone so differently but it went it went just as bad as it needed to be right um from there it was uh so up until this point in time I had no idea I was injured so um I'm helping him and then people are coming up and helping us and it wasn't until one of the one of the people that came up said hey are you going to be all right and I said yeah I'm all right I'm gonna be fine why like he he's got a hole in his head we're trying to fix this and they said well what about your arms and uh and that was the first time I'm holding it sitting there holding his head that's the first time I looked down and I noticed that all of the skin on my arms was missing and uh I think they probably call it shock right because you don't know until you know and then when I saw it and I looked down I realized that all the skin on my fingers and on my arms were missing um it hurt then it hurt before then I didn't even feel it and your neck yeah and yeah yeah it burned so that explosion that came through when we impacted the wall that initial impact a huge Fireball like I said came through the cabin it came in the back window it broke the back window came in the back window and it went out my window because I was trying to figure out how I had got burned across the whole side of my head and the back of my neck my ear my eyelashes were gone from the glass or whatever yeah there was cuts um it was absolutely ridiculous but that the the footage after the fact helped us understand what happened um of course the burns on my hands and everything came from um the fire but yeah I didn't realize how bad it was um and I and I continued you know we I I was first went into the ambulance you know because they said hey let's let's get you guys taken care of and you know help showed up they put me in the ambulance they started working on me they had him on the stretcher because of his neck they were worried that his that um you know maybe he had hurt his neck or broke his neck or something like that um or there was only a white person only stretcher I don't remember it was something like that right but um it's like hey you got you you just get into trouble you can walk yourself in there um but no they were fantastic that actually the crew was fantastic and they got me in the um ambulance and I remember the poor guy uh that was helping me he was I can tell he's he's done it for a while but maybe this might have been the realest thing he's ever seen right and this is Brainerd Minnesota maybe there's not that many incidents or something but I was in pain and I was very vocal about it letting him know that was in a severe pain and inside the ambulance they have a little safe on the wall where they put the narcotics and they lock it in there so people can't get it and he was trying to get the combination to open this thing he kept messing it up and messing it up and he was wiping his eyebrows he was like he's like I'm sorry man I'm going I'm coming and he's trying and I said hey man I'm gonna be all right I'm gonna be all right it hurts take your time and he took a deep breath put the coat in perfectly opened the safe um he I think he gave me Demerol or something like that gave him something he made him stupid oh my God the second he put it in me it fell to me I was like oh this is I can do this I'm all right now I'm okay before that I was like man you're gonna help me out man but it hurts so bad um but he took care of me so Kudos I wish I knew his name I'd give him a shout out because he was fantastic he started patching me up um I was way too up to to be patched up but he was doing what he could do you know because in Burns I guess infection is the number one thing you're you're exposed your raw skin and they want to make sure you don't get anything in there and I got his blood in there a bunch of raw dirt a bunch of VP 109 and all mixed in there um so uh so they got us enough they got us in the ambulance and they got us to the hospital um once we got to the hospital um you know they said hey you know a couple of things were going on they needed to notify our significant others um or for me at least because I was there I was there with my son only which he got ended up getting left at the racetrack but he figured it out um but to create one of my craziest pieces is and I've told this story before they uh I was wearing a wedding band made out of tungsten now all you car guys out there I get it you guys know right tungsten is the I got it because I work on so much my rings would get scratched up and my wife be like oh my God your ring looks also messed up so I got a Tungsten one right because it doesn't scratch it's the hardest that's fantastic until your hands are been burnt to crisp and my fingers are starting to swell up and the lady came in and said hey I need to cut off your wedding band or you're going to lose your finger and they had me doped up on all this stuff so I laughed at her and I was like ha ha good luck cutting this off because this is what they make the tool to cut it off out of you know so she was like oh so she went got a doctor they came back they're talking and uh while they were trying to figure out how to figure out if they're if I was gonna lose my finger or not I just pulled the ring off with all the skin attached and uh and she turned around and I said I got it and she was like oh and she grabbed a little specimen cup and I dropped the ring in the specimen cup and uh and so so now I wear I wear a little silicone one so you know Pro tip if you're going to be a car guy wear a rubber ring rubber rings and go to the bathroom before you go and go to the bathroom before you go racing in an accident um but uh so so my interviews were I guess pretty severe I got third degree burns uh on a lot of portions of my body um dragging this out of the car so they said I had to get on a helicopter and fly into the city we were about an hour and a half north of uh of the Twin Cities so I need to get to the burn center um that was a yeah that was an exciting trip uh from there it was you know stitching up his head patching up my Burns and then flying you out huh and flying you out and flying me out yeah flying me back home um and you were so goofy I was I was kind of goofy apparently you're so high but I mean you know all in all you know we we learned a lot of different things from this um you know we learned number one uh if you're gonna change the spark plugs you know wait 24 hours before you drive the car um I think you cover that one right oh yeah um and that's just our little rule is kind of funny but uh but live by example right it's so crazy you know something like this to survive something like this and I'll be 100 honest you know like yes it sucks that the car is damaged yes it sucks that these different things got you know kind of up my trip back to Phoenix but you know it broke stuff inside of me for a long time um you know like this is the tough part you know when I came home you know um I was not very honest with my family um you know hero syndrome or whatever they want to call it you know you you know everything's fine you know I'm good I'm the hero of the day whatever you want to call it um inside I was an absolute wreck um yeah you just didn't want to address it yep he didn't want to you know it wasn't until that damn thing rolled back in here I try not to think about it at all you know I haven't seen this vehicle since I pulled him out of it three years ago yeah okay um I haven't seen the car I never saw the car after the incident when I pulled him from his seat I turned my back to it that was the last time I ever seen it what's it like for you to experience having a carpet hopefully I mean it brings up a lot of bad emotions but at the same time it's I guess I kind of look at things a little differently now you know since all the things that happened I don't look at it as just a negative thing of like oh look at the car oh my God almost died in it I also looking to go man you know I mean there's a lot of life that's come from it I mean I look at life differently now I act differently and I mean I've been through a lot of stuff with eight heart surgeries and things like that going through that I I I've always approached life optimistically but I mean this brought AJ and I closer than we ever could be I mean we'll I mean we're going to be old old men when we die and still know each other you know I mean that that's uh that like really ships never go away and I think about how my family acts you know because that scared the hell out of my family just like his family I mean scared the pants out of them and you know you you saw my son a little bit ago and and you saw how he is I mean everybody saw it and I feel like it's a it's a blessing I know it's a it was a bad thing that happened and it's tearful and it hurts you know what I mean and I wish it didn't happen it was also extremely expensive but you know now so you want to throw a dollar figure on there but