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From today's paper...

A DRAG RACING TRAGEDY
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
BY BILL HUNEKE Special to the Times

OLD BRIDGE TWP. -- Scott Kalitta's drag racing career began at Englishtown in 1982. At the same place, 26 years later, his career and his life ended in about 10 seconds.

One ironic aspect of his horrific crash in qualifying for the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals at Raceway Park is that he qualified for the starting field in the run that ended his life. His engine exploded just before the finish line, and since he kept it between the lines, the run wasn't disqualified, and at 4.974 seconds, it was good enough to qualify 13th. He was in the first pair of cars to run in the final round and after the crash the rest of the round was canceled. Under NHRA rules, any run in the books counts, so he bumped his way into the field and no one else had a chance to do so.

In a truly poignant moment, the crews of the other Kalitta Racing cars all came to the starting line when he was to race Robert Hight in the first round. They gathered in a circle, then stood silently as Hight staged his car. In his own tribute, when the light turned green, Hight barely touched the gas and drove slowly down the quarter mile in the same lane in which Kalitta made his last run. The tribute cost Hight lane choice in the next round, but Kalitta's crew stood and applauded the ges ture. Hight, who lost teammate Eric Medlen in a testing crash last year, understood what it means to lose a friend and fellow competitor.

So what went wrong? Don Prudhomme said that the accident was a sort of "perfect storm", one of those situations where everything that could go wrong, did. Many of the drivers and crew chiefs gathered at the top end of the track early Sunday to survey the scene and figure out what might be done to avoid similar situations.

There is at least another quarter mile after the finish line for the cars to slow down. If they do not slow down in time, they then come to a gravel/sand pit with a catch fence at the end, anchored by two large concrete filled metal posts, and surrounded by a concrete barrier that curves to the left. Beyond that is an asphalt road that cuts across behind the catch fence, a short, two-rail metal guardrail, and after that a wooded area dips sharply down toward Pension Road, one of the public roads leading to the track. There is not much room for error beyond the gravel pit.

According to some gathered there, the gravel/sand pit had been ramped upward, presumably to prevent a car from digging into it and rolling end-over-end if it sloped downward. Usually a car getting that far down has already scrubbed off most of its speed and the gravel does its job. But in Kalitta's case, replays showed that the car just never seemed to slow. Whether the throttle was stuck open or whether the momentum was never slowed (the parachutes appeared to tangle in the wheelie bar and never fully deployed), or whether the engine explosion knocked out Kalitta so that he was unable to apply the brakes, it appears that the car came in almost at full speed, which had been clocked at 319.34 mph at the finish line just a quarter mile before.

When the car hit the ramped sand/gravel, rather than slowing, the car appeared to launch airborne. This was the point where the concrete barrier began curving left, and the marks indicated the car grazed off the top of the barrier and right into the concrete post. If you stand by the post and look down the track, you see that the post isn't so much off the side of the track as it is at the very end of the right lane of the track, the lane Kalitta was running. The car hit the post and exploded "into a million pieces", as Prudhomme related. Part of it went off to the right and into a crane holding an ESPN cameraman, part went to the left and up against the guardrail, where burn marks were still visible. Parts of the car reportedly went through the woods and onto Pension Road, other parts damaged cars parked at the top end.

Frank Hawley, a former driver who now runs a drag racing school and who has appeared as an expert witness in accident cases involving the NHRA, was among a group inspecting the area. With him were Jim Head, the top qualifier in Funny Car, and crew chief Alan Johnson, who lost his brother Blaine in a freakish accident at Indianapolis Raceway Park. Drivers Tony Pedregon, J.R. Todd, and Morgan Lucas came down in another group. Their discussions centered around the fact that something has to be done -- concrete posts should be out of the line of the racing surface; tire barriers or something to absorb impact could protect them; slowdown areas needed to be longer or have better last-ditch protections at the end; cars just needed to be slowed down from the dangers of running 330 mph; the finish line could be shortened to 1,000 feet; something, something, anything should be done so this never happens again.

Moods were somber, tears were shed, prayers were said, but racing went on. Winners were crowned, all of whom had subdued celebrations and dedicated their wins and their trophies to the Kalitta family. People remembered Blaine Johnson, Darrell Russell, Eric Medlen, and other fallen drivers. They also remembered that the NHRA made few, if any, changes to slow down the cars or improve track safety after those crashes. They wondered if now is the time for some serious changes.

Note -- The Associated Press reported yesterday that the New Jersey State Police and the National Hot Rod Association will conduct separate investigations into the accident that killed Scott Kalitta .


http://www.nj.com/timesoftrenton/sto...990.xml&coll=5