As one diesel racer recently proved, there’s one very distinct advantage to having four-wheel drive at the dragstrip. And that is, the loss of a driveshaft doesn’t necessarily spell defeat, but is a mere bump in the road. No really, it’s literally a bump in the road.

During the Bryon Dragway’s recent Diesel Drags Day, Truckwurxs’ Josh Sargent was out putting laps on his potent 2008 Ford F-350 pickup that’s had a custom 64mm turbo setup paired up to its 6.4L Powerstroke mill to produce plenty of coal-rolling horsepower. But on one particular pass, the driveshaft decided it’d had enough of the power-braking, high RPM, dead-hook launches on the tacky racing surface, and broke itself right out of the center support before Sargent even reached the tree — doing so with a loud ‘pop’.

After bouncing around on the race track under power for another 100 feet or so, the driveshaft then broke loose from the pinion and fell behind the truck onto the race track. Sargent seemed to hesitate initially, stepping off the accelerator as though he were going to call the run off and wisely pull to the side. But keenly aware that he was still accelerating and thus still had a pair of drive wheels, Sargent just soldiered on down the 1320 to a 17-second elapsed time at over 90 mph — which isn’t too shabby for a big, heavy truck that lost a rather important piece of hardware between the starting line and the finish stripe. But most importantly, Sargent gave the fans some great entertainment value, and that’s about half the challenge anyway.

Video credit: VictoryRedColorado