In yet another powerful and sickening reminder of the dangers of motor racing in all its many forms, Scott Kalitta, a two-time former National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Top Fuel champion and one of just 14 drivers to have won in both of the NHRA's nitro categories, Top Fuel and Funny Car, died today, Saturday, June 21, as the result of injuries suffered in a horrendous Funny Car qualifying accident at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey, during the running of the Lucas Oil NHRA SuperNationals. He was 46. His drag racing career began at the same track in 1982.
The Palmetto, Florida, resident's engine exploded short of the finish line and his car continued at high speed, eventually striking a wall at the end of the track and launching into the air in a huge explosion of flame and debris. NHRA emergency services officials removed Kalitta from the car and transported him to Old Bridge Township Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
In this posting, we'll present the facts as they are currently known, and, as always, our own opinion and 
experience where it applies.
Kalitta and his DHL Toyota Solara Funny Car were in a qualifying run against Tony Bartone's Canidae Pet Foods Chevrolet Monte Carlo when the accident happened.
Kalitta was far in the lead as his car approached the end of the measured 1/4-mile when it exploded and was engulfed in a great ball of flame. The car's entire fiberglass body blew up and into the air and pieces of it lay scattered on the track behind the race car as the fiery missile of the car's frame and engine, with Kalitta firmly belted inside, continued through the slow-down and shut-off areas then ran through a catch-net and sand trap meant as "last ditch" catchers for out-of-control cars, and finally into a concrete barrier when it seemed to literally vaporize in yet another gigantic explosion of flame. There seemed no question that anyone could have survived such an accident.
The explosion and fire were so sudden and destructive that Kalitta didn't appear to be able to slow the car at all; it was going at least 300 miles per hour when it went through the end of the 1/4-mile timing lights. Kalitta wasn't able, apparently, to hit the brakes, possibly because he was unconscious from the force of the initial explosion. (Kalitta's car exploded in a gigantic ball of flame).
Whether there will ever be a definitive "final word" on what happened on Kalitta's car to cause the wreck can not be known. Certainly the car's parts will be put together by investigators; with liability insurance and claims being what they are, the scene was probably (we hope) cordoned-off as a possible "crime scene".
Bill Stephens of ESPN.com opined in a phone conversation with a studio host that his sources at the track told him they thought the car was going at least 200 miles per hour when it hit that final wall. The car's parachute did deploy and perhaps that, combined with the sand trap, net and other slowing devices did slow the car somewhat. Stephens said Kalitta was "just a great ambassador for for the sport ... he raced for all the right reasons ... just a great guy". The best question the studio guy could come up with was along the lines of, "So, do they think he was already dead when they got to him?" (Kalitta's cousin Doug is one of drag racing's best Top Fuel drivers).
Funny Car and Top Fuel cars in NHRA drag racing run on a hellish devil's brew of nitromethane and other
volatile chemicals. The ferocity of these cars can not be appreciated ... or properly feared ... unless seen ... and felt ... in person. Whether they really produce the 8,000-horsepower it's claimed they do doesn't matter; on the track, for those of us able to get close to them when they compete, they literally suck the air out of your chest, the odor of the fuel mixture burns not only eyes but lungs, too.
People often ask where "Funny Cars" got their name. It's a simple story: When the Detroit car-makers entered NHRA racing in the 1960s with more money than any other sponsors could muster, they were more than welcome, and built special "production" cars for drag racing with many changes from "stock," including "adding lightness" whenever possible, such as drilling holes in the frames to take off weight (the so-called "Swiss cheese cars"), and lengthening the wheelbase. Many people said the cars looked "funny" and the name just stuck. Today's Funny Cars are basically the same underneath their fiberglass body shells as Top Fuel dragsters, the traditional stars of the sport, and often run faster times than the traditional "rail jobs". Only 14 people in NHRA history have won in both Top Fuel and Funny Car, and Scott Kalitta was one of that very small dual-fuel group.
NHRA's fan-pleasing "open pits" strategy allows everyone attending the races to troop through the pit area, watch as the cars are prepped and/or repaired and meet and talk with drivers, crew chiefs and everyone else associated with the sport. For this reason, and because many of the fans are racers themselves, legally or otherwise, these fans feel a special kinship with their favorite drivers.
