NAPP: ONE YEAR LATER
David Napp admits he will replay in his mind, for the rest of his life, the incident which took the life of Scott Kalitta.Napp, one of the owners of Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, vividly remembers sitting in the grandstands at the 1,000 foot mark, now the current finish line for nitro racing, taking in a session of Funny Car qualifying just one year ago. He was taking a break from the usually busy routine of chasing down the odds and ends that come with hosting the NHRA SuperNationals.
As he sat there in the stands, the first pair of Funny Cars in the final session of qualifying pre-staged, staged and roared down the drag strip. What happened next would have a major impact on Napp's life for the next year. A Track Owner Copes with the Tragedy of Losing Scott Kalitta …
David Napp admits he will replay in his mind, for the rest of his life, the incident which took the life of Scott Kalitta.
Napp, one of the owners of Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, vividly remembers sitting in the grandstands at the 1,000 foot mark, now the current finish line for nitro racing, taking in a session of Funny Car qualifying just one year ago. He was taking a break from the usually busy routine of chasing down the odds and ends that come with hosting the NHRA SuperNationals.
As he sat there in the stands, the first pair of Funny Cars in the final session of qualifying pre-staged, staged and roared down the drag strip. What happened next would have a major impact on Napp's life for the next year.
Scott Kalitta’s engine exploded almost directly in front of Napp, blowing off the body which prevented the parachutes from blossoming. What remained of the car traveled at a high rate of speed into the shutdown area. Once in the shutdown area, the car struck a catch net support pole and then a boom camera set up on the other side of the sand-trap.
Until now, Napp has talked very little about the moment when he watched a drag racer lose his life. As a track operator, losing a driver is like losing a member of your family.
Even now, Napp struggles to maintain his composure when discussing the day.
“It's difficult to talk about,” Napp said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Scott Kalitta was a gentleman. It's a tremendous loss just on the human level … just that alone.”
Since the tragedy, Napp has weathered a storm of accusations. The facility his family carved out in the 60's was branded overnight as one of the most dangerous facilities on the tour and later cited as the reason for nitro racing being reduced to 1,000 feet from the 1320 feet that made up the quarter mile.
He watched as the hard work and attention to public relations detail two generations before him had so meticulously crafted and entrusted to him went to hell in a hand-basket on his watch.
We were just very confident in our facility and when that run occurred I was pretty sure that it was not going to be a good result. When I arrived on the scene, I didn't get to up close, but I realized the system that was set up maybe was sub-par; we were being reactive instead of proactive. I feel like these cars have been way too fast for way too many years.
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“On the emotional side you wonder if your elders are looking down with regret at the job you have done,” Napp said. “I wondered for a
That’s when the business side kicks in for Napp and along with his cousins Michael Jr., Richie and his brother Alex. They accept they have a family tradition to not only honor, but to carry forward with pride.
“You have to separate yourself and you have to accept the fact that this will always be there,” Napp said. “This will always be a part of the facility's legacy and while it's a dark chapter, we acknowledge it. We feel the pain of that day often, because people are so quick to bring it up and to associate our facility with those events. If you want to truly move on with something you have to embrace it and you have to assure yourself that you are providing a facility that is as safe as you can possibly make it.”
The first step in the healing process for Napp was to return to the grandstands the next day. Once he was back on property, it was time to fix the issues with the sand trap.
“It was a six month process,” Napp said of the revamped runoff area which is now clearly visible from the timing tower. “My father’s philosophy on our racetrack was you always upgrade. Every winter you reinvest. There was another track here in New Jersey that opened in the 60's and they pretty much look the same. Raceway Park has the nobility to have grown with the times. It's easy to take a piece of land in the desert and plop a new drag strip on it. It's really tough to grow and morph yourself from a track in the 60's to a track in the new millennium.
“So we took that team that would normally do facility upgrades and we said, 'we're doing a facility upgrade and this one is more important than any one we have ever done before' and it was all hands on deck. It was testing pebble and reading the reports and looking at photos and reading info from what they did at Pomona and trying to mirror that as best we could. And, getting input from PRO and from the teams suggesting that if you have any suggestions let’s keep the lines of communication open. Feel free to dial us direct if you have a question, comment or a concern.”
A huge vote of confidence, Napp believes, came when he got approval from the Kalitta team on the implemented changes.
Up until the Kalitta incident, the runoff area at the track was acceptable to both the NHRA and PRO. Napp said he wouldn’t have hesitated to make any adjustments to the previous configuration in the name of safety.
“I believe that we did everything we could and were complying in every way and there was never a mention to us that anything was amiss or was in any way misinterpreted as far as the terms of the contracts in what NHRA and the racers and PRO want for the racetracks,” Napp explained. “We were just very confident in our facility and when that run occurred I was pretty sure that it was not going to be a good result. When I arrived on the scene, I didn't get to up close, but I realized the system that was set up maybe was sub-par; we were being reactive instead of proactive. I feel like these cars have been way too fast for way too many years.
“We don't build the cars, we build the facility. We take full responsibility for our facility. I believe today, as I did that day, that Raceway Park is and always will be a safe place for racers to come. It's been a tough year, but we've made the necessary upgrades as people have asked and that is all you can do, is to do your best and keep your chin up.”
Evidence of the hard work that went into making the run off area much safer came quickly during the UA NHRA Supernationals this past weekend.
One Pro Stock Motorcycle, driven by Shawn Gann, and two Top Alcohol Funny Cars ended up in the sand trap. All three drivers were uninjured as the combination of the sand trap, two catch fences and four rows of water barrels did the job they were designed to do, which certainly made Napp feel better about the safety of his facility.
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