DENVER—Gary Scelzi’s Funny Car has more giddy-up the farther along the track it travels.
So, less track figures to hurt him plenty at the finish line.
Still, Scelzi fully supports the National Hot Rod Association’s decision to trim 320 feet off the quarter-mile track out of concerns over safety.
“It’s worth it if it saves one life,” Scelzi said.
In the wake of Scott Kalitta’s recent fatal accident, the NHRA took an interim step, reducing the length of Top Fuel and Funny Car races to 1,000 feet. The change will take effect this weekend at the Mopar Mile-High Nationals in Colorado.
The Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle classes will continue to run a quarter-mile.
Not every driver embraces the decision, something Scelzi doesn’t understand.
“It’s just a number,” Scelzi said at a luncheon Wednesday.
A cherished number, though. It’s the equivalent of a football field becoming 76 yards instead of 100 or the distance between bases in baseball shrinking from 90 feet to 68.
This weekend will be the first time the NHRA has conducted racing at any distance other than a quarter-mile at a national event since the first one was held in 1955 in Great Bend, Kan.
“I think the 1,000-foot deal is a knee-jerk reaction,” Top Fuel driver Rod Fuller said. “I’m not for it. I think there’s a lot of other things that we could’ve done to slow these cars down and run a quarter-mile. I hope it’s not a ploy to turn drag racing into 1,000 feet. Hopefully, it’s a short term fix.”
The death of Kalitta shook up the NHRA and caused the organization, its owners and drivers to contemplate possible new safety measures on the cars and at the tracks.
Kalitta died June 21 in Englishtown, N.J., after his Funny Car burst into flames and continued at a high rate of speed through the sand pit at the end of the quarter-mile track, slamming into a retaining barrier.
“Scott’s (crash) was almost like the perfect storm—everything went wrong perfectly,” Scelzi said. “I know that if that race track was longer, we wouldn’t be talking about Scott Kalitta’s accident. If there was nothing there to hit and the track was longer, he would’ve stopped.”
Before Kalitta, Darrell Russell was the last driver to have a fatal accident at a national event when his Top Fuel car crashed in St. Louis in 2004. Funny Car driver Eric Medlen died last year after an accident during a testing session at Gainesville, Fla.
Scelzi wants to see something done now. He doesn’t care what the critics of the 1,000-foot track think of the decision.
“Anybody who has a problem with that can kiss my you know what,” he said. “They’re not going to have to go to my kids and say, ‘You know what? We went to a quarter of a mile on a short race track and your dad had a fire and he’s not coming home tonight,'” Scelzi said. “I’m not saying we don’t want to go quarter of a mile, I’m saying 1,000 feet doesn’t mean anything. If that’s what it takes to do the research necessary, that’s what we need to do.”
Fuller is all for safety, too.
“But we’re trying to change the sport to fix the problem,” he said. “We need to change and fix the problem and not the sport.”
Fuller said he’d like to see NHRA adopt something similar to what baseball did after last year’s tragic death of minor league coach Mike Coolbaugh—the victim of a line drive to the neck. Now, the coaches standing along each foul line in the majors must wear some sort of protective headgear.
“They didn’t lengthen the first base (box),” Fuller said. “They figured the best fix for it was to require them to wear helmets.”
With speed increasing every year, those involved in the sport are looking for ways to keep a crash like Kalitta’s from happening again.
The move to shorten the races has gotten approval from team owners and drivers. Even track owners are on board with the concept.
“I was disappointed at first,” said John Bandimere, the owner of Bandimere Speedway. “But I don’t think it will hurt the sport at all. In fact, I think it will make it more exciting.”
Scelzi is simply concerned about more stopping distance.
“When you have an explosion or you have a fire and the ‘chutes are burned, or the explosion puts oil on the brakes—what happens then?” he said. “It’s like being pushed out of an airplane without a parachute. That’s a helpless feeling.”
Fuller said it’s a dangerous occupation, no matter what the distance.
“Even if we run this at 1,000 feet, we’re still doing over 320 mph,” Fuller said. “I can guarantee these cars can hurt you at 100 feet or a 1,000 feet. It doesn’t matter what part of the track, these cars can hurt you.”
