We lost another one RIP Scott Kalitta up-date (6/23/08)

[Jim Demmitt Jr]

Sad news

At the NHRA Supernationals in Englishtown N.J Scott Kalitta in funny car qualifying was killed. His car exploded in a fire ball went off the end of the track hit hard. More details on NHRA.com latter tonight

To the his Dad Connie and Scotts family our hearts are with you

[rzibilske77]

very sad news Jim......got a link to the story?

[Jim Demmitt Jr]

very sad news Jim......got a link to the story?


Here is the link

NHRA has now up-dated the info on Scott
http://www.nhra.com/content/news/30033.htm

[rzibilske77]

thanks,

looks like the site is getting overwhelmed right now...obviously:(

[Smokefan]

Found this link http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jz_UlsW1p3Vz6JICDthDLHo6jK_g

Sad News, RIP Scott.

[VicRattlehead]

i was just able to see Scott compete at joliet 2 weeks ago. its just a reminder no matter how safe the car is this is a dangerous sport. my thoughts and prayers go out to the entire Kalitta family, team and the rest of the NHRA family.

[Melon]

RIP Scott :(

For those who missed it on ESPN, or the NHRA coverage tonight, there's a video of the crash on youtube
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-Melon

[Mike8675309]

wow... looks like a very bad track to have such occur at. Absolutely no run off room or what they had didn't have the media they use at many tracks to slow a vehicle down.

[VicRattlehead]

Press Release from Kalitta Motorsports
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KALITTA MOTORSPORTS
Media Contact: Todd Myers



Scott Kalitta succumbs to injuries suffered in qualifying incident


ENGLISHTOWN, N.J., (June 21, 200 - Scott Kalitta, a two-time former NHRA Top Fuel champion and one of just 14 drivers to have won in both of NHRA's nitro categories, died June 21, 2008, as the result of injuries suffered in a qualifying accident at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J., during the running of the Lucas Oil NHRA SuperNationals. He was 46.

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 victories six year 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 victory, 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 had become the fourth member of the Slick 50 300-mph Club at Gainesville.

His great 1993 season set the stage for a championship run in 1994, during which he won five events, including four consecutive -- Columbus, Topeka, Denver and Sonoma – becoming the first Top Fuel driver to do so. Incredibly, he one-upped that season in 1995, where he won six events and a career-best 45 rounds of eliminations en route to his second straight championship.

He finished second in the standings in 1996, but had a fine season nonetheless, scoring a $100,000 victory in the Budweiser Shootout at the season finale in Pomona and set top speed at a category-best eight races.

After winning the Topeka event in 1997 – his fourth straight at the race – he announced his retirement from the sport and sat out until an abbreviated 10-race campaign in 1999. He returned after a three-year hiatus – joining his cousin, Doug, who was now driving for Connie and quickly showed he still had the skills to win, reaching two final rounds and clocking the fastest speed in history at 333.95 mph.

He finally returned to the winner's circle in 2004 with a breakthrough win in Denver and his fourth-place finished marked his sixth top-five points finish in the NHRA POWERade Series. He earned the final two wins of his career in 2005, when he scored in Top Fuel at the season-opening Winternationals in Pomona and in Chicago and finished the season eighth in points.

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, with a runner-up in Chicago two weeks ago.

Kalitta is survived by his wife, Kathy; sons Corey, 15, and Colin, 8; and his father, Connie.

Further details will be provided as they become available.

In lieu of today's tragic events, Kalitta Motorsports' race cars driven by Doug Kalitta, Dave Grubnic and Hillary Will will not compete in tomorrow's final eliminations of the Lucas Oil NHRA SuperNationals.

[VicRattlehead]

wow... looks like a very bad track to have such occur at. Absolutely no run off room or what they had didn't have the media they use at many tracks to slow a vehicle down.

there is a sand trap down there and they used it earlier in the event with one of the prostock bikes. one of the Pedregon brothers mentioned that the cars keep getting faster and faster yet the tracks still have the same shutdown area. i dunno what the answer is. just for everyone that does race keep up on your safety stuff.

[Mike8675309]

there is a sand trap down there and they used it earlier in the event with one of the prostock bikes. one of the Pedregon brothers mentioned that the cars keep getting faster and faster yet the tracks still have the same shutdown area. i dunno what the answer is. just for everyone that does race keep up on your safety stuff.

Wow.. obviously to short for the speeds involved. Didn't even look like it hit a trap. it's really too bad. Looks like a fairly freak accident. I wonder if it was backfire when he pulled off the throttle that blew the motor up. didn't even have a chance to pull the chute.

[89XR7TD]

I was going to go there today but other things came up, thats ashame!!!!

Tom

[CMac89]

I'm glad that I didn't race there this weekend. The Kalitta's are great people and Scott was the coolest of them.

There are next to fatal accidents almost every race I go to. I inspect all of my race cars thoroughly before and after each race because of it.

[Miller]

I was supposed to go tomorrow but my friend who was driving said it was no good to go because of the death. dont want to see that........