it was very expensive the part that about it though is that I look at it and now because of that my son who races my wife who races other people that we know who race they go oh that can happen to koi that can happen to me yeah and so it's an eye-opener to him and it's like dude I got to make sure I check all my stuff properly let me make sure you know my son walks a track now you know he walks the track and goes around and says okay oh man you know this corner right here it's got a lot of dirt on everything else I'm going to take this corn a little slower so I don't zip off of it or something like that or have an accident or maybe there's some oil or something people pay attention a little bit more and I feel like it helped out quite a bit and I know it helped the show Power Crews quite a bit because they made some adjustments because they're like dude that was the worst crash that they ever had and they've had bad crashes like I said just people got but nothing like where they had ambulances carting people off and stuff and helicopters flying him home you ever find him to the Hennepin so I I don't it's a bad thing I'm gonna tell you the hood is going to come off and it's going to go on my wall you know what I mean it's going to be a reminder to me you know just like the Pacemakers reminded me I'm still kicking that's reminding me it's still kicking you know I mean I'll probably have AJ sign it so I can have something famous from them you know what I mean but I mean otherwise I mean it's it's it's it's a car right it's what came out of the car to me that's more important I I don't know I think I think we're very blessed and uh and I think you know it must have been what it was supposed to happen because the things we're doing now in our lives our attitudes I think are extremely positive and our kids are I think they hold us a little tighter and our wife's a little tighter because we're a little happier I'm quite Christmas and that's a story and that's how my best friend saved my life this is so ridiculousforeign and AJ looked back at me and I was like what the was that he's like and all of a sudden the car goes guys right now we're running three entries for every dollar you spend on 1320video.com to win this GTR and 15 000 this is a full bolt-ons GTR making it 650 all-wheel horsepower on 85. perfect amount of power for the street all this can be yours all you got to do is go to 1320video.com right now every dollar you spend is three entries to win this car 15 grand I'm koi Christmas and today I'm telling you the story about how everything went wrong everything also went right well so I got started in racing you know a couple about a decade ago easily started getting into a little more hot and heavy starting with the GTR areas where I really enjoyed it working with cisio performance and those guys out there and really the reason why we started on the GTRs was because that was my wife's car and bought it for her for her I can't remember it's 2011 we got a 2012 GTR for and I got it for her birthday and man she bought her pants on that one that was a good it's a good way to keep a wife and then from there uh like everybody else that has GTR they want it to go faster so we started doing that and we started going full bolt on and then full bolt-on wasn't enough and we had to move out from the 3.8 liter to a 4.1 liter and then it was a 4.3 liter and it was bigger turbos and more a better transmission and then pretty soon we had ourselves a race rocket if you will for my wife's car and then I was jealous because her cars were significantly faster than mine so I had to go buy a GTR and I got into the GTRs and I actually really enjoyed the full bolt-on and I had a blast with that but then I moved to I think it was I forgot what cecio called it um it was a something plus kit and so I moved into that and that was pushing about 1250 horsepower somewhere on there now my wife was pushing like 1600 at the time before she went up to like 2600 when she got this really big you know really big power but it was still it was a lot of fun to drive and I enjoyed it we started going out to the tracks we started racing doing the the drag strip ones obviously going down like the fl2ks and Texas 2ks and uh we'd go to the uh the summit Raceway which I think was in Ohio we go to a couple different places we'd race a lot down there but one place we did get to go race so we enjoyed a lot was driving down to Brainerd brainer International Raceway when I was uh was there I started noticing these Billboards and poster signs and they kind of said they said things like hey we have um Proving Grounds which was one event that they do that like twice a year and improving Grounds was a lot of fun I'm trying I can't remember the name of the the company that would put that on I know the guy's name was Dan or Dana or something like that but anyhow it was a super Super Awesome event and you do it twice a year and you got to do a bunch of different activities they had like drifting and things like that and then the other one they had in summer was called Power Crews and so we did our first Power Cruise and I think it was around 20 14 some around there and we did our first Power cruise and we were we we thought we're the only people with GTRs and that's how I met my buddy AJ because I was over there driving around and I was like wait a second so he parked and I pulled up next to him I said you should do Tiana he's like yeah I said oh man did we just become friends and we started talking I was like are you ex-military and he's like yeah and I'm like oh my God we're like buzzing buddies now just like Step Brothers you know I'm like oh we're best friends so we we I mean it was I I should not like two weeks after that he was up at my house jumping out of an airplane I mean that's how he was like hey man I'm gonna go up there to jump on an airplane can I come set your place I'm like come on and so like a friendship was born and it's been like that ever since I mean we've been next to each other everywhere as a matter of fact we we pretty much moved together we moved out of he was living in Minnesota I was in Wisconsin about two hour and a half hours away he's in the cities I was up in the Twin ports and then he moved to Arizona and I'm like I guess it's time to move to Arizona my wife said there's you get no argument out of me so we moved to Arizona when did Texas 2K and that's when I just bought the uh Ford GT I had a yellow uh GT with black stripes it was like 1300 horsepower well Cisco performance had built it up I took the supercharger out put twin turbos on it and it you know it was just that was a that was a badass car that you you have to know how to drive that car or you will kill yourself there is no it's all driver mod in that car uh the Ford GT has no help at all and that is just so fast I got that and uh other friends of mine is like uh paren um prin and Chris they're over at Chicago motor cars and I was talking to them and I'm like dude you know I really want to I really want to check out a Lambo I want a skittles car you know that's what I call them a skittles cars because we've been driving around the GTRs we've been doing it for so long and my wife was like a thousand plus horsepower over me and I'm like I don't want to get my ass kicked by her all the time she already gets all the I mean 13 20 we sit there and cover all the time you know I was like oh look here's a woman just freaking cracked the 7-1 you know I mean it's like yeah you know not to mention her language on the track is always an amusable is amusing you know so I pretty girls tell you what man when we get back because it was at Texas 2K because when we get back this was like 20 2017 I think it was he goes when we get back I got one I'll send it to you just drive it let me know what you think he knew what he was doing so I get this white one comes in I get it and actually I didn't even drive it at first my son drove it he took it to prom and everything else it was like a 2015 you know it wasn't the perfect Monty it was the regular Huracan and uh but it's still you know it's just it sounded badass it just felt good I was like this car is the so I said I get the car I trade in the the GTR I immediately wrapped this car this crazy color they put these badass wheels on it you know the same wheels that I've got here um and then I did a crazy powder coat and stuff and everybody called it uh Skittles the thing is what everybody was calling it was because it just looked all crazy looked like a tie-dye right took it down to the car show people were like holy this is amazing and then I was like yeah this is great and I was like but it's not quite fast enough I'm like it's it's cool it's a Lamborghini but we need some more power and we need to put a different presence on it right so I'm like all right let's pull the wrap off of this called up I mean geez this wasn't even four months later I pick up the phone and I