Gary Densham is OK after having suffered a very scary incident during qualifying for the 2016 NHRA Circle K Winternationals. As you will see in the video below, Densham suffered a parachute failure and with only the brakes to slow his 300mph funny car, he entered the sand trap and hit the catch net at the end of the track with tremendous speed. The net caught the funny car like a tuna and did its job perfectly, keeping the funny car legend from being harmed in the process. Due to geographical restrictions, Pomona is one of the shorter tracks the NHRA Mello Yellow drag racing series tour and since Densham has been running at this event since his first start in 1974 he likely knew he was in big trouble almost immediately.
You can see the smoke pouring off the carbon fiber brakes as Densham uses every tool at his disposal before rocketing into the sand and into the net. This is a wild one!
NHRA has to find a better way to get these parachutes to deploy EVERY TIME.maybe use explosives to deploy the chutes?to many cars relying on a cable & pin to release the chutes.A life,A career,car destroyed because your chutes do not open.FIX IT NOW HHRA
Part of the beauty of how it’s currently done is the simplicity. How they manage to screw that up, I don’t know.
WHY do they still used a static net and a bunch of barrels to crash into? Have you ever seen a plane land on a aircraft carrier? A system using a net, no, not arresting cables like on a carrier, but a net that is held at the top along a cable so it can slide. Then the top and bottom of the net are connected with cables to an “arresting engine” braking system so the car slows over around 75′-100′ instead 5 feet.
Glad Mr. Densham is alright. He was my auto shop teacher at Richard Gahr High School in Cerritos, ca. back in the late 70s. He would let us shine the chrome on his Funnycar named Teachers Pet. He was a great teacher, very patient, and tolerant…Lol. I’m glad to see him still doing what he loves doing.
Why don’t they simply shift the direction of the track, ACROSS the great big wide parking lot, and double the length of the run off area?
How about using standing water instead of sand/gravel? Maybe no more than 2″ deep, In the same area the sand is now.. We all know what is like hitting even a decent size puddle in a rain storm, plus the car would push the water out of the area on impact , no worry about drowning, plus it would help squelch any fire…
at a short track like pamona , you could make a runaway ramp with steep uphill and sand like a truck runaway ramp on hills. with a strong flex net as a backup..it wouldn’t be that hard or expensive to do..fh