Teammates Pull Out of Race Meet After Kalitta Killed

[DeclinetoState]

(Update1)

By Gene Laverty

June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Teammates of Scott Kalitta (http://www.nhra.com/), who was killed in a drag-racing accident yesterday at the age of 46, won't contest their opening-round matches in today's National Hot Rod Association event in Englishtown, New Jersey.

Cousin Doug Kalitta, Dave Grubnic and Hillary Will of Kalitta Racing will miss their races in the Top Fuel category and will be listed as eliminated from the event at the track about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Trenton, New Jersey, the NHRA said in a statement. Tony Schumacher won the Top Fuel event, Doug Kalitta was scored 13th, Will 14th and Grubnic 16th.

Scott Kalitta was killed when his engine exploded in a ball of fire. The car smashed into a wall in the shutdown area at the end of the track. Kalitta would have been matched against Robert Hight, who will make an unchallenged run today.
Bloomberg.com (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601079&sid=a1GV3XGaKET0&refer=home)

[DeclinetoState]

He made his home in Snead Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snead_Island), Florida (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida), with wife, Kathy and two sons, Colin (8) and Corey (14). He was a native of Mount Clemens, Michigan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Clemens%2C_Michigan).<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-aphc_0-0>[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Kalitta#cite_note-aphc-0)</SUP>

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Kalitta)

[Incident_command]

Bad crash. Nice guy. I never understood how NHRA allowed for that short shutdown at that track.

Here's a link to the crash video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebiz8d1Q2OA

[DeclinetoState]

My guess is that the track was built long ago, when race cars were much slower, then formally or informally "grandfathered" in when cars got as fast as they are today.

I would have to imagine that NHRA officials will be taking a long hard look at all their tracks now to see if there are safety issues that need to be addressed. Another one or two fatal accidents under similar circumstances and they will face lawsuits up the wazoo.

[Incident_command]

I've been at that track and the problem is there is a road right behind the wall at the end. The track doesn't own it so they have no way to extend the safety area. The track itself is right at 4100ft but there is no sand trap after the track ends.It is an old track but even when the cars where going through the traps at 225-250mph it was a stand on the brake type stop.

[Taylor1]

That was a badddd crash, man, he could've survived if the sandtrap was bigger, it's hard to watch something like that.

[DeclinetoState]

The track itself is right at 4100ft but there is no sand trap after the track ends.Actually, I thought there was a sand trap there. Unfortunately, it was about the size of one you might see on a golf course, not a race track.