call up and I call print up and say hey will you take this car back you know that give it now take it back because it's something wrong I'm like can I trade it in and get a different one he's like yeah and I said well I want to get one or the perfumantes you know because I'd put like a 1610 wing on spoiler on the back of that one stuff to make it look cool but it wasn't a perfect Monday I wanted the perfect Monte so he's like yeah I've got one I said great I'm not even take delivery of it send it down to underground racing and I'd met Kevin and Casey but most I talked to Kevin the most and I talked to Kevin I'm like look man would you hook me up with a a package and I think it was a state they call it the stage three uh it was a State Street was what the first one was the stage three and then um I drove around and beat the shot of it and when I finally got it and you got it done for me really quick and I was like this this is great but I want to go faster thank you thank you foreign the difference between driving the GTR and driving the Lamborghini in with power like that because there's similar power the difference was it felt like the GTR when it was going it would go you hit your gears and stuff and it feels like you get to Top Gun and it's like the Lamborghini felt like it's like let's keep going instead of being like like slingshot like it was like pulling you you know and you're just like oh my God it's just the coolest freaking sound you could possibly have imagine being inside those underground racing Lamborghinis so take off in that car and uh and we're doing uh we did the power Crews that year and AJ's with me and we're doing power Crews and we get beat uh well it wasn't with AJ in the car I had another guy in a car named Adam um and we got beat by this mustang and he was like one of those uh Lebanon twin turbo type setups and he was pushing like 1600 horse and he just you know he was going we were neck to neck because obviously I'm a lighter car and everything we're going on the street we're doing it straight supposed to be 100 we're doing like 215. so we're hauling down there and then all of a sudden he hit the scramble button and he's just like I'm gonna blow the car type thing you know and he's like what I was like what in the hell so I picked up the phone and I I think I was at like 1350 horsepower or something like that with ugr so I call up and I talked to Kevin I'm like man I just had a Mustang whoop my ass he's like what and I'm like yeah he's got some power in it but he whooped my ass we're gonna do about he's like koi I can't do anything more to the car you need to put a Billet Transmission in there I said it's coming back baby so we sent it back put the bullet Transmission in it and then I'm like all right we're wrapping this bad boy Invader because I'm coming back with a vengeance baby so we did and we wrapped it up and um I was like we're coming up the design of it you know I was like all right what's I really like purple purple's my favorite color so I want to call it something really cool but then I was like dude let's kind of do like kind of like a retro 80s Miami Vice type look type thing to it so then we did it and then we put Vader on the front of the hood I was like oh man dude because I I got gold chains and stuff not like crazy like that one well actually I have a gold chain now it has Vader on it I should have wore that damn thing I forgot about that so um anyhow I was like yeah so I was like dude let's put the chain cup down right on the front emblem of the Lamborghini so it looks like a pimp chain right so we called him pimp Vader and that's how this thing was basically became what it was so the next year shows up and we're like and I had this car for two let's call it two power cruises okay so next year um we show up with this bad boy and I've got all the juice in it now you know I mean it's been upgraded it's like the stage three plus plus if you will type thing I'm running ms-109 with VP inside the import I mean it's a two to one mix type setup in there I mean you're talking freaking rocket fuel I mean it obviously because the thing they couldn't put the damn fire out but we would load up I mean for us to get ready to go into Brainerd it's a full-blown event I got a big Duel not the duel I got the big 250 double car I got a double car and a single uh trailer we've got the we've got the Ford GT loaded up on there we've got the R34 load up there which is a thousand horsepower made by Cisco as well you've got uh and then you've got Vader which is this bad boy so we got those three cars there right and Vader you know is is pushing some reasonably you know pretty good power but you know I've got that underground racing gestapo claws so I'm not allowed to tell you how fast it was but I'll just say it had all of it you know what I mean so we're getting ready we're heading down we got all the stuff we got all the cars we've got our trailers we've got a you know a pull behind you know like a 43 foot camper and stuff we're staying I mean this is a show I mean when you go to when you go to Power Cruise there's a lot of people there A lot of cars you got about 800 cars I think that year was like one of the biggest years he had to air we know all the guys here from Australia uh pretty much that's gup he's the main guy that runs it and the other thing that was big about it for me was AJ was leaving he had already been he already used my truck and everything and drive down to Arizona and moved his stuff he'd already left you know earlier that year everything was like maybe May or June you know and I was like hey he's like cool I got to come back up to get some stuff you know and he's got his boy with him uh Gabe and he's like hey I gotta come back get some stuff I got to get a couple things here do this that everything else get ready for the house to sell that kind of stuff and I'm like dude do you want to come up power cruise and let's let's rip it and he's like yeah and I was like dope well I tried to do something a little bit more exciting besides this year and we've done it now for many years and it's because everybody always asks me hey coy can I get it right in your car because that's the thing everybody wants to ride in the car so this year I'm like you know what dude I'm spending all this money and everything I'm gonna charge for it right but I'm not going to charge anybody they give me whatever they want it's a donation and then all the money was going to um I'm trying to remember it was uh the crews for Cancer all the money went to the cruise for cancer which you raised like over five grand in two days because I didn't make the third day but we go um we have this this big list everybody signing up and then they gave me a donation like one person gave me a thousand bucks you know I mean they're like hey here's a thousand bucks thank you very much it's great it's going to a good cost right and we did it and I forget it was for what um a young boy that had leukemia so we do this thing called a cruise for cancer up in the Twin ports to get a little sideline uh and we do it every year and all the money comes together for that and then we give that to we choose a kid I don't but you know the group does chooses a kid and we give that to them some you know somebody that's dying from cancer or leukemia or what's a similar they're saying you know something that's going really really wrong right and it's been it's an absolute great thing for people to do well AJ's like yeah dude I'll get done with my stuff I'll come up there you know I'll come see you that sounds good and I'm like okay so that was Thursday right and Thursday you just kind of get there and set everything up you can't go do anything until Friday so Friday morning is the first day you get to go out there and do do your racing so I've already got people all lined in a minute and then you got to take your little classes your safety class right it says if you get in an accident or fire like that don't get out of your car yeah well I didn't so anyhow damn that hit me right there um so anyhow we uh we drove around at our stuff and that night I was sitting there and I was like man I swear that like this car is not firing on all cylinders you know I mean I feel like it's it's moving but it's not it's not like just you know it's got more right I know it's got more so AJ's like well let's check the spark plugs out in the morning it must have been like freaking four o'clock in the afternoon or something like that right on Friday and I'm like I don't think I have enough of them I think I've got like eight so AJ's like calling every texting calling whatever every single autopod store auto parts store within the area because we're trying to make sure we've got the right the right spark plugs right and he finds two more so we get them and then that morning it was early I just put on my flight suit because we were wearing these flight suits it was so much fun