She’s Clutch Performer in Drag Racing World : Motor sports: Kim LaHaie, top-fuel driver’s daughter, has gained respect as mechanic.

When Dick LaHaie won the National Hot Rod Assn. top-fuel championship in 1987 at Pomona, he was asked about his crew chief.

“She’s right over there,” he said, pointing to a young woman.

“Oh, I thought that was your daughter,” a reporter replied.

“She is,” said LaHaie. “And she’s also my crew chief. She’s the one who does the work on the engine.”

Kim, then 26, was named Car Craft top-fuel crew chief of the year. Already she had been working in the intricate world of drag racing for five years.

Eight years later--after one season as a top-fuel driver--she still has her hands, and her head, in the 5,500-horsepower engines that can send a 2,150-pound funny car a quarter of a mile in less than five seconds. In what is becoming a more complicated sport every year, Kim is a clutch-management specialist.

“You gauge a person’s status in drag racing by the way they are thought of by their peers,” said Chuck Etchells, driver of the Kendall GT-1 Dodge Avenger. “Kim is known as one of the best clutch people on the grounds.”

Kim LaHaie was in charge of the complicated multistage four-disc clutch unit two years ago when Etchells became the first funny-car driver to break the five-second barrier with a 4.987-second run.

“The best thing about Kim is her consistency,” Etchells said. “She has done it so much that she seems to do it by touch and feel. It’s like the clutch was talking to her.”

LaHaie takes the clutch apart, checks for broken or bruised parts and puts it back together between runs--usually about 90 minutes.

Despite her standing as one of the best, Kim says she would rather be driving.

“That one season [1992] I drove was the most fun I ever had,” she said. “But you can’t do much without a sponsor, and I couldn’t find enough to pay the bills. Driving is more fun, but what I’m doing now sure pays better.”

She made her best showing as a driver at Gainesville, Fla., where she qualified 14th in what then was the quickest-ever 16-car field. She beat Don Prudomme in the first round with a 4.967-second run, and Scott Kalitta in the second before losing to eventual race winner Eddie Hill in the semifinals.

After working with Etchells in 1993, she and Tim Richards, the team’s crew chief and Kim’s off-track companion, left to work with Connie Kalitta. When Etchells persuaded Richards to return this year to build engines for his Dodge, Kim came along to work the clutch.

Before this weekend’s Winston Select Final--last event of the NHRA season--at Pomona Raceway on the L.A. County Fairgrounds, Etchells is fourth in points behind John Force, who has clinched his fifth title in six years, Al Hoffmann and Cruz Pedregon.

But Etchells has won two of the last three national events after a disappointing early season.

“Curiously, it was the clutch that held us back,” the Putnam, Conn., driver said. “We got some inferior equipment to start the year and we couldn’t figure it out. Force and Hoffmann reacted first. They rounded up some 1994 clutches, and they won everything. Raybestos, who supplies clutches, fixed the problem but by that time it was too late to catch Force.”

Force set a track record of 304.77 m.p.h. Thursday in his Pontiac Firebird in the first day of qualifying for Sunday’s eliminations. He also had the low elapsed time of 5.047 seconds. Etchells was 14th at 5.385.