At the same time, NHRA has been severely criticized over the years for losing its connection to the "true spirit" of the sport. Amateur racers, called the Sportsman Class in NHRA parlance, can compete at many local tracks across the nation, and NHRA claims 80,000 members and more than 35,000 licensed competitors. (John Force, arguably the most popular driver in NHRA history, has started a much-needed safety crusade within the sport since the death of a team member and his own horrific, near-crippling crash, both within the past year).
The group still stresses its roots, but the reality is that the sport's four professional series, Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock (called "door slammers" because the racer cars' doors must be able to be opened and closed, somehow making them closer to "stock") and Pro Stock Motorcycle, are populated by teams with multi-million dollar sponsorship deals and huge annual budgets. A good friend of mine who won some of the first awards in NHRA through racing the then-new 1964 Pontiac GTO, now calls the big NHRA events "the parade of the painted elephants," referring to the brightly painted professional class race cars, which are out of the reach, financial and otherwise, of the average fan.
Click below for more on the death of Scott Kalitta at Englishtown, NJ's Raceway Park ...
In 2007, NHRA sold most of its properties to HD Partners, an entertainment company with no previous 
experience with motor racing. Since then, John Force, the sport's most popular and winningest driver, saw one of his team's members, Eric Medlen, killed in a Funny Car crash during a test session, and Force himself was then severely injured while driving his own Funny Car and wrecking. (John Force, right, with team driver Eric Medlen who was killed in a Funny Car test session).
Force has now become the leading voice within NHRA for a complete revamping of safety rules and procedures all aimed at improving driver safety. There are those within the NHRA community who say Force's calls for an emphasis on driver safety, along the lines of the changes NASCAR went through after the death of that sport's most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt, in 2001, which resulted in an all-new race car after years, and millions, in development, are not altogether welcome. NHRA, like any racing organization, wants to make money, not spend it on developing new cars. (Medlen was destined for greatness as a member of Force's team; his life and career were cut short).
On the NHRA.com website, the sanctioning body's official statement reads: "On behalf of everyone at NHRA, we are deeply saddened and want to pass along our sincere condolences to the entire Kalitta family. Scott was a terrific driver and perhaps more importantly a better person and a great father to his two kids. He will be truly missed by the entire NHRA community. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife, Kathy, sons Corey and Colin, his cousin Doug, and his father Connie." (Eric Medlen, right, and his father, John; his dad was his crew chief).
In today's Web society, the tape of Kalitta's crash was immediately available on YouTube and various
other sites. What surprised us, and for 35 years we've been around racing of all kinds, with all kinds of outcomes, including the deaths of riders and drivers ... several of them friends ... that ESPN repeated the video of the crash well after it happened. For decades, there has been a sort-of "gentleperson's agreement" in the TV trucks covering races and in programming management that crashes involving deaths were never repeated. These days, though, ESPN found itself just another source of the many where people could watch this tragedy as many times as they choose. We won't post that info here; you have to have some standards after all.
Veteran motorsports announce Paul Page was covering the event and did himself proud. When it came time to repeat showing the crash, Page seemed against the decision, saying, "We are going to show you ... this involves the loss of human life ... a man dear to everyone ... and you may want to turn away ... ". As often as we've been critical of Page during his decades of announcing, from his bald pate to his IRS problems to his mistakes made on-air, and anyone on TV and radio that much is an easy target, this was one of his finest hours.
Pure emotion in his voice, he spoke of how "too many" times he's watched as friends died in front of his eyes, and we felt a strong kinship with his remarks.
We remember when we saw CART racer Jeff Krosnoff (photo), whom we quickly connected with, sharing 
something of a "sick" sense of humor, and were planning to see socially after his "next race," die as we saw the live TV coverage during that "next race" when his car went airborne on July 14, 1996 with 3 laps to go in the Molson Indy Toronto at Exhibition Place. Krosnoff, just 31, died from injuries sustained when his car made wheel-to-wheel contact with the car of Stefan Johansson, sending Jeff into the air, over a concrete barrier, and into the catch fencing lining the street course. The fence did not deflect the car enough to keep it from hitting a tree and light pole that were close to the track. Much too close. Bad planning. The carbon fiber body of the car seemed to turn to dust, and only the engine and driver's cockpit survived intact, both falling towards the track, some of it getting caught in the fencing; Krosnoff was dead at the scene, his body going from over 100 mph to zero almost instantly, with all the destructive g-forces that would entail. Click on this line to visit the Jeff Krosnoff Scholarship site.
