Accident at Tulsa Raceway Park

[FAST GN]

Got this from another message board... anyone here heard anything about this ?

I went to Tulsa raceway park to run the midnite drags tonight but the track was closed due to a fatal accident. A top fuel car was making a pass when the throttle stuck at full throttle. the driver pulled his or her chute to stop the car but it turned the car around.It procceded to go back towards the start line running over their pit car. Both cars then went through the burnout fence and ending up in the creek.


Former two-time Division 4 Top Alcohol Dragster driver Shelly Howard died Saturday, April 2, as the result of injuries suffered in an exhibition pass at a non-NHRA track in Tulsa, Okla., in an incident that also claimed the life of her son Brian.

According to Will Hanna of InsideTopAlcohol.com, Howard’s dragster suffered a blowover wheelstand, which sent the car out of control, eventually striking her support vehicle in which her son was riding.

Howard, a three-time national event winner and Division 4 champion in 2001 and 2003, was runner-up the last two years at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals. She was the 2004 Jeg’s Allstars champion and finished third last season in Division 4 points. This season she already had won the Division 4 Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series opener at Houston Raceway Park.

Howard, who began racing in 1978, scored her first and final national event victories at the Mopar Parts Mile-High Nationals in Denver, in 1998 and 2001, respectively, and she also was victorious in Topeka in 2001. She also finished second in Division 4 in 2002 and third in 1999 and 2000. She had recorded eight divisional event wins.

Howard, a registered nurse, is survived by her husband, Dr. Paul Howard, and daughters Jennifer and Tracy.

[TurboedV6]

WOW that sucks, full throtle going over 300mph and it gets stuck

[FAST GN]

TULSA, Okla. - Race officials cannot explain why Michelle "Shelly" Howard's dragster flipped over and shot backward, killing her and her son.

"In my 40-some-odd years in racing I have never heard of an accident happening like this," said Aaron Polburn, president of the International Hot Rod Association. "It's something we are trying to understand because we have never gone through something like this before."

Howard, 59, and her son, Brian, 36, were killed Saturday night at Tulsa Raceway Park when her Alcohol dragster went out of control. Tulsa police estimate Shelly Howard's car was traveling 250 mph when it struck a chase car parked behind the starting line with her son in the back seat.

The force of the impact hurled the vehicles 150 feet through a fence and into a drainage area. Both Howards were thrown from their vehicles and pronounced dead at the scene.

Shelly Howard had been making a testing run and was the only car on the track when the accident occurred. Gates at the track had opened at 10 p.m. for the season's first "Midnight Drags" event. Police received a call on the accident at 10:05 p.m.

Shelly Howard was a three-time national event winner in the rival National Hot Rod Association and a regional champion in 2001 and 2003. She raced in Division 4, which includes Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

Howard raced in a category of vehicles one notch below the zenith in the sport, the Top Fuel dragster. Howard, who started racing in 1978, had won the Division 4 season-opening event three weeks earlier in Houston.

On Saturday, Howard's rear-engine dragster apparently suffered a "blowover," where all four wheels left the surface. Robert Vizcarra, senior media relations manager for California-based NHRA, said a car holding together after such a mishap was unexpected.

"They are supposed to break apart," Vizcarra said. "This is such a freak accident."

Meanwhile, Ohio-based IHRA awaited the final report from police and the track owner, Polburn said. Information from those reports, data on the dragster and hopefully eyewitness details would allow the IHRA to piece together what happened, Polburn said.

"It's obviously very tragic," he said. "Our thoughts are with the family."

Raceway owner Dan Guterman said Monday he was abiding by the family's wishes and was unable to comment on the accident.

Survivors include Dr. Paul Howard, Shelly's husband, and their daughters, Jennifer and Tracy.

Visitation for Shelly and Brian Howard will be Tuesday at the Ninde Woodland Memorial Funeral Home and Chapel. Funeral services will be Wednesday at New Spring Assembly of God in Jenks.

[FAST GN]

[Grumpy]

thats so tragic !! welll she was doin something she loved .

[forzfed]

Hate to hear stuff like that. And her son too, that is truly sad!

[R/T kota]

A similar incident happened to Don Garlits back in the early 80s. His car did a blow over and ended up headinf back towards the start line. His thotle was not stuck though and was able to stop the car.
I hate to hear about things like this in the sport I love so much.

[Just a Six??]

That REALLY SUCKS!!!!! Only thing is that the family was doing what they loved when it happened! Still SUCKS!!!!!!!

[Grumpy]

Melissa

Found this on one of the boards.......


First off let me say that I hesitated posting this on here so I sent this to Carl first and he felt that it would help people with closure, recognizing danger being close to the track and to help people understand what happened rather than trying to put together bits and pieces 3rd and 4th hand.

I did this write-up in responce to another message board that I frequent as they were trying to put the bit of news articles together to figure out what happened becuase the news wasn't very accurate or complete. So here is the write up I did to address that thread.

