Three-time NHRA Top Fuel champion Antron Brown was certainly thanking his lucky stars following a very rare chassis failure during qualifying Saturday at the NHRA Sonoma Nationals at Sonoma Raceway in Northern California last weekend.

Brown, driving his Matco Tools dragster, was in the right lane opposite Brittany Force in Saturday’s fourth and final qualifier and had clocked a 3.11-second 1/8-mile time at 270 mph when the tabs tying the forward rear wing support to the rearward support failed at the bolt eyelet, causing the entire wing to collapse to the right as the car neared 300 mph (Brown crossed the stripe at 308.99 mph). The rear wing, some 1,500 square inches in total area, is said to produce upwards of 6,000 pounds of downforce at 300 mph. With the sheer forces that are at work in a fuel car at that speed, the loss of that downforce is thought to be — and usually is — considered to be catastrophic. But Brown crossed the finish line without incident, and amazingly, the car didn’t even drive him over to the right side of the lane as one might expect.

Such an occurrence is, thankfully, exceedingly rare, as incidences of wing failures have been more a result than a cause, with engine and tire debris commonly damaging wing struts leading to failure. Perhaps the most famous such example was at Memphis in 2000, when Tony Schumacher lost the entire rear wing on his dragster at the finish stripe, resulting in one of the most spectacular crashes in the sport’s history.

That Brown completed the run without incident or injury is proof of the efficacy of 1,000-foot racing and safety advances in the sport.

“It surprised me, but I knew what happened. Brian Corradi, my crew chief was on the radio. When I got to half track I thought it dropped a hole. It made a hard move, so I thought a hole was out, but that’s when the wing let go. I shut it down a little early because felt it make a strong move.I was a like, alright, [it’s] not worth it. The cool part is the car handled and stayed on the ground and didn’t go airborne. Really blessed and fortunate there,” Antron Brown said.

As any championship-caliber team does, Brown, Corradi, and company assessed the damage, made repairs, and drove all the way to the final round Sunday, where they were stopped short of victory by Justin Ashley.