Tony Stewart said he had no recollection of his 325-plus-mph Top Fuel collision with Doug Kalitta during the second round of eliminations Sunday at Pennsylvania’s NHRA Reading Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway.
For unknown reasons, the front left wheel of Kalitta’s Mac Tools Dragster collapsed at the finish line following his winning 335.73-mph pass, triggering the scariest incident of a wild day at the Countdown to the Championship opener at appropriately nicknamed “The House of Chaos.”
That sent Kalitta from his right lane into the right side of Stewart’s Dodge Direct Connection Dragster in the opposite lane. Stewart, who just had completed a 326.71-mph run on the 1,000-foot course at Reading, Pa., took the brunt of the impact. His car flipped onto its left side but rebounded upright onto its tires and struck the left guardwall. Kalitta’s car slid back over the center line and came to a stop in his original right lane.
Kalitta climbed from his dragster right away. Stewart took a bit longer to exit his car. NHRA Chief Medical Officer Dr. Phil Surface consulted with each driver onsite before releasing them. The ever-calm Kalitta, who rushed over to check on Stewart’s condition, appeared only slightly shaken and spoke about his team pulling out the back-up car for its semifinal appearance.
However, Stewart clearly was subdued and implied that he had been knocked unconscious, at least for a short moment.
He said he had no idea what happened to him.
“I don’t have a damn clue, honestly. I honestly don’t know. I don’t remember any of it. Just the first thing I remember, they were waking me up here, so not sure what happened,” Stewart said. “But it appears to be pretty massive.
“So, I mean, looking at Doug’s car and my car, I’m glad PBRC [Precision Built Race Cars, of Brownsburg, Ind.] builds our cars. We got safe race cars, obviously, but I’m as curious as everybody else as to what happened,” he said. “I just know we’re not where we’re supposed to be at the end of a run here. So . . . just confused.”
He said, “I’ve got one hell of a headache, and it banged my left hand up. But yeah, I mean, I’ve been through sprint-car crashes way worse than this, I’m pretty sure. So we’re good. We’re fine, I promise. We’re fine.”
Stewart said he definitely plans to race this next weekend at Charlotte, when the Countdown continues with the Four-Wide Carolina Nationals at zMAX Dragway at Concord, N.C.
“I’m not going to miss that,” he said.
Kalitta – who in the 1990s used to race Stewart in USAC Sprint Cars, where both were champions – said his tire “was down or blew or whatever. So yeah, it was just unfortunate, really. It just happened so quick that there was nothing I could really do.
“Just glad we’re going to [the semifinals],” he said, “We’ll drag our other car out and see if we can keep this thing going here. But fortunately, Tony and I are good. So that’s really the main thing.” He said, “That’s probably the worst [wreck] that I’ve had, but yeah, it’s been very fortunate over the years. It’s all part of it.”
Clay Millican, the No. 1 qualifier who defeated Brittany Force in the next pairing after Kalitta-Stewart, said, “My heart was not in the race car at that moment.”
And Rob Wendland, crew chief for Shawn Reed – who ran after Millican – said. “Seeing something like that has you crapping razor blades.”
