Sunday, June 22, 2008



Englishtown 2008--Somber Day in NJ at the Lucas Oil Supernationals





Greetings from Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ...where a tragic qualifying accident took the life of Funny Car driver Scott Kalitta on Saturday. The video is posted on our Google partner, YouTube.


The Kalitta teams won't be competing...and what you see above is an impromptu memorial in their pit area to Scott, who leaves a wife (Kathy) and two sons (Corey and Colin). His dad is the legendary Connie Kalitta.

There are more than a few questions to be asked and answered:

What caused the explosion near the end of the run that blew off the body? The parachutes are mounted to the body of the Funny Car, and must deploy to slow the cars. The two blocks you may have seen from the back of the car in the video were likely the undeployed parachute.

What exactly did the car hit at the end of the runoff area?

Is the runoff area at Raceway Park large and effective enough to stop a Nitro Fuel or Funny Car suffering a catastrophic failure of its brakes and parachutes?

What, if anything, can be done to mitigate or prevent future crashes of this type?

We have some more routine stuff to post...like the link to our interview with Warren Johnson, the "Professor of Pro Stock"...and some more observations.










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