about flight suits like the real Air Force issue flight suits for my son and my and for my wife and for myself we had these little names we might have like uh Darth Vader on it like that on the home of patch you know and my son says I forgot what his was and I think my wife actually was like eat a bag of dicks or something like that no I said no lift Alex I said no lift Alex because she does talk like that so so I'm like oh man we um we started changing out the spark plugs and I think it was the uh number 12 torque or something like that that we lost that we couldn't we were trying to get down there because it had fallen down and we're like oh crap I'm like well I don't think it's gonna mess anything up I don't know if the torque was the one that was the big problem or not but who knew so if we get all the spark plugs changed and they're already they're already sitting ready doing like their very first like runs around and it's taking a little bit longer than we anticipated because we had to move a couple stuff we'd never done it before and we got everything just dialed in just right so I'm like hey AJ you uh let's go take this thing out on the street to make sure everything's good now I had not been in a a major car accident or something and I put it this way I've been driving cars that are you know four four digit horsepower cars for like so long now that it didn't seem like anything to me you just get it you step on the gas it's like people like oh my God it's so powerful I'm like it's not that fast and once you've drove Air Force One when I won Texas 2K uh roll racing and you do 230 miles an hour down the strip in a car like that you realize this ain't in powerwise right but it really is but you don't think about it right you feel indestructible so you know this particular car didn't even have a roll cage in it you know I didn't have any it had a fire suppression system in it we forgot to pull the switch but didn't have the roll cage or anything like that in there and because of what we're doing on this track you don't wear any helmets no safety gear no nothing it's just your seatbelt Rock alone you go and you're not supposed to you can't like cross each of those Lanes do the Apex stuff like that you stay in your lanes that's what you're supposed to do not everybody does what they're supposed to do but it is what it is right so we go out on the highway and the way this car works is that you have to warm it up for like say five to ten minutes right and then you have to drive it for 10 miles before you get it that's what Kevin told me to do and that's what I do every single time and we never we never had any problem with the cars I mean every car that I've had from underground race and never had a problem with it it just drove as it's supposed to drive if I listen to the rules you know I mean that's why you get the rules so we track it down and we go down we go up uh I forgot what that highway is we go up that Highway and we go for about 10 minutes and we do a loop around we come back and it's like you ready to get it and he's like yes hit it and we hit it and we were it was like and we looked at each other like and both our arms our hairs were standing up and we're like oh it's hitting on all cylinders now and I'm like yes it is he's like oh we're about to go mess someone up I get the first one I'm going with you first go buy real quick go buy the trailer real quick let me drop some stuff off real quick let's just get in line and so I go back there and one of my old employees his name is we called him Big Ben Ben Gregory he's like six foot ten he's a massive tall guy and he's like okay I'm ready for a race I'm like hey hold on man we just changed everything out we changed the spark plugs out so now we're gonna go you know give this thing a wheel so we go around and we hit it the first time and we're just like oh my God this is this is gonna be fun and everybody there knows AJ and I I mean I say like we're the most popular people on the planet but we always bring them probably the more exotic cars that are out there um and and they're obviously really fast and we get along with everybody I mean when you get done racing stuff you go grab yourself a solo cup fill up some Southern Comfort Diet Coke that's my my choice of poison and we walk around he talked to everybody you go to Camp fires and you have yourself a good time that's the whole point again it's like an engagement you know so we go out there we go to track we go around boom I forgot what turn that is I think it's like turn nine or something like that and we make the turn and these guys in this uh I forgot the guys names but they're in the white um Evo there's a couple of them in there and you know they're pushing some power too I mean not this power but they're pushes of power and they're all I mean they might have been eight nine hundred thousand horsepower somewhere around there right and so we pull up next to each other and AJ's sitting on the passenger side he's filming I'm on the left stage he's sitting there filming and we come around in this one corner there's a bridge and that's how you come into the place so you go and basically what you do is right when you get up to the bridge and everybody guns it right coming around and we get it and I hit it I'm in like second gear it's like get it it's like when you get it you don't pull the paddles like that you just step on the gas and it's gone right and you just kind of manure it and we got it and it was like second gear and then third gear and I think we're doing a little over 100 maybe about 110 or so and right then you heard whoop just like that and I looked at AJ and AJ looked back at me and I was like what the was that he's like and also the car goes and the car starts spinning as soon as it happened I grabbed the wheel and tried to bring it back and I'm holding the wheel to the point where for two weeks my all my re my my forearms were so sore to just even grabbed like a glass and take a drink out of because I've been holding it for so hard and I'm like we're gonna hit that wall we weren't even close to the wall but I already knew in my head I'm like we're gonna hit that wall on my foot on the brake everything there's we're done right and I mean it just felt like we had so much freaking time from the point that happened so when I hit the freaking wall right and it really wasn't that fast I mean we saw the video of it which we found AJ's phone inside the car after this thing got destroyed and he's got he had he built the phone so it would work because it was on fire and everything was completely screwed and it shows it was like less than a second and a half like one point one point five seconds less than that before when that happened when we hit the wall but it felt like it was like forever so I looked at AJ and I mean you have a thousand things going through your head I'm like he's supposed to go home tomorrow to fly back to Arizona to be with his wife in his Littles you know because he's got Littles and I'm like I'm looking at him and I'm like son of a you know I'm mad at myself now right there's nothing I could have done what happened happened but there is a way to like mitigate risk you know let's try to figure out the best way so I I mean all this is going through my head in this short period of time and as I looked over to AJ I said brace we're going to hit the wall he's like oh and I saw him like put his hands up like this right we have the windows down right obviously and I'm holding the wheel and I'm like all right do I let the car hit on the back end right which is the motor and everything and I'm like that's gonna be a bomb that's not a good idea because we got the racer fuel in here and everything's in there now I probably could have done a little bit better job but you know what happened happened I knew better to hit the front because I'm like if we hit the front we're going to just we're gonna die because we're going way too fast to hit that K barrier like that it's just not going to be good and I'm like it's I can't hit it on AJ's side it's not his fault I'm the responsible part of here I'm driving the car this is my this is my choice you know I made the bed I sleep in it so I'm like all right I'm gonna take it and hit the wall and I saw it sliding in and I shoo not right before I hit that wall man I got scared as shh it came in so fast and I was like and I leaned over so I wouldn't be against the wall right here or against the door I should say so I leaned over and that was it that was the last thing I can remember was I remember was like that loud sound and the next thing I know I'm like AJ you're ripping my ass you're ripping my ass AJ you're ripping my this is literally what I'm telling him I had my flight soon I had it tied around like this and he's dragging me from the car I can't see anything like nothing I can't see anything at all dragged me from the car and my pants came off so he's pulling