Top Gear: Massive horsepower, much fire, substantial crashing: what’s not to like?

The most powerful dragsters are, in essence, bombs: four-wheeled canisters packed with highly combustible liquid, to be detonated in an explosion hopefully sending said canister careening at great speed along a quarter-mile strip of tarmac.

The thing with bombs, as this fine video aptly proves, is that sometimes they go off at the wrong time. Or in the wrong direction.

American's National Hot Rod Association (that's the NHRA, not to be confused with the NRA, though both seem to share a fascination with blowing stuff up) has chopped together this excellent slow-motion video of various drag-strip-bound beasts doing their high-horsepower thing... with varying degrees of success.

It's well worth a couple of minutes of your slow-motion time, because, let's be honest, it's summer and you weren't doing anything more productive.

There are flames. There is sideways. There's a small orange box being run over. There's an angry man wearing ear defenders. Truly, what more could you want?

NOTE: no drivers or spectators were injured in the making of this video.