The result of Thursday’s testing run for Nostalgia Funny Car racer Matt Bynum wasn’t the start to his NHRA Heritage Series campaign he’d envisioned.

Bynum, who was scheduled to compete in this weekend’s Bakersfield March Meet at Auto Club Famoso, will instead be a spectator following a crash on his first run of the season behind the wheel of the Matthews Motorsports “Nitro Nick” Camaro AA/FC.

Bynum flipped the front-running AA/FC just before the finish line, and for the most part emerged uninjured except for some soreness and a few bruises.

“Just went out there, first run of the year, haven’t made a run since October,” Bynum explained. “Went out and it shook the tires where it usually does and shifted it and tried driving through it, and it moved the car over to the right and got out of the groove. Started spinning the tires and the back end came around and shot it across the track into the wall.”

Bynum believes the car can be repaired, and will likely need a new rollcage.

“It doesn’t look too bad. It needs a roll cage,” Bynum explained. “We need to get it back home and look at it. We’ve got some other parts and some other pieces and we’re definitely planning on putting it back together.”

These repairs, Bynum added, cannot be made until after this weekend.

“I don’t think we can fix it this weekend,” Bynum said. “I think we need a little bit more time than that; just an unfortunate way to start the season. We were geared up after a strong finish last year and running really well, and had all of our parts and pieces in order and really thought we were gonna do a really good job and it’s unfortunate for Cecil and Randy that it started out like that.”