After that, we made a vow to never become friendly again on a personal level with any racers, no matter their specialty. Of course, that's a difficult vow to keep, because racers, as Paul Page pointed out today, are among the most open, friendliest and absolutely the most interesting people on the planet. So we got friendly with F1/CART racer Alex Zanardi, spending memorable times with him in the US and Japan. Once, when I told Zanardi that my wife was his biggest fan, he noticed I had a video camera in my hand, and, in the middle of lunch at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan, he told me to turn the camera on and he gave a several-minute "thank you" to Carey for me to surprise her with when I got home. It wasn't long after that during a CART race on a new oval track in September, 2001, in Germany, Zanardi lost both his legs in a horrendous two-car shunt. Zanardi was leading the race when the accident occurred. Zanardi has made a terrific comeback, using his engineering background to design his new artificial legs and feet, competing in the NYC Marathon in the handcycle division, living with his wife and son in Monaco, and competing in the European Touring Car series and testing in F1 cars outfitted with hand controls. Click on this line to visit Alex Zanardi's website.
Paul Page also said on today's coverage of Kalitta's death, "I'm often asked what race drivers are like ... and I tell those who ask that they are living a life of desperate desperation ... meaning that they are wonderfully outgoing with their friends, living a wonderful life ... and the desperation part is that somewhere they recognize that what they do, other than any game or sport in the world, there lingers this possibility ..." and Page has never done better on-air. Another familiar motor racing announcer, Gary Gerould, made no attempt to hide his emotions, tears in his eyes and voice as he spoke about Kalitta on live TV. (Zanardi's post-accident book has prven an inspiration to many).
Kalitta, the son of legendary Top Fuel and Funny Car racer Connie Kalitta, began his career in Alcohol Dragsters and reached his first final round at the 1982 Southern Nationals. He scored his first of what would be 18 career professional wins six years later, in Funny Car, at the 1989 event in Houston. He later switched to Top Fuel, and joined the dual-fuel club with his first nitro dragster win, in Topeka, in 1993. At that event, he also recorded the then-fastest speed in NHRA history (308.64 mph) at Topeka. Earlier that year, he became the fourth member of the Slick 50 300-mph Club at Gainesville.
In 1997, he retired from the sport, but came back in 1999, reacting to the siren call of piloting the fastest race cars in the world.
Kalitta returned to his Funny Car roots in 2006 and reached the semifinals in Denver that year. In 2007, he also reached one semifinal, but this year made his first final-round appearance in three years, and the 26th of his career, scoring a runner-up position in Chicago two weeks ago.
The family business, Kalitta Air, is a Michigan Limited Liability Company owned 100% by Conrad 
"Connie" Kalitta. Kalitta Air began service in November 2000 with three Boeing 747 aircraft and the fleet has grown to a present total of eighteen B747 freighters. Capable of air express delivery of virtually any type of freight, the company provides scheduled or on-demand charter service for customers in the United States and around the world. The DHL sponsorship on Kalitta's Toyota Solara was an outgrowth of a long-time relationship between the massive freight company and Kalitta Air. (One of Kilatta Air's 18 B-747 freighters lies in three main pieces after breaking apart awaiting take-off at a Brussels, Belgium Airport on May 25, 2008).
Kalitta Air received some unwanted negative worldwide publicity less than a month ago when on May 25, a Kalitta Air Boeing 747 literally broke into three pieces while trying to take off in Brussels, Belgium. The cargo aircraft, which was reportedly carrying diplomatic baggage for the United States ambassador to Belgium, ruptured in the center of the aircraft around the main fuselage and again at the rear of the plane. All five American crew members escaped with no injuries. A final report on the accident could take as long as a year to be made public.
In lieu of Saturday's tragic events, Kalitta Motorsports' race cars driven by Doug Kalitta, Dave Grubnic and Hillary Will will not compete in Sunday's final eliminations of the Lucas Oil NHRA SuperNationals.
Kalitta is survived by his wife, Kathy; sons Corey, 15, and Colin, 8; and his father, one of the sport's earliest champion drivers and now team owner, Connie Kalitta. Scott Kalitta's cousin, Doug, is one of drag racing's best Top Fuel drivers.
Comments