my ass she could cross the graph across the the road and it's just ripping it to shreds like a grater right that I'm bleeding all my ass right and I didn't even know the accident even happened you know I knew the accident hit but I didn't know the severity of it right I'm like what are you doing you're ripping my ass he's like Coy the car is going to blow up we gotta go I'm like you're ripping my ass he goes like because you're heaviest a car is going to blow up I gotta so these toys dragging me and that's just you know AJ's a retired Blackhawk pilot you know did his two tours over there you know a real good man and he's a guy that understands he doesn't run from danger he runs into Danger I didn't realize realize that I had split my head open as wide as I had and to the point where and I've seen the videos afterwards and obviously I was at the hospital and got the 30 stitches and stuff you know I I didn't realize that I'm like AJ I'm sort of talking to him like I couldn't see I could hear everything but my I was completely blind and since then I have to wear glasses now um because that obviously damaged something but I couldn't see anything and he goes and he's like cool you're bleeding really bad man I got I can't let you go I said dude can I just lay down he's like no you cannot lay down and I'm like what and I'm like What's in my hand and he's like he has his thumb in this hole in my head to keep it from bleeding because it was just born down blood and I'm like what the you know and he's like I can't and I'm like Duke and so I can't remember somebody finally showed up and sat behind me so I can lean back because I I had no my body just felt like right you know it just was jelly only thing I thought about was oh am I gonna die because I couldn't see so I asked AJ probably like seven eight times hey man am I gonna die no you're not gonna die quick I'll be okay am I gonna die no man you're not gonna gay he didn't know if I was or was not I was white as a ghost and I'm already white I was really really really really really really really white and he's just holding on to me like this and I could hear everybody and now you could hear the commotion of people and stuff and the ambulance then the ambulance shows up and my neck was all jacked up and ever since that happened my back's been just jacked so um they get me in the in the in the gurney I think it's what it's called you know a little stretcher lay me down they put this big crazy brace around my neck and stuff I mean well I don't even know what happened to AJ I didn't know the car was on fire I didn't even seen the car I didn't realize that AJ had just literally changed the rest of his life because of me I mean his hands are permanently because he had to go through the fire and I was on fire because it all came out of the gas tank and it was all up up my window and over the Flames were 20 feet up in the air and it was the racing field I couldn't put it out and and I just remember get in there and it wasn't until they they brought the the amp the actual stretcher and banged it on to bring it in the ambulance when they did that all of a sudden I could see again and I saw the the light above and I'm like where's AJ and AJ was up in the front and they're like dude and I couldn't see him because I couldn't turn and all I could hear was man you're really burnt really bad are you okay he's like I don't know man I'm hurt a lot bad but I'm okay that's fine let's get into the hospital right and I didn't even see the severity of his hands how bad he was burnt and he looked like you know like the drum that goes around on the on on the the score with the fire on you know I mean like a pig I mean it was jacked so my wife gets in the car and you know it kind of shed a little more fun on it you know have a little spin on it and my last name is Christmas first name is obviously koi but I like having fun with it so they're like all right let's see how let's see how are you feeling buddy you're feeling okay you know and I'm like yeah yeah and they're like all right man look you got a really you really smacked your head button so we need to ask you a couple questions to make sure you're okay can you give us your name I said yes it's Henry Halloween and my wife goes koi Christmas he's laughing I'm laughing they're like ah he's fine he's fine so we fight we've shed some light on it right we had some fun and I gotta tell you the one thing I will say is that AJ and I have made a I mean obviously we've bled together so we're bonded for life it's just how it goes I know anybody that's gone through that kind of thing it doesn't matter you can't get mad at each other I cannot talk to him for eight months and the next day I talk to him it's like we haven't even missed a date and that's not the case but you see what I'm saying we get into the hospital Jay and I like I gotta take a piss you know they're like what you should have thought about before you got in the accident I'm like what the really you know they're like yeah we can't let you move you can't get up we gotta we're checking you guys internally so they're doing CT scans and all these different scans on us and stuff to make sure that there's nothing like moved and broken like it's ruptured or something really wrong right and uh amazingly enough I didn't have anything broken on me I I messed my body up real bad I had some burns on my back and obviously I split the hell out of my head but now I grew hair back here which is kind of cool so I'm not have a bald spot anymore so if anybody wants to know how to do it just roll a Lamborghini or skateboard it across the cave barriers what you're gonna do so I uh I remember the last time I had saw AJ in the hospital they hadn't saw my head up yet and him and I were sending videos to each other because we couldn't leave our beds and they had him in another area because he's going to get ready to put in a helicopter and flown the helicopters over to Hennepin County for the burn center because his hands and everything's all jacked and they're like the ladies are like hey could you guys you know stop doing this right now because you're cracking us up you're I mean the nurses were just dying because they had given him some drugs so he was all I had never seen AJ like that he was just like goofy as and we're sending videos to each other and I was like hey man like my first video I sent him I was like man I'm really sorry dude you're not gonna get to go home now you're not gonna have any sex for a little while either I'll put you in the hospital for a while I'm really sorry about that dude my bad you know he's like oh man don't worry about it he goes what's the lesson we learned today I'm like I don't know and he's like we do not drive a car for 24 hours after we change the spark plugs and I'm like that's a good point we're not driving cars once we change spark plugs now so now I I swear to you we've done this on other cars we changed spark plugs they sit for 24 hours we do not drive we think it's a bad Omen that's our thing that's our thing right and it makes us last still even though it's a bad thing so yeah we just got done and he and he we're talking about the whole not changing the spark plugs out right and then they tell me they're like hey look your buddy's got to go to Hennepin County he's leaving and I'm like what do you mean I'm like you can't fly the helicopter because that's what he used to do in the Army was by the helicopter so I'm like you can't find a helicopter like he is they're like no no we're flying him down there I think he's gonna fight helicopter and they're like no he's he's got to go down for the burn center he's burnt real bad and like can I see him before he leaves they said yes and so he comes on and he's on his drugs and he's all wrapped up like a mum and he's walking in like I'm okay I'm okay I am okay and he's all dancing oh that was weird all right all right my name is AJ Santiago and this is how I save this life my name is AJ Santiago and this is how to survive a burning Lamborghini crash step one have a friend like me that's a good point don't get knocked out don't stay awake the whole time all right um so where do I start all right so the morning of August 3rd 2019. now up until this point in time I had actually moved from Minnesota to Phoenix and I was on my way back to Phoenix just to get pick up another vehicle and then I was going to be driving down to back to Phoenix when I got a call from Koi and he said hey power Crews is going on you can't miss power Crews we do this every year you got you got to see you got to be here for this and I said you know what you're 100 right so I called my wife and said hey we're gonna go hang out on track for a little bit and then uh and then we'll be on our way back down to Phoenix um that morning uh now the car the Lamborghini the uh the Vader was breaking up you know it was uh making power but it wasn't running like it like it normally would