If you’ve ever seen magic shows in Vegas or any other large venue, you know that the magicians can pull off some impressive stunts. However, if you saw any coverage of Thursday Thunder on June 2nd at Atlanta Motor Speedway, you know that magic stunts can also go horribly wrong. Supposed to release himself from handcuffs attached to a NASCAR Pace Camaro before the car took off down the track, “The Great Moodini” ends up on the ground crippled in pain. Thanks to our friends over at Jalopnik for bringing us the news of this magic stunt gone wrong.

For those of you who missed it, there is a YouTube video of the whole performance. Most of the video is of Michael Anthony Mooney getting prepped for the stunt, psyching himself up and giving the thumbs up for the stunt to begin. He is blindfolded and then handcuffed to a 100-foot long, rather taunt, piece of chain that is hooked to the back of the Camaro. Once the go-ahead is given, the Camaro acceleration is counted down. As the count down reaches “one”, Mooney proceeds to start twisting out of the handcuffs. However, the pace car accelerates so quickly and he is jerked forward, causing him to tumble end-over-end. The footage of the actual mishap is only a few seconds long. The remainder of the video is of assistants sitting Mooney up and paramedics arriving.

While we could speculate what went wrong all day, obviously something wasn’t planned out properly. Mooney ended up breaking a finger, wrist, ankle and rib in the mishap. According to Jalopnik.com writer Justin Hyde, Mooney told WSB-TV that he had done the stunt twice before without any problems, however, he “didn’t give himself enough time” to complete the stunt on this occasion. This just goes to show that while practice may not always make perfect, more practice could help prevent making a fool of yourself- oh, and prevent bodily injury.