Camrie Caruso arrived at Firebird Motorsports Park this weekend, hoping to repeat her 2023 NHRA Arizona Nationals Pro Stock victory Sunday and celebrate her dad Marc’s birthday Saturday. Everything fell into place for her last year as she entered as the newly honored NHRA rookie of the year and earned the first victory of her professional career.
This year, though, everything seemed to go wrong.
During the final qualifying session, her Aqua Prop Chevy Camaro sent her into first the left-side guardwall after crossing the finish line at 142.87 mph, then into the right wall before coming to a halt. Caruso was examined on site by NHRA Medical Director Dr. Phillip Surface. She was transported to a Phoenix-area hospital for further evaluation.
Caruso was conscious and alert and out of her car minutes after the high-speed accident occurred. She was making her last-chance effort to break into the 16-car lineup for Sunday’s eliminations. But that pass – her best of the three Saturday sessions – at 8.920 seconds wasn’t enough to top surprising No. 16 qualifier Matt Hartford’s 6.595-second elapsed time.
It’s unclear what caused the car to get out of shape, but it was misbehaving a bit during the quarter-mile run. The wheels hiked up on the launch and when they came back down on the surface, the car drifted slightly to the right, toward the center line. Caruso coaxed it back into the groove, but when the parachutes deployed, the car hooked into the left wall, then skidded into the right-side wall.
If Competition Plus learns any authorized information about Caruso’s condition or the extent of any possible injuries, we will report that.
