Before last weekend's event in Dallas, the last time Funny Car driver Todd Simpson was on the track in NHRA competition, his qualifying attempt was anything but funny. It was in July, during the Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway near Denver. He was the first that weekend to make the field, but his parachutes failed to deploy, and he wound up in the sand trap and stopped inches away from the safety net. The front end of the car’s body was damaged beyond immediate repair, so he withdrew from the race and returned home to Ponder, Texas, near Dallas and Fort Worth.

With valuable help and a Toyota body from Kalitta Motorsports, Simpson was back on the track, and in Dallas, for the first time since the Denver mishap. 

“Kalitta got us a body and had it shipped down [from Ypsilanti, Mich., to the Metroplex area in Dallas]. It’s mounted on the car and ready to race,” Simpson said Wednesday as he set up his operation at the Texas Motorplex.

He wasn’t at all concerned that the conditions he was preparing for this week would be wildly different from the ones he encountered at Denver. “It’s still a Funny Car. You reach over there and make sure those ‘chutes come out. That’s all you’ve got to do,” he said.

Simpson said that at Denver he knew he would get the car stopped. “I never was in doubt – until I ran out of brakes. I said, ‘I got this.’ But I didn’t. It was driver error all the way.”

The wrecked Funny Car body is the Dodge Charger one he had purchased from Don Schumacher Racing and originally was Matt Hagan’s.

Simpson happens to work at his 9-to-5 job for Roger Hennen, the former racer and current owner of the Top Fuel dragster that Kebin Kinsley drives. “Roger Hennen, that’s the best guy I could ever work for,” Simpson said. “I’ve worked for him I actually don’t know how many years, 10 years or more.” But Simpson has run against Kinsley in the Top Alcohol Funny Car class in years past. “My last win was against Kebin. I think it was in 2000.”

Former Top Fuel driver Spencer Massey still is at the dragstrips. He still gets his nitro fix.

And the Fort Worth native, who’s competing in the Top Alcohol Dragster class at the NHRA FalolNationals, said he’s having a lot more fun than he ever had... https://t.co/VdBvlxbUGh

— Competition Plus (@competitionplus) October 10, 2018

This weekend will find Simpson back at the Texas Motorplex, racing in the Nitro Outlaw Drag Racing Series’ second event in Ennis in its first season. But he said he doesn’t plan to run any of the NHRA’s three remaining events. “I’m going to try to regroup. I’ve got to go back to work for Roger Hennen so I can pay bills. This’ll sit,” he said, nodding to his Funny Car. “If we win, we’ll go until we lose. If we win here, we’ll go to the next one. But if we don’t win – which we’re pretty sure we’re not . . . it’s just reality – this is our last deal [for 2018].”

He said he used to be confident of winning – “I used to, on the alcohol car. I was competitive then. We’re not as competitive now. We know that.” Simpson is a three-time Div. 4 Alcohol Funny Car champion and five-time national-event winner.

Simpson has another distinction. He’s the only racer in NHRA with a crew chief brother named “Poopie.”