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thrillbillie12

Gambusia
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Jan 11, 2008
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Conneaut Lake PA
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R.I.P Scott Kalitta

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I watched John Shoemaker die here in my town in march,you know,it surely is a sport that can take you as high as a kite and then drop you in a heart beat.God bless this guys friends and family,so sad to see,thanks for posting.
 
Watched him race for years. Another great one gone.:(
 
there are three more parts to the story.

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i was gonna make a comment about maybe the nhra putting in a new safty thing, the parachutes deploy when the motor goes or anything goes wrong, but after watching the crash a few times, they did deploy and it didnt help a bit.
 
Parachute will help slowing the car down, as a matter of fact, the parachute is the only thing that you have as a drag racer at 300 mph to slow you down into braking speed.

All of funny car, pro stock and top fuel cars will deply their chute as they're crossing the trap.

In The late Kalitta's case, the chute didn't deploy until about 200-300 ft past the traps, which in all honesty it's too late.

When I used to race NHRA, you always deploy the chute at full speed (wide open throttle), wait until the chutes are fully deployed, then you can kill power with clutch and brake. The speed at wide open throttle, helps you to get the chute open fully to starts slowing you down. By opening them too late (pass the finish line), your speed is not fast enough to open the chute, but it's too fast for you to kill the power by clutch or brake resulting you to hit the wall, I am suprised the sand traps didn't slow him down to managable crash.

R.I.P Scott Kalitta, I am always a big fan of pro stock and funny car and it's sad day to see one of the legend go so soon.

Stan
 
Thank you SOOOOO much for posting this. Was a true american racer and diserves the respect! Poor man had to two kids of 14 and 8 was only 48 too. His Father was a great racer too. I was at englishtown the day after he died. Watched all the races and there was a ceremony and remembrance before the Top fuel went on. My friend Cory watched him Crash. Died in the hospital. I am truely saddened by this loss of a GREAT racer. Watched him Race funny cars and topfuel eversince I was a kid.



I am making a thread about Old Bridge race track where he died. Because I was there for the Supernationals this weekend. Look for ENGLISHTOWN DRAG RACES thread TONS OF pics and tons of video's of pro stock top fuel etc.
 
flamenco-t;1910159; said:
Parachute will help slowing the car down, as a matter of fact, the parachute is the only thing that you have as a drag racer at 300 mph to slow you down into braking speed.

All of funny car, pro stock and top fuel cars will deply their chute as they're crossing the trap.

In The late Kalitta's case, the chute didn't deploy until about 200-300 ft past the traps, which in all honesty it's too late.

When I used to race NHRA, you always deploy the chute at full speed (wide open throttle), wait until the chutes are fully deployed, then you can kill power with clutch and brake. The speed at wide open throttle, helps you to get the chute open fully to starts slowing you down. By opening them too late (pass the finish line), your speed is not fast enough to open the chute, but it's too fast for you to kill the power by clutch or brake resulting you to hit the wall, I am suprised the sand traps didn't slow him down to managable crash.

R.I.P Scott Kalitta, I am always a big fan of pro stock and funny car and it's sad day to see one of the legend go so soon.

Stan
Click to expand...

Beat me to it. Yep.
It's sad this happened, but in all honesty, not a single one of us who has stared down that track (no matter what category you run) has gone out there not ready to accept what could very well happen. You train to avoid situations like this, your equipment is checked/replaced after each run, you practice, you tweak, you pray. But in the end, you never know what lies ahead and that is the risk you willingly take for something you love. It's a terrible tragedy, and he will be missed, and his family will mourn, but even they would tell you that they always knew it 'could' happen. I wish it hadn't though...:(
 
Deep im a drag boy at heart but get dragged to the strip least twice a year by my boys... i had no idea this had happened till reading this thread....
Horrible accident and ruff to see a great driver pass before his time...
 
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