[Jim Demmitt Jr]

More from NHRA
http://www.nhra.com/content/news/30033.htm


Scotts dad Connie was one of the pioneers of the SOHC 427 Hemi in Top Fuel in the 60's. I met Scott back in 82 at than Sears Point and his dad amazing family. We lost a champion and a friend

[Jim Demmitt Jr]

Just posted

NHRA statement of the death of Scott Kalitta
http://www.nhra.com/content/news/30034.htm

[SCme94]

RIP Scott....

[Jim Demmitt Jr]

Tribute to a fallen champion

Thanks NHRA this is heart felt
http://www.nhra.com/2008/kalitta/index.html

First round of eleminations

This brings tears to your eyes no matter if your a bracket racer when your a part of the NHRA and know so many racers to have this happen its hard so very hard

Scott Kalitta's crew, along with crew members from the other three Kalitta teams, assembled in the left lane as Hight made his burnout and then slowly idled down the track to honor Scott. There probably wasn't a dry eye in the house, this reporter included. Godspeed, Scott, we will miss you.

[pro street rich]

there is a sand trap down there and they used it earlier in the event with one of the prostock bikes. one of the Pedregon brothers mentioned that the cars keep getting faster and faster yet the tracks still have the same shutdown area. i dunno what the answer is. just for everyone that does race keep up on your safety stuff.

This is the kind of thing that happens when the cars go faster than the track can hold. This is the reason that Great Lakes can't have big events ant more. The track is just too short. Some of the racers are already talking about doing something different, like 1/8 mile.
I know that a lot of people will cry about this, but it has come time to do something about too short of shut down space. I have already gone thru the end of the track years ago in ohio, it is not pretty...
This is truly a great lose, now lets turn this into something that will keep more people safe......Rich
P.S. What happend to Scott was the fire got his shoot and he could not stop before he hit that concrete wall at the end. That is what really did him in. Even a safty net like they use on an air craft carrier would help to slow him down, but they don't like that because it will total the race car...Rich

[Jim Demmitt Jr]

A great final

Greg Anderson driving for Ken Black and Kalitta won Pro Stock in a tribute to Scott Family and sons and father Connie




W/L Driver R-Time E-Time Speed

(W) Greg Anderson (Summit Racing Equipment GXP) 0.023 7.578 200.23
(L) Dave Connolly (Charter Communications Cobal 0.036 20.285 36.59

[Jim Demmitt Jr]

Kalitta Motorsports will participate in Norwalk event
http://www.nhra.com/content/news/30115.htm

[Jim Demmitt Jr]

So long, Scott ...


It’s Monday after the SomberNationals in New Jersey, and I woke up this morning and Scott Kalitta is still gone. And we all face the hurt all over again.


The kid that everyone in the pits used to jokingly refer to as “Eddie Munster” for his passing resemblance to the kid from the TV show, grew up to be a world-class racer, a two-time NHRA season champ, a husband, a father, and, yes, a monster on the track.


I heard it said over and over again this weekend that Scott was a “racer’s racer,” and in that fraternity, there’s probably no bigger compliment. Scott would race you hard, but he’d race you fair. He’d hate you on the starting line but bust out the brewskis with you later that night.


I think that because he grew up in the sport, it makes it all the much tougher for everyone who saw him go from an eager young wrench-twister, working on Shirley Muldowney’s car or his dad’s cars, to becoming a world champ. Guys like Don Prudhomme and Kenny Bernstein and Jim Dunn could chuckle to themselves watching this hungry young lion looking for seat time and wanting to be “the next big thing,” and then watching him become it.


My endearing memory of Scott is seeing him walk around the pit area always wearing – at minimum – his fireboots, and usually his entire firesuit, off to the waist with the arms tied around his middle. Where some might have thought that to be the act of a poseur, I always thought Scott wore it as a badge of honor, a badge of pride. He was a legitimate fuel racer, and maybe, perhaps like Cinderella’s slipper, those boots remained on so that the dream would, too.




Although Scott did most of his winning in Top Fuel, I wholeheartedly agree with those who say that he was a Funny Car racer. He had The Look, he had the determination, he had the mindset, and, yes, the swagger. Nerves of steel, for sure, with a face of concentration and a fire that burned inside him.


Mike Dunn made a point on this weekend’s ESPN2 shows to talk about how much his famous father, Connie, respected Scott’s driving ability. It’s no secret that the two sometimes, especially in Scott’s earlier years, fought like cats and dogs, but the kid did the old man proud. Connie’s a tough sumbitch, no doubt, but you know he’s hurting, and we hurt with him. It seems like we were barely able to finally tuck away our grief at the loss of Doug Hebert’s boys, and then this. It’s the old saying, that parents aren’t supposed to have to bury their kids, and, as a father, I can’t even bear to begin to think about thinking of that prospect.


As any parent will tell you, when their kids take off in the family car and then don’t check in at the expected time, the worry is of monumental proportions. When Scott took the family car, it wasn’t to tool down to the Dairy Queen for a Blizzard, but they both knew that and respected the risks that are endemic to any motorsport.


