Kalitta remembered fondly
On Thursday evening, they celebrated the life of racing champion Scott Kalitta near a drag strip in Norwalk, Ohio, where he'd planned to compete this weekend.
Family, teammates, fellow drivers, crews, officials and fans from the bleachers will gather as one to bid Godspeed to "Scotty," the Mount Clemens, Mich., native who died in a fiery crash at 300 miles an hour last Saturday.
In the blink of an eye, the accident in Englishtown, N.J., claimed one of the most admired and fierce drag racers of the past 25 years and left a gaping wound in the heart of Ypsilanti-based Kalitta Motorsports, owned by Connie (The Bounty Hunter) Kalitta, father of Scott and former driving great who ran muscle cars on the streets of Mt. Clemens as a teen and, as a crew chief, tuned Shirley Muldowney to a pioneering Top Fuel championship.
"Having the last name Kalitta didn't make me a racer," Scott once said, "but it definitely makes me want to be a winner."
The death of Scott Kalitta, a two-time NHRA Top Fuel champion and the first driver in the class to win four consecutive races, has struck the racing community, not just drag racers, hard in Michigan, where the Kalittas are known as tough, well-financed but, above all, honorable competitors.
Patriarch Connie Kalitta, 70, owns Kalitta Air, a worldwide freight and cargo carrier, which is based at Willow Run Airport and, among other services, brings the remains of U.S. servicemen home from war zones around the globe.
"Losing a family member is always tough, but losing my son has been incredibly hard," Connie Kalitta said in his first statement Wednesday. "Scott was a great racer and a great son. . . . Scott died doing what he loved to do, and I am very proud of what we accomplished together both on the track and off."
'World-class' driver and family man
Scott Kalitta, 46, lived in Bradenton, Fla., with his wife Kathy and their two boys, Corey (who turns 15 on Sunday) and Colin (8). He had retired a couple times during the years but always returned to the sport he loved.
He died when his nitro-methane-fueled Funny Car burst into flames and hurtled into the netting and a retaining barrier at the end of the quarter-mile track shut-off area during a qualifying run at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, where he had made his professional debut in 1982.
Kalitta's parachute, meant to slow the dragster at the end of a pass or in an emergency, failed to correctly deploy.
Eddie Sachs Jr. of Mt. Clemens, whose father was killed racing in the 1964 Indianapolis 500, planned to attend Kalitta's memorial. The younger Sachs, also 46, knew Scott and Connie and raced midgets and sprint cars against Doug Kalitta, Scott's cousin and a Kalitta Motorsports driver.
"Scotty became a first-class driver," said Sachs, who runs in the IHRA Quick Rod class. "The Kalittas are going to have their sorrows, but they are in the racing business, they know the risks and they will move forward.
"As a racer, you give it your heart and soul to become a winner. Sometimes you pay the ultimate price. I'll be at the memorial out of respect for the Kalittas, Scott and my father."
So very strong
Muldowney, 70, is known as the First Lady of Drag Racing. She was the NHRA Top Fuel champion three times and the subject of the 1983 movie "Heart Like a Wheel."
"I don't feel whole right now," Muldowney said from her home in Willis, Mich., not far from Milan Dragway. "I can't get him out of my mind. Scott spent a lot of time with me on the road. He was always respectful. He might grumble some time, but he did what he was told. I'm crushed over this. I feel very bad for his family. ...
"Connie was demanding and carried a big stick. Scott had to earn his wings."
One incident stood out for her from Scott's teenage years.
"Before my first race in Columbus in 1976," Muldowney said, "Scott swallowed a plastic piece from a men's shirt box. He ingested it and it wound up in his lung. He didn't tell anybody because he wanted to go to the race. He went to his mother and he was rushed to the hospital and they had to cut open his chest from front to back. He was so very strong even then."
Understands the pain
Lee Brayton, 74, of Coldwater, knows the joys and dangers of racing only too well. Scott Brayton, his eldest son, lost his life in 1996, at age 37, during practice for the Indianapolis 500. Scott was a two-time pole-sitter at Indy and one of the most popular drivers to compete there.
"It's going to be tough on Connie," said Brayton, who drove Indy Cars and also raced sprints and midgets while building race engines for his company, Brayton Engineering. "But what do you do? End your life? There's no way Connie is going to do that.
"My Scotty loved racing. Indianapolis was his second home. It's hard on the kids, it's hard on the family at this time, but Scott Kalitta was a tough man, and so is Connie. You can't blame anyone. Racing is a lifestyle you pick. Racing is why we are here and have the things we have.
"But it can all go to hell in seconds."
This story was originally published June 27, 2008 at 2:17 AM with the headline "Kalitta remembered fondly."