um so uh so we came to the conclusion that we're gonna change the spark plugs in it you know try to fix whatever the Miss was and uh and sure that worked so uh so we changed the plugs the car was doing great running fantastic we took it out for a test hit on the street ran like a champ um uh I mean a matter of fact I mean we were joking about it because we're like dude it's it was hidden like it was on 20 cylinders like 10. it had 20. and whatever ugr said it made for power it was making double that it was fast because it was just stupid um and it felt good you know because I was like boom problem solved did my job now let me let me get you know back to Phoenix um but of course you know we had to do that we had to do the one uh you know um I almost caught sacrificial um uh parade lap you know just to make sure it was good um so we did and of course you know uh and I think Corey was telling it earlier you know as we um got the car on track you know we kind of took it easy going around the track um and there was a white Evo uh that was like hey they know the car they know us you know they want to make good um YouTube videos you know internet gold like the rest of us so they're like hey let's let's do a run and uh and then I was in the passenger seat so I remember going they were on my right and I said hey we're just testing you know so you'd stay ahead of us you know we're not gonna We're Not Gonna Be side by side to stay ahead of us and they were like oh come on and you know and I said nah nah go ahead and I said I'll record you I'll record you guys and they're like okay so they stayed about a car ahead of us as we got to the straightaway where you accelerate you know for the short period of time and it was the short straight because had we been on the second straight the result would be way different um because the the first straight was a really wide area that they used for parking of semis and stuff like that during certain events at Brainerd so that wide area they just had you know blocked off with these Jersey barriers um so as we approached that bridge you know they got on it and they started moving out so it was like all right you know our turn you know so we can keep our separation and and you know have our little safety window that we want it and uh and that that honestly proved to be well probably number 10 things that went wrong but went right you know what I mean because had we let our egos get a hold of us and say hey yeah we'll run you stay right next to us and then we go at the same time and as you see in the footage of the car losing control we would have just taken them right into the wall with us you know and that Evo that had three passengers in it would have crashed also and there'd be five of us that are all up right um so it was Paramount how how it went down that they stayed in front of us um and when you watch the video you know we go into the bridge we get on it they get on it they're you know doing their thing we're catching them um but when the car loses control and we start to rotate and go behind them I mean we we missed we we were pretty close to them and um yeah it would have just been a way way different animal um but the bridge that bridge shot yeah when you watch yeah you guys can you can see it you see it it's just we just missed them and that was intentional that they were a car ahead of us because we intentionally did not want to be alongside them um yeah I mean it was it was it was the way it was meant to be you know what I mean and so many things like that happened example as they continued on and we lost control right um the car turned around we were now facing the wrong direction we both knew it was all going to go wrong um time slowed down to where raindrops you know if it was raining they would never hit the ground because it was so slow I remember I in my mind I was going through so many different thoughts and it's it's the stuff that goes to your mind when you're about to die I'm guessing right you you think about so many things that are irrelevant but clearly important to you right because your brain is choosing what things to trigger and um and there were all these little things and and I just remember and I and if I didn't mention it I was filming right because the evil was next to it says hey go in front of us and I'll film you so they were out in front of us I was filming with my smartphone my iPhone when the car rotated and I knew that was about to hit the fan I dropped my phone probably instinctually right because I I just I just held on you know grabbed onto the door and the roof and um the car rotated as we approached the wall I remember seeing the Wall come faster and faster and uh and koi said we're gonna hit the wall and and I don't remember if I even responded or not I think he said or yeah probably one word response I mean it's just it's all happening right there and you can hear it in that video you can hear it in the video Yeah and uh and so that in-car footage we were able to save and I'll get to that later but um in that moment it was quiet it was peaceful I was thinking about a million things and for whatever reason like it wasn't scary you would think oh you're about to die it's scary right it wasn't it was peaceful and quiet because it was that calm before the storm because a second and a half later we smacked that wall and I'll never forget the smack because it was the pro the most VI it was the most violent thing I'd ever heard like you don't I've been in a car accident before um it's not like that it is a different violent impact from over your your left shoulder like maybe maybe like if a football player tackled you and you were just brushing your teeth and you had no idea what's going to happen right like so get you out of your get you out of your seat that it scares you to death and um I stayed awake during the entire event the car hit the wall instantly it felt like a nuclear bomb went off I felt this flash of heat and it was Windows Down nice beautiful day flash of heat kind of glazed over me um I was holding on the car was inverted upside down and as it rolled back over I was trying to understand what the you know I was just waiting for like hey just turn my lights out because I don't know what my last memory is going to be but you know I'm just waiting for that and you're done right um we hit the ground the car starts to slide and then it stops and all of the violence is over it's peaceful and quiet again except for a campfire firing in my ear and I'm like holy I'm holding onto the door right I'm just like I'm live dude and I remember going Coy we got to get out of course on fire I can smell the fire so I open the door I get out and uh I run around the back side of the car now the car is already engulfed in flames um I'm cognizant of where I am but I'm wearing flip-flops shorts and a t-shirt because I was not supposed to be out there I was not ready for track day this wasn't uh test and tune this was charity rides you know doing a good cause doing a good thing we've got to test the car real quick let's do a lap not a big deal right um I come around the back side of the car and the driver's side's engulfed in flames the rear wheel is missing um when I came around I was expecting to see him kind of exiting the car at the same time you know we just kind of you know make a way and go holy except that's not what I saw when I came around the back side of the car I noticed that the door was still shut and what caught my attention was the fact that I could see him humped on the steering wheel the door handle was still in um but it was all melted and and it was going quick I didn't know I knew what kind of fuel was in the car because we had just filled it up so my my initial thought was this thing is one and a half seconds away from blowing the up and we're going to be you know this is going to be like a Paul Walker thing like instantly like like the size because I'm an engineer right so my brain is thinking the fire and the fuel and the electronics and everything going and like this is just a recipe to kill us both now we survived this crash but now we're both gonna die in this explosion so I go to the car and I open the door handle and uh I opened the door and Corey's in there and when I first saw him he had blood on the back of his head he was just humped on the steering wheel and I was like he's dead as like here we go I got my dead best friend and he's in this car he's gonna burn to the ground right and I'm like well you know not on my time and uh you know people have heard stories of of things that I've done in the past in the military and they know and I know that I don't think nobody behind ever no matter what and uh and here was it was another instance of that so um the craziest part so he's he's in the car and this is happening like so fast you know we it slowed down for the for the impact but this is happening so fast the car is burning quickly and the fire