Drag racing mourns the death of a Funny Car driver for the second consecutive season.
Englishtown, New Jersey — He was strong and determined, and his name exemplified the tough and unforgiving attitude that drag racing requires from its winners.
Scott Kalitta died in a top-end crash at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park while racing his DHL-sponsored nitro Funny Car on Saturday. The intensity of the collision and the stultifying destruction that terminated his life at 46 years of age was a sobering jolt to the drag-racing world at a time when much is being made about the safety enhancements that have lately boosted the degree of security Funny Car drivers can bank on.
However, behind the sad reality of Kalitta’s fatal tragedy, the sport mourns a racer, a father, a son, and a two-time champion who took tremendous pleasure and joy in the heritage and historical significance that the name Kalitta gave to drag racing.
Kalitta’s father, Connie Kalitta, was one of the sport’s founding fathers in the 1950s and 1960s, designing and racing a notorious series of front-engined Top Fuel dragsters known as the “Bounty Hunter.” Connie Kalitta was a hard-nosed competitor who raced to win and did whatever it took to do so.
Scott was a spitting image of his father, and his outstanding achievements during his back-to-back Top Fuel championship years in 1994 and 1995 highlighted his unshakeable will to win. With famed tuner Dick LaHaie coaching his squad, Scott was the most feared and regarded driver in the class, according to veteran NHRA drag racing commentator Bob Frey.
“If I’m in Top Fuel, the one thing I don’t want to see is that Kalitta car pulling up in that other lane.”
Kalitta had brief sabbaticals from the quarter-mile twice throughout his racing career, when his ownership of a freight aircraft and boat marina in Florida required his attention.
But when he was ready to return to drag racing, he did it with the same zeal and enthusiasm that had always characterized his competitive instincts. Kalitta was not the kind to take things lightly, thus he did not pursue drag racing as a pastime. That was what motivated him.
His death was made even more terrible by his father’s near-invincible record in rudimentary, unsophisticated race vehicles with very low-tech design and safety features. To be sure, the older Kalitta had more than his share of knocks, bruises, and broken bones over his five decades behind the wheel, but miraculously escaped that one, horrible catastrophe that could have destroyed his lengthy career.
Yet, it was his son — onboard what may be one of the safest and most advanced racing vehicles in professional motorsports — who experienced a deadly catastrophe without notice, and at least at this time, a rational reason. And in the end, has anybody ever been able to connect any sort of rhyme or explanation to the inexplicable circumstances or tangled sequence of fatal serendipities that usually precede the abrupt death of a racing star?
For the second consecutive NHRA POWERade season, we grieve the passing of a beloved Funny Car driver. Eric Medlen, a second-generation personality, emerged in 2007. Now we must deal with Scott Kalitta’s unexpected death.
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