Funny Car provisional quickest qualifier Scott Kalitta wasn’t as impressed with the fact he was atop the qualifying list as much as merely having his car get to the finish line under power. That might not have been a blessing as he trashed a Toyota Solara body by going into the sandtrap.

“I was just exciting the thing went down,” said Kalitta. “After all the changes that everyone has gone through in this class, to have it go down was refreshing.”

Forget the off-season changes. Kalitta had problems of his own before the car even fired.

Scott Kalitta went to the top of the field and then went into the sand-trap.

Funny Car provisional quickest qualifier Scott Kalitta wasn’t as impressed with the fact he was atop the qualifying list as much as merely having his car get to the finish line under power. That might not have been a blessing as he trashed a Toyota Solara body by going into the sandtrap.

“I was just exciting the thing went down,” said Kalitta. “After all the changes that everyone has gone through in this class, to have it go down was refreshing.”

Forget the off-season changes. Kalitta had problems of his own before the car even fired.

“We decided to change bodies, so we mounted the body and a cam gear bearing went away on the warm-up. We changed motors and started on that at 1:50 PM. We rolled up to the lanes with only two pairs left.”

In a thrash, details sometimes get squashed.  Kalitta admitted he knew a parachute problem existed before he ran.

“It’s one of those problems when you change bodies,” Kalitta said. “I just didn’t have the time to set the handles like I would have wanted to. I got strapped into the car and by that time, it’s too late.”

The problem was the parachute handles, according to Kalitta, is their mounting location.

“They were just too hard to get to,” Kalitta said. “I figured that if there was a problem that I’d go right ahead and shut the engine down early. Then it was running good and I said, ‘Ah, well, it will be okay.’ Well it wasn’t okay.

“I made the first swat for the handle and missed,” Kalitta said, discussing his attempts to activate the parachutes. “I went back the second time and I got it, but by then it was a little too late. It could have been a lot worse but it was a split-second decision.”
Kalitta admitted he did click off the engine a little early -- 1260-feet into the run, according to his computer data.

Kalitta pointed out the chassis was unscathed, but the body didn’t fare as well. He said the body would most likely have the front-end removed and replaced with a new clip.”