Chris “Block” Gordon, a drag racer and Discovery reality star, died Saturday night after a crash at a drag strip in southern Ohio. He was 55.
Gordon crashed during an event at KD Motorsports Park in South Webster, in Scioto County, on Aug. 22. Emergency crews were called to the track at 8:05 p.m. Medical staff worked on him at the scene. The track told WSAZ he later died at a hospital.
The track confirmed his death the following morning. No one has released details about how the crash happened, and the wreck remains under investigation.
The Track Cut the Races Short
KD Motorsports Park posted about the wreck the same night, before Gordon’s name went public. “As I’m sure most of you know, a bad accident happened this evening that cut our races short,” the post read. “As of now, we only ask for all of you to lift the driver and his family up in your prayers.” The track said it could not share details about the wreck or the driver’s condition yet.
By Sunday morning, the track posted again and confirmed Gordon had died despite the efforts of fire, rescue and EMS crews on scene. The message called him “an absolute legend of our sport” and “our great friend and fellow racer,” and asked the public to keep speculation to a minimum while his wife and family grieve.
The rest of Saturday’s schedule was canceled after the crash.
The Racer They Called Block
Gordon raced out of Moncks Corner, South Carolina, where he built and ran a team called Block Motorsports. He grew up around the sport. His father was a grudge racer who competed at local tracks, and Gordon grew up watching him, according to Dragzine.
He turned that into a national name as one of the team leaders on Discovery’s “Street Outlaws: Fastest in America.” On the show, he led Team South Carolina, his home state, and once scored a decisive win for the group. Fans watching at home knew him as a hard, aggressive competitor who didn’t back down.
Off the track, the descriptions rarely changed. Friends kept using the same three words about him. Fierce competitor. Heart of gold. A guy who could light up any room he walked into.
What “Fastest in America” Actually Is
“Street Outlaws: Fastest in America” is a competition spin-off in Discovery’s long-running “Street Outlaws” universe. The season Gordon appeared on, the second, put twelve teams from around the country against each other for $300,000.
Gordon was the leader of the South Carolina squad, which made him one of the faces of the show. The role meant more than driving. He was picking cars, managing his team and racing head-to-head against the best small-tire and grudge racers the producers could line up.
His death had nothing to do with the show. He was racing at a local track on a Saturday night, the way he had for years.
Mayhem, the 1979 Ford Fairmont
Gordon’s calling card was a 1979 Ford Fairmont he nicknamed “Mayhem.” It’s a boxy, unassuming late-’70s sedan on paper, the kind of car most people would drive right past in a parking lot. He built it into a small-tire monster.
Small-tire cars run skinny radial tires instead of the fat wrinkle-wall slicks you see under a lot of drag cars. Less rubber touching the ground means less grip. That makes the car much harder to keep pointed straight once the driver stands on the throttle and dumps huge power to the rear wheels.
It’s one of the toughest, twitchiest ways to go fast in a straight line, and it takes a real driver to do it well. That’s a big part of why racers respected him. Anyone can make a sticky-tire car hook. Making a small-tire Fairmont go straight and quick is a skill.
Why They Call It “The Hill”
Racers don’t usually call KD Motorsports Park by its real name. They call it “The Hill,” a nod to the steep rise that runs through the shutdown area past the finish line.
The venue runs no-prep and grudge racing, which means it skips the sticky traction compound (called VHT) that sanctioned tracks spray to glue tires to the pavement.
KD Motorsports Park is not sanctioned by the NHRA or IHRA. At a privately owned outlaw track, the promoter sets the safety rules, the track prep standards and the on-site medical response. Those standards can vary from track to track.
He Posted About the Race Hours Before
Gordon posted to social media hours before the event. “It’s race day at the Hill Drivers meeting @ 6:15,” he wrote. “Let’s get busy.”
It reads like a hundred other posts from a guy who loved his job. A driver meeting at 6:15, a full night of racing ahead, nothing out of the ordinary. Hours later, the emergency call came in.
The track is at 11902 State Route 140 in South Webster, a 1/8-mile strip tucked into the hills of southern Ohio, near the West Virginia and Kentucky lines.
Tributes From the Drag Racing World
As word spread, tributes poured in from racers and fans across the sport. The comments filled up with the kind of messages people leave when they lose one of their own.
The grassroots drag racing scene, the local tracks and grudge nights that most people never hear about, is a tight world. Gordon came up through it, stayed close to it and kept racing at small tracks even after national TV made him a name.
His death is a loss for the Discovery production and for the broader community he represented. For now, the track has asked people to hold off on guessing at what happened while the investigation runs its course and the family mourns. As KD Motorsports Park put it, the goal is simply to keep his wife and family in mind “as we all try to mourn the loss of this good man.”