is getting out of control very fast and I go in I unbuckle his seat belt and pull him out of the car now when I pulled him out of the car I'm five foot five you know 160 pounds he's you know 220 pounds six one he didn't weigh a dime he was weightless when I pulled him out of the car it was incredible to me that he didn't weigh anything the roof was collapsing the roof was pushed down the wind the driver's Windows only this tall didn't matter he came out of the car with ease and when I pulled him out of the car I got him out of the vehicle and the second I got him out of the car he instantly weighed a million pounds and and hindsight looking back obviously you write the adrenaline is what helped me take him out of the car because if we had to do it as a dry run today or tomorrow anybody in my in our size class it's an impossible task to do if you ever carry someone that was sleeping or whatever like my child you pick them up and they're 60 pounds of sleep they weigh like their million pounds there's no way there's just no way right but here we go there's another thing that just happened to go right you know adrenaline was hitting at the right time pulled him from the car now when I got him out of the car he turned into a million pounds again um and I was wearing flip-flops you know I fell um I got back up and I was just thinking a lot of the car I got him out of car now let's get in this car before it blows the up um so I'm dragging him and as I'm dragging him um a couple of things happen now one part is he woke up which was awesome because up until that point he was the doodle dead weight um and I was for certain that he was dead first certain he was dead um but he wasn't and and I remember being so like oh like you're alive but we got we're now we're definitely not going to make it because now you're alive but we're gonna burn next to this car and blow up so let's go and he's he's talking about his ass and he's like oh my my suit has come down and I'm like come on we gotta go I don't we ain't got time for that and uh and interestingly enough um I wasn't the only one there now some people was what I don't know if you get tunnel vision in some of these moments right but I remember other people being there and I remember other people helping me and I didn't know if it was like angels and you know like this house crazy but hear me out um I just remember people helping me but I knew that we were by ourselves but there was people helping us and um we got away from the car and I sat him up and he had a big hole in his head and I was like well okay and what you know we're checking them off here okay uh hit hit K rail burst into flames check uh survived the crash check oh he's gonna burn to death let's drag him out oh he's alive now it's always got a hole in his head so um he's got a hole in his head it's it's gushing out blood on the back of his head and I'm like okay I can do this so I stick my fingers in there and I jam it all shut and I'm holding closed and I'm talking to him and he keeps asking me am I gonna die AJ am I going to die I said no you're not gonna die I said we were gonna die a second ago in that car when we were burning and gonna blow up but we're good now we're good and what I didn't know is at the time he couldn't see anything uh and he didn't articulate that he just kept saying am I going to die because I can imagine he just woke up getting dragged out of a car with me tearing his ass on the ground um now he's blacked out and he can't see anything but he he he can feel things and he could feel pain but he can't see anything so you know is this where you go when you die so I can understand his fear but um but I just reassured him that you know everything's gonna be okay um the hard part was done I thought at least um that we're gonna be fine you know and people started coming up and asking you know oh my God you know and it's crazy people would come up with their cell phones out you know right in my face and they're like oh my God are you all right I'm like no we just had a car accident let me have your shirt give me your shirt I need your shirt I need something for to put on his head you know and people are taking their shirts off and I'm using their shirt as a rag and uh and I'm like hey let me have can I have your water and they're like yeah here you go they're using water and we're trying to make it work um and in the meantime you know it's crazy this is a racetrack if when you watch the video cars are still speeding past us hey what you I've done Motorsports long enough to know that when it was an accident red flags go out all the corner workers tell everybody to stop and you get off the track so you make way for emergency vehicles watch the video watch all the extra footage the car is flying past the whole time whole time and I'm like man like they're not nurses a car on fire you know people out there trying to make it happen whatever but um they're not going slow either no no they should they could they were there faster than the animals they could have swung by we could have thrown them in the car done a lap to the hospital before the ambulance showed up but um but that's not how it worked out it actually worked out um so many so many good things came out of it the airbags in the car did not go off we hit the wall and we were guessing somewhere between 110 and 120 miles an hour okay um backwards none of the airbags went off um and that was a blessing you know at first we thought what the you know is there a malfunction what's going on what happened that the airbags didn't go off but had the airbags going off a couple of things could have happened right I could have been knocked unconscious by one of them there was curtain bags front bag Knee Bag bags all over the place it could have hindered me getting out of the car it could have delayed my reaction getting out it could have covered his window so when I got out and I came around and looked to see if he's still in the car I just see a curtain and I go oh he must be out somewhere he's over here but he's not he's throwing the car burning to death right um it could have it could have been that snag Hazard when I'm trying to get him out that you know we're getting caught up in these bags there but but they didn't go off you know and it's like the gift and the curse right like it should have but what uh whatever um people you know we hear people see the video and people go oh you know you guys should have been fully up kidded helmet and everything if he was wearing a helmet you know he's 6-1 in the car the roof is already right there when we flip this thing over and the roof comes in it punctured the back of his head if he was wearing a helmet and had another two inches of cushion there I probably would have compressed the spine and broke his neck was right he could be a paraplegic you know you'd be rolling around in a wheelchair um or dead you know it could have gone so differently but it went it went just as bad as it needed to be right um from there it was uh so up until this point in time I had no idea I was injured so um I'm helping him and then people are coming up and helping us and it wasn't until one of the one of the people that came up said hey are you going to be all right and I said yeah I'm all right I'm gonna be fine why like he he's got a hole in his head we're trying to fix this and they said well what about your arms and uh and that was the first time I'm holding it sitting there holding his head that's the first time I looked down and I noticed that all of the skin on my arms was missing and uh I think they probably call it shock right because you don't know until you know and then when I saw it and I looked down I realized that all the skin on my fingers and on my arms were missing um it hurt then it hurt before then I didn't even feel it and your neck yeah and yeah yeah it burned so that explosion that came through when we impacted the wall that initial impact a huge Fireball like I said came through the cabin it came in the back window it broke the back window came in the back window and it went out my window because I was trying to figure out how I had got burned across the whole side of my head and the back of my neck my ear my eyelashes were gone from the glass or whatever yeah there was cuts um it was absolutely ridiculous but that the the footage after the fact helped us understand what happened um of course the burns on my hands and everything came from um the fire but yeah I didn't realize how bad it was um and I and I continued you know we I I was first went into the ambulance you know because they said hey let's let's get you guys taken care of and you know help showed up they put me in the ambulance they started working on me they had him on the stretcher because of his neck they were worried that his that um you know maybe he had hurt his neck or broke his neck or something like that um or there was only a white person only stretcher