Kalitta / Langdon Incident

[Magnethead]

I don't think this got much press yesterday, but the delay was long enough they had to finish the race today (Monday). 2 hours into the cleanup the temperatures fell below raceable conditions.

If you look closely, you can see the Ring Gear make an appearance behind the injector hat on Doug's car.

The center cones have reflectors on them like on a bicycle wheel. That sharp edge, normally inset to the foam a couple inches, clearly became exposed and sliced the tire.

Shawn gave a very emotional interview after.

 

[sdj]

Metal fatigue.

 

[Nitro Dude]

Metal fatigue.

I don't know how many runs Kalitta puts on a rearend before they replace it, but my guess is it isn't very many.

 

[Magnethead]

I don't know how many runs Kalitta puts on a rearend before they replace it, but my guess is it isn't very many.

I was about to text you and ask, how many runs did ya'll cycle the rear gear in Dunn's car? And did ya'll run the Strange 12" or the Chrisman 12"?

 

[Nitro Dude]

I was about to text you and ask, how many runs did ya'll cycle the rear gear in Dunn's car? And did ya'll run the Strange 12" or the Chrisman 12"?

I don't know what they are using now but it was a Chrisman, and they would send it out in the off season. But we were not running as hard and didn't go as many rounds on Sunday as the big budget teams did. Plus, if we had good runs early, we would sit out a qualifying session a lot of the time.

 

[Magnethead]

I checked with one of my NHRA guys.

3:45 local is when the incident happened

5:30 local is when NHRA called it for the day

Well after 8PM is when the Safety Safari finished "fixing" the track. They had to scrape it from around 300 feet to the end in both lanes, wall-to-centerline-to-wall. The gear oil and resulting mist made a big mess.