Thought it worthwhile to post some pics of my son's failed "aftermarket" flexplate & associated damage to the race car. The starter ring disintegrated into several 2-3" pieces, and exited the ultrabell "scatter shield", during the 7600rpm, 1-2 shift in his ultraglide at about 90 mph.

Needless to say, this failure caused an immediate unbalanced condition with high driveline vibration so the run was aborted!

At the end of the track he was able to idle the car back to the trailer & we inspected the damage. Seems like the starter ring gear fractured at one or more of the welds & left the rotating flexplate tangentially. The inside of the aluminum ultrabell is pock-marked and torn(like a carbide burr would do when carelessly head porting!);a piece(s) exited thru the inspection cut out at the bottom and really gouged one of the bottom frame rails; another piece notched the top of the oil pan sump. Now the pan leaks when loading/unloading the car.

After further inspection we noticed that the starter nose gear/shaft is also broken & the oil pump pickup screen became detached from the tube - probably from the high vibration.

In retrospect the [NHRA-required] parts did what they were designed to do, i.e., protect the driver! On the other hand I think the weld quality of some of the aftermarket stuff is questionable......