I don't remember it was something like that right but um it's like hey you got you you just get into trouble you can walk yourself in there um but no they were fantastic that actually the crew was fantastic and they got me in the um ambulance and I remember the poor guy uh that was helping me he was I can tell he's he's done it for a while but maybe this might have been the realest thing he's ever seen right and this is Brainerd Minnesota maybe there's not that many incidents or something but I was in pain and I was very vocal about it letting him know that was in a severe pain and inside the ambulance they have a little safe on the wall where they put the narcotics and they lock it in there so people can't get it and he was trying to get the combination to open this thing he kept messing it up and messing it up and he was wiping his eyebrows he was like he's like I'm sorry man I'm going I'm coming and he's trying and I said hey man I'm gonna be all right I'm gonna be all right it hurts take your time and he took a deep breath put the coat in perfectly opened the safe um he I think he gave me Demerol or something like that gave him something he made him stupid oh my God the second he put it in me it fell to me I was like oh this is I can do this I'm all right now I'm okay before that I was like man you're gonna help me out man but it hurts so bad um but he took care of me so Kudos I wish I knew his name I'd give him a shout out because he was fantastic he started patching me up um I was way too up to to be patched up but he was doing what he could do you know because in Burns I guess infection is the number one thing you're you're exposed your raw skin and they want to make sure you don't get anything in there and I got his blood in there a bunch of raw dirt a bunch of VP 109 and all mixed in there um so uh so they got us enough they got us in the ambulance and they got us to the hospital um once we got to the hospital um you know they said hey you know a couple of things were going on they needed to notify our significant others um or for me at least because I was there I was there with my son only which he got ended up getting left at the racetrack but he figured it out um but to create one of my craziest pieces is and I've told this story before they uh I was wearing a wedding band made out of tungsten now all you car guys out there I get it you guys know right tungsten is the I got it because I work on so much my rings would get scratched up and my wife be like oh my God your ring looks also messed up so I got a Tungsten one right because it doesn't scratch it's the hardest that's fantastic until your hands are been burnt to crisp and my fingers are starting to swell up and the lady came in and said hey I need to cut off your wedding band or you're going to lose your finger and they had me doped up on all this stuff so I laughed at her and I was like ha ha good luck cutting this off because this is what they make the tool to cut it off out of you know so she was like oh so she went got a doctor they came back they're talking and uh while they were trying to figure out how to figure out if they're if I was gonna lose my finger or not I just pulled the ring off with all the skin attached and uh and she turned around and I said I got it and she was like oh and she grabbed a little specimen cup and I dropped the ring in the specimen cup and uh and so so now I wear I wear a little silicone one so you know Pro tip if you're going to be a car guy wear a rubber ring rubber rings and go to the bathroom before you go and go to the bathroom before you go racing in an accident um but uh so so my interviews were I guess pretty severe I got third degree burns uh on a lot of portions of my body um dragging this out of the car so they said I had to get on a helicopter and fly into the city we were about an hour and a half north of uh of the Twin Cities so I need to get to the burn center um that was a yeah that was an exciting trip uh from there it was you know stitching up his head patching up my Burns and then flying you out huh and flying you out and flying me out yeah flying me back home um and you were so goofy I was I was kind of goofy apparently you're so high but I mean you know all in all you know we we learned a lot of different things from this um you know we learned number one uh if you're gonna change the spark plugs you know wait 24 hours before you drive the car um I think you cover that one right oh yeah um and that's just our little rule is kind of funny but uh but live by example right it's so crazy you know something like this to survive something like this and I'll be 100 honest you know like yes it sucks that the car is damaged yes it sucks that these different things got you know kind of up my trip back to Phoenix but you know it broke stuff inside of me for a long time um you know like this is the tough part you know when I came home you know um I was not very honest with my family um you know hero syndrome or whatever they want to call it you know you you know everything's fine you know I'm good I'm the hero of the day whatever you want to call it um inside I was an absolute wreck um yeah you just didn't want to address it yep he didn't want to you know it wasn't until that damn thing rolled back in here I try not to think about it at all you know I haven't seen this vehicle since I pulled him out of it three years ago yeah okay um I haven't seen the car I never saw the car after the incident when I pulled him from his seat I turned my back to it that was the last time I ever seen it what's it like for you to experience having a carpet hopefully I mean it brings up a lot of bad emotions but at the same time it's I guess I kind of look at things a little differently now you know since all the things that happened I don't look at it as just a negative thing of like oh look at the car oh my God almost died in it I also looking to go man you know I mean there's a lot of life that's come from it I mean I look at life differently now I act differently and I mean I've been through a lot of stuff with eight heart surgeries and things like that going through that I I I've always approached life optimistically but I mean this brought AJ and I closer than we ever could be I mean we'll I mean we're going to be old old men when we die and still know each other you know I mean that that's uh that like really ships never go away and I think about how my family acts you know because that scared the hell out of my family just like his family I mean scared the pants out of them and you know you you saw my son a little bit ago and and you saw how he is I mean everybody saw it and I feel like it's a it's a blessing I know it's a it was a bad thing that happened and it's tearful and it hurts you know what I mean and I wish it didn't happen it was also extremely expensive but you know now so you want to throw a dollar figure on there but it was very expensive the part that about it though is that I look at it and now because of that my son who races my wife who races other people that we know who race they go oh that can happen to koi that can happen to me yeah and so it's an eye-opener to him and it's like dude I got to make sure I check all my stuff properly let me make sure you know my son walks a track now you know he walks the track and goes around and says okay oh man you know this corner right here it's got a lot of dirt on everything else I'm going to take this corn a little slower so I don't zip off of it or something like that or have an accident or maybe there's some oil or something people pay attention a little bit more and I feel like it helped out quite a bit and I know it helped the show Power Crews quite a bit because they made some adjustments because they're like dude that was the worst crash that they ever had and they've had bad crashes like I said just people got but nothing like where they had ambulances carting people off and stuff and helicopters flying him home you ever find him to the Hennepin so I I don't it's a bad thing I'm gonna tell you the hood is going to come off and it's going to go on my wall you know what I mean it's going to be a reminder to me you know just like the Pacemakers reminded me I'm still kicking that's reminding me it's still kicking you know I mean I'll probably have AJ sign it so I can have something famous from them you know what I mean but I mean otherwise I mean it's it's it's it's a car right it's what came out of the car to me that's more important I I don't know I think I think we're very blessed and uh and I think you know it must have been what it was supposed to happen because the things we're doing now in our lives our attitudes I think are extremely positive and our kids are I think they hold us a little tighter and our wife's a little tighter because we're a little happier I'm quite Christmas and that's a story and that's how my best friend saved my life this is so ridiculous\n"