Winternationals : Kalitta First Over 290 M.P.H; Hill Makes Field in Borrowed Car

Connie Kalitta, a throwback to an earlier era of drag racing when young hotshot hot-rodders barnstormed around the country taking on all comers on all sorts of drag strips, assured himself a spot in the sport’s history books Saturday with the first run over 290 m.p.h.

Kalitta’s latest version of his Bounty Hunter top fuel dragsters stormed down the quarter-mile of asphalt at the Pomona Fairgrounds at 291.54 m.p.h., then came back later in the day to run 289.29, the second-fastest in National Hot Rod Assn. annals.

Kalitta, who will be 51 on Feb. 24, learned his trade as a 17-year-old out of Detroit, hauling his original Bounty Hunter around the country with Don Garlits and Big Daddy’s Swamp Rat out of Florida. Twenty-two years ago, in the opening race of 1967, Kalitta won his first NHRA national event, the Winternationals, at Pomona.

Today, on the same track, in the Chief Auto Parts Winternationals, he will be pitting the earthshaking 3,000 horsepower of his top fueler against the field in the opening round of the NHRA’s 18-race national championship season.

Among those also in the 16-car elimination field will be the amazing Eddie Hill, who drove a borrowed car with a sick engine to qualify in his final attempt after destroying his own car in a hair-raising accident Friday, and defending Winston champion Joe Amato, who had the low elapsed time of 5.042 seconds, a Winternationals record.

“I was just as scared then as I was today,” Kalitta said when asked to compare his 291 m.p.h. run of 1989 with his 218 m.p.h. run of 1967. “It’s all relative and I was pretty close to the record then.

“This one probably got my attention a little more because you don’t have time to think about much except keeping it straight. Really, it was just an awesome feeling. It never stopped accelerating.”

Kalitta, whose car is sponsored by his own Kalitta Flying Service out of Ypsilanti, Mich., qualified third behind Amato and Gary Ormsby’s 5.043. Connie’s son, Scott, also qualified sixth in funny car in an Olds Cutlass.

“We’ve had the car hooked up all week,” Kalitta said. “The only things we did today were to feed it more fuel, add some more nitro and put in a stiffer gear ratio.”

The previous all-time speed record was 288.73 by the 52-year-old Hill in last year’s Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla.

Hill managed only 229.47 m.p.h. in his lone official run Saturday, but it got him in the field in the No. 13 position. In one of those strange ironies of sports, Hill will face Darrell Gwynn in today’s first round--the man who lent him a car.

A surprising crowd estimated at 25,000, unusual for an event that had been postponed a week earlier by rain, cheered lustily when Hill showed up on the starting line in the bare-bones loaner chassis. The car, actually Gwynn’s newest model, was sheet-metal gray, as it had yet to be painted.

The only telltale sign that it was borrowed was a yellow rear wing, with the No. 2 on its sides. That is Gwynn’s number. Hill is No. 3.

“I can’t thank the Gwynns enough,” Hill said. “It was a free loan, no charge or anything. I asked Darrell what if I looped it like I did mine on Friday, and he said, ‘You flip this one, you bought it.’ ”

Now Gwynn will be in his year-old car, facing Hill in his new one, in today’s first round. Gwynn qualified fifth at 5.087 and No. 5 meets No. 13 on the matchup sheet.

“That’s crazy, isn’t it, the way things happen,” Hill said. “But it’s not as bad as Houston where we knocked Earl Whiting out of the race after he helped us.”

Last year, at Houston, Hill ran out of blowers in a series of engine explosions and was ready to load up and head home to Wichita Falls, Tex., when Whiting lent him a blower. Hill responded by running a record 4.936 second elapsed time and, in yet another irony, dropped Whiting to No. 17 and out of the eliminations.

“The way things worked out, though, I don’t know if we’ll be ready for the first round,” Hill said.

Hill’s crew was up all night bolting one of their engines into the Gwynn chassis to prepare it for Saturday’s time trials.

According to NHRA rules, Hill had to make a half-run down the quarter-mile strip earlier in the day to familiarize himself with the car. It turned out to be fortunate because Hill found that Gwynn’s handle for the braking parachute is on the left side and Hill was used to it being on the right.

Even with a half-pass, however, Hill blew a head gasket and destroyed the head and block. This left him only one engine for his qualifying run and, if he made it, today’s eliminations.

Hill came off the line impressively in his final run, but around the 1,000- foot mark--right where his car became airborne and looped the loop a day earlier--the engine shut off.

“Luckily, I had enough momentum to get a 5.2 (elapsed time) and make the field but it sure knocked the speed down. Worse, though, is that it was my last engine and I think there’s a big hurt in it. I don’t know what we’ll do. The crew hasn’t had any sleep since Thursday night and besides that we’re about out of parts.

“The good news is that I’m here, and I’m not even sore. The extent of my medication has been a couple of aspirin. I can’t believe how I came out of it the way I did. It’s a real tribute to the NHRA safety rules and to the way Dave Uyehara built the car to protect the driver.”

Hill, running at better than 275 m.p.h. Friday, had the front end of his car lift until the entire 1,900-pound vehicle was flying, then smash down on its nose before crashing to the ground.

The accident was caused, Hill discovered from watching video replays, by a front wing that collapsed, allowing the huge rear wing to force the front wheels up.

“Once that front wing gave way, there was nothing Eddie could do but ride it out,” said Amato, who had just finished his run and watched the frightening crash from the end of the strip. “There wasn’t a thing he could do.”

Yorba Linda’s John Force, winner of the Winston World Finals in a funny car last October at Pomona, was top qualifier with a Winternationals record 5.325 second run in his Olds Cutlass. Two four-time national champions, Kenny Bernstein and Don Prudhomme, went down to their final runs before qualifying, defending champion Bernstein No. 13 and Prudhomme No. 12.

Don Beverley of Chester, Va., retained his No. 1 position in pro stock at 7.332 as nine-time world champion Bob Glidden failed to improve on his fifth-place clocking of 7.364.