I wasn’t in Englishtown this weekend, and I’m glad for that. Because I was home, I was able to drive into the office late Saturday night and build a Scott Kalitta tribute page for NHRA.com. It’s a sad ritual I’ve now done three times – for Scott, and before that for Eric Medlen and Wally Parks – but it’s kind of peaceful to be sitting in my office with no one else here, thinking of ways to honor the fallen. It was unbearably hot in L.A. Saturday and because the building was empty, the air conditioning wasn’t on. It was a bajillion degrees inside so I stole a fan from the National DRAGSTER library room, stuck it on my desk about a foot from my face, and turned it on, and let the memories of Scott wash over me.


I had grabbed his rather thick collection of miles form the photo library and thumbed through them and came across the images you see here, which brought a smile to my face.


Cory McClenathan and Scott were good buddies and spent 1994 – Scott’s first championship year -- trying to one-up one another in the practical joke department.



“Scott and I were great friends,” Cory Mac told me today, as he piloted his motorhome sadly towards Indy, “and back in our early days we were always at each other for number 1 and 2. Dick LaHaie was his crew chief and Jimmy Prock mine, and those two guys were great friends, too. Back then, we all used to travel with the rigs and, without sponsors to worry about, pretty much everything was fair game, and money was no object. He didn’t play fair, so I didn’t either.”


Cory Mac had a lot of help from the Oberhofers, Jim and Jon, on Kalitta’s team in pulling of the pranks.


“One of my favorite was in Atlanta, I think,” Cory recalls. “I had Simpson make me up a pair of pink parachutes and had ‘I [heart] Cory Mac’ sewn on it. They snuck them onto Scott's car and he didn’t see it until he got to out of the car after he'd pulled them.”


“Probably the one that he got me best was when I checked into my hotel one day,” recalls McClenathan. “We always used to stay at the same hotels, and I was in the bathroom putting away my toiletries when I noticed that the shower curtain was closed. I’ve never walked into a hotel room where the shower curtain was closed, so I was alreayd a little leery. I could make out a shadow behind the curtain. I was like, ‘You gotta be [kidding] me.’ I pulled back the curtain and there was a cardboard stand-up of Joe Amato. It scared the crap outta me and I jumped back 10 feet.


“Another time I had lost a bet to him for something and he made me go up to the starting line to accept my No. 1 qualifier award at some race holding a giant pink bunny. He’d also make up bumper stickers and fake handouts of me that said 'I love Scott Kalitta’ on them and give them to fans to bring down to me to sign. It was always good fun and there were always a group of crewguys standing around waiting to see the reactions on our faces.”


Sunday at Englishtown was hard on everyone. You could see it on the faces of the drivers and owners and crew guys, and hear it in their voices, but it was also good to hear Jim O say that they spent a lot of time laughing about memories of Scott.


There was no more touching moment that when Robert Hight pulled his Mustang into the right lane for his bye run when Scott should have been in the other lane. The various Kalitta teammembers still on hand stood in for Scott in his lane, some of them holding hands – Hillary Will between Jim O and Jon O – and Hight, in a stirring salute to his fallen comrade, idled his car down the lane. There were no concerns about getting lane choice for the next round, for this was about more than winning a round or a race.


I’d read hours before about Hight’s actions – of his own making, with the approval of team owner John Force and crew chief Prock --- and knew what was to come as I watched him stage on TV, but even still it choked me up something fierce. I remember a similar moment, at the 1996 U.S. Nationals, when the No. 16 qualifier, scheduled to run Blaine Johnson, who had died on the pass that pushed him to the No. 1 spot, also idled down the track in round one. That driver was Tony Schumacher, who was just getting his feet wet in a nitro dragster, at the wheel of the Peek Bros. car.


It was somehow fitting then that Schumacher won Top Fuel, and, as always, he was gracious in victory and eloquent in his comments about Scott and about how his Army friends had asked him to win the race for Connie, whose airplanes routinely carry out the sad task of bringing home the remains of our fallen soldiers.


Fittingly, too, that Tim Wilkerson won Funny Car, as his own son, Daniel, is following in his dad’s footsteps, as Scott did Connie. It might have been a touch nicer to have Mike Neff beat Wilk in the final, as Neff’s crew chief is John Medlen, Eric’s father. Wilk dedicated the win to fathers everywhere, and we all felt a twinge.


And Greg Anderson? Also fitting as he’s associated with the Kalittas through Ken Black, who owns Anderson’s Summit hot rod and the Hillary Will-driven dragster under Connie Kalitta’s charge.


Scott left behind a loving wife and sons, and a tremendous legacy. It will live on in his team, and in the future wins of Hillary, who cited Scott’s tutelage as instrumental in her fuel dragster progress, and it makes me feel good to know that he was with us long enough to see her win.


It will live on any time someone sees a driver manhandle a Funny Car back on course and gallantly stand back on the throttle.


It will live on for as long as the sport does, for as long as champions are crowned and their names go into the history books next to his.


If there’s a heaven, and I believe there is, Scott’s saddling up next to Eric Medlen right now, with Blaine and Darrell next in line, on a quarter-mile of smooth, tacky racetrack. He’s reached the finish line on this earth, but he races on for eternity, in our hearts and in our memories.


So long, Scott. And thanks.