Jim Head embraces 1,000-foot drag racing for safety and financial
reasons. His only disappoinment is the NHRA has labeled this as a
temporary decision.
The world of drag racing's nitro classes encountered a major
change on Wednesday afternoon when the NHRA announced the shortening of
their national event race course to 1,000 feet. This move is designed
to be a temporary one while the investigation into Scott Kalitta’s
tragic death continues to move forward.
The move to a shorter run was the topic of many roundtable discussions
since the NHRA Supernationals in Englishtown, N.J., two weeks ago.
"We all talked about this a lot, last weekend in Norwalk, and the
1,000-foot idea was the one we were all discussing the most,” said NHRA
POWERade Funny Car racer Del Worsham. “We need to do something while
people analyze how to make the sport safer for the nitro cars; we can't
just close our eyes to what happened and hope it doesn't happen again.
I know this is pretty radical, but we have some issues with 330-mph
race cars and tracks that weren't built to hold them, and until we
settle those issues we have to be aggressive and not just stand by.