Blowing a tire at 180 mph at Daytona is a wild ride

Of all the things one hopes won't happen in a race car, losing a right rear tire at 180 mph on the high banks at Daytona is likely at the top of the list. That's exactly what happened to Dr. Jim Norman in his Porsche 911 recently. The pirouettes that resulted are the stuff of legend. Norman received a front-row seat to his machine's nose and tail swapping places at least four times before coming to a stop facing the correct direction down pit lane. Miraculously, neither Norman nor his vehicle were seriously hurt in the dust-up.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, no one collected Norman as he went all Tasmanian devil on the road course. Another 911 directly behind Norman's managed to avoid the spinning piece of German engineering, though that whole lift-off oversteer thing caused that vehicle to do its best impression of a tornado as well. Hit the jump to see both videos for yourself.