Scott Kalitta bad accident

[wsmracing]

Your Right About That...............tony P. Siad That In An Interview With Cruz. Only The Few Strips That Were More Recently Built,have Longer Shut Down Areas........................atleast The Grove Built A Back Door.......................they Run Off The Track Every Year At Pomona..............but They Keep Going Back..........................realestate & Zoning Ordinances. Just Don't Seem To Allow Tracks To Grow..........that, & Whats The Chances Of Running Down There & Flipping Over & Into That Pole...? Hopefully Some Good Will Come From It, Its Just Sad That Someone Has To Die To Make Things Better.

The sad part is Englishtown has a decent shutdown area at the end with space. As far as the sand trap area that can use some work. I mean it looks like it's a very rough and short sand trap, when I watched Doug Foley go into the sand friday night I was like wow that looks rough and short. Maybe they should look into shorting the shutdown area and move the sand trap up. There is not much more they can do cause after that fence at E-Town is Union Road that leads you into the track and as much crap as they already get from the surronding city's I can't see them getting approval to expand. I think it's the part in mind that "it will never happen at my track" I mean you look at one of my favorite tracks on the east coast and Atco Raceway. If you have ever been there the shutdown area is almost as long as the 1/4 mile but for the longest time the shutdown area was a couple of tires, a old guardrail and trees. It took John Lupo losing his life at the track a couple of years ago after he went off the end to have them put in a sand trap. All I know is when there is a death a positive always come sout of it. When Darrell Russell died, they put the side protectors on the dragsters, after Eric Died they did the same thing. Maybe now with Scott K. being killed it's time to look away from the cars themselves and look at the tracks they race on.

[Jason Oldfield]

I also saw the Doug Foley replay and was aghast at how SHORT the sand trap is at Englishtown. He couldn't have been going more than 40 mph when he hit the sand trap, and he went all the way through it, and the front of the car slid under the safety net.

Correction...There is a small portion of concrete that juts out into the sand trap along the right side, which may have been what Scott initially hit, which would have steered him back into the sand trap area. But at the speed he was going if he was hugging the right wall that little jut of concrete would have done some serious damage...

In the end though, at the speed he was going there was a good chance he wasn't going to survive regardless of how he entered the sand trap.

[ss283]

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[Jason Oldfield]

Doug Foley? Foley wasn't going very fast when he went into the sand trap. 60 maybe....he certainly didn't hit it at 100 mph.

Kalitta on the other hand was probably doing 150 - 200 mph...

[Jason Oldfield]

Speeds would be lower too. I never would have supported something like this in the past, but I must admit that if it could possibly save a life I'd probably be OK with it.

That said, I'm not exactly sure where the engine explosion occurred, but the extra 320' may not have made a difference in this case since he was probably already going 300 mph by the 1000' mark.

NASCAR just did a nice little piece on their broadcast, and had a moment of silence at their race in memory of Scott. Nice touch...

I mean I'm notsaying I'm against going to 1,000 feet racing but In SK case there is nothing anyone could do. I mean when the car exploded it A.) knocked Scott out that he could not control the car B.) held the throttle open and if Scott was awake he could not shut it off. I mean about 15 years ago in the final of Funny Car between Chuck Etchels and Johnny West at E-town Johhny's car went about 60 feet and when hard right into the wall. The hit knocked him out and the car continued all the way down the track till it hit the sand trap and the wall. Johnny had burns and and some broken bones but, my point is it dosen't matter if you go 1320 feet or 60 feet if something is going to happen, it's going to happen. Does Englishtown and Pomona and Columbus need to look more into their shutdown areas better for the racers, of course they do. The cars are going 330+ mph and no matter what NHRA is doing to slow them down, the crew chiefs are finding ways to go around them. I mean if they go to a 1,000 foot race or like IHRA a 1/8 mile race they will just shorten the racetracks when they build them. City and Goverment people are not going to allow a huge land expansion to so they can have 2,400 feet of drag strip and only use 660 feet. They will just tell them we can only give you 1,500 feet, because we can build houses or buinesses on that other land you won't use.

[H.A.A.C. Racing]

I have an idea, how about cutting way back on the Nitro again??? Seeing as how everyone is running out of it anyway. I know nothing about fuel cars, but I have to believe that if there was less Nitro, the blower explosion would not be as bad, maybe he does not get knocked out? maybe they don't go as fast?

I don't want to be a Monday morning quarter back, but I can tell you one thing, I had 3 guys come to the track to watch the pros(for the first time) and was ashamed when they went through the whole session without any of the fuel cars making a side by side pass (3rd session). I know it was warm, but I do believe with less Nitro, that would not have been the case.

Just my opinion!

[Lynn Hoosigian]

We heard that Scott was knocked out when the car exploded at the 1000 ft. The chutes deployed but never blossomed due the extent of the fire. It took all the air so none got to the chutes. When he hit the sand trap - car was still pretty much full throttle!!

Our condolences to the whole Kalitta family. Scott will be sorely missed!

[Lynn Hoosigian]

Forgot - the nitro drivers were talking about racing to the 1/8th mi. or 1000 ft at the older tracks due to them not having the real estate that the new ones do for longer shut down areas. E-town I thought was one with a longer shut down but the sand trap area is REALLY small compare to some other tracks because of Pension Rd.