----------------------------------------------------
Shelly Howard lived here in Tulsa. Here husband is a doctor here in town. They haven't been down the Tulsa track in years because the facility was sub par and wouldn't have held the power. But just last year the track was purchased and several million dollars have been put into the track to make it a National Event level track. Mike Edwards, from the Tulsa area, V Gaines and a bunch of Comp Eliminator cars have been renting the track recently and they have proven that the new facility will hold the power. Mike Edwards matched his, I think #2, qualifying spot from Gainesville just a few weeks ago at the Tulsa facility. So the track has now been proven to be a good track for testing of the Pro class cars.

About week or 2 ago they had a small wreck in their TAD, no one was hurt and the car didn't roll or anything but she did brush the wall, I think it was pretty close to the starting line, but it did bend the chassis. The car from this past weekend was a brand new car and the first time it was taken to the track. They just finished putting it together at 4:30pm that day and they came out to do some testing.

First pass she picked the front end of the car up about 5 foot and set is down. The Second pass she made about a 300 foot pass and shut it off. I think she had some serious tire shake and eventually broke the tires loose.

The Third pass, I was in the fenced in area just behind the tower side lane and about 20 feet behind the burn out box. It's a spectator access area that allows the spectators to get close to the cars as they pull into the burn out box or in a Pro car situation to watch them start up the motors. So we were about 10 feet to the side of the crew car, Saturn Stationwagon, and about 15 feet from the TAD as they were starting it.

It was getting real cool so they had the intake and injector lines covered with a blanket. They took it off and handed it to Shelly's son, he pulled it into the back seat of the car and made room for the rest of crew once they were ready to go down track. So he was in the back seat holding the blanket, I can't confirm this and it really doesn't matter but someone told me that he was mentally handicapped but still helped out the crew.

She launched hard and went straight, all the candles lit and looked to be on a low 5 sec, 270mph pass, when somewhere between the 1/8 and 1000 ft mark the front end of the car caught some air and it did a blow over landing on it's top and slid through the finish line. The clocks showed 6.53 at 115mph. So she was on a fast pass.

I wasn't able to tell what happened after she landed on her top because of all the smoke, sparks and flames. I just assumed she was barrel rolling but when she finally stopped her down track movement she was about 500 foot pass the finish line she ended right side up, and that make some sense because the wing and the motor would keep it from landing up side down and the low center of gravity would try to make the car end up right side up.

We could still hear the motor running but it sounded as if it was flooding over and fouling out plugs and was about to die. But then it started clearing up and picking up RPM. At this time most of us just thought that she was in the car on it's side and on fire because we could see fire, a few of her crew actually started to run down the track, they only made it to about the Christmas tree. When all of a sudden we hear the motor go to WOT (wide open throttle) fire coming out of the headers. It was an injection motor not a blower and I think they run like 50% nitro so it was lit up. We still didn't realize that the car was rolling. I actually thought the motor had broken free from the car and was just about to explode (I know that doesn't make any sense but that's what came to my mind).

About that time we could see that something was headed back this way but from the smoke we couldn't tell exactly what was going on (who would ever in their right mind think the the car would be heading back down the track). Everyone just stopped and watched trying to figure out what was going on when all of a sudden everyone realized. It was up right and heading back down the track in the same lane it went down in and was at WOT, nitro flames coming out of header just like they were when she left. We kept thinking that it would hit the wall, go over and stop but it didn't.

We actually don't think it hit the wall until around the 100 foot mark. So it was on a straight on pass WOT. I waited until the car got to the 60 foot mark when everyone started running for their lives, it was just over 100foot from where we were standing. We had started moving behind the tower thinking that would protect us but then we thought otherwise and started running. We could actually see the car through the tower because the front and the side are glass so we were for the most part protected from the car and were still watching it come.

The car still at full throttle brushed off the wall, which just straightened it up and hit their crew car at what had to be 250mph plus, head on. It was on the left side of the tower lane. It and the dragster just disintegrated and went thru the retaining wall which was about 30 foot past where the crew car was parked. Her son was apparently still in the car, but there probably wasn't enough time to get out once everyone knew the car was coming back at us. The dragster and the car ended up about 20 foot past the retaining wall. So the impact of the car and the retaining the wall stopped a 250mph dragster within 50 - 70 feet, that in itself was amazing.

The retaining wall did have about a 10 inch I-beam and it was laid over and the metal siding was gone. It appeared that the pit car flew over the wall and the dragster went threw the wall.

Myself and one other guy ran down into the wreckage and I stopped once I got close to the fires fearing that it was about to explode, many fires were going, but the other guys went another 15 foot looking for the driver compartment.

About that time the officials and the crew got there so I backed off and looked at the wreckage.

It was dark but I couldn't recognize anything, just scrapes of metal everywhere. It was a horrifying experience and I left shortly after.

Out of respect for the family and friends I won't go into any other details.

The odds of all the combined things that happened to end up like this are mind boggling. I can't imagine what the family, friends and crew are going through. Neither my wife or I could sleep that night, it just kept playing over and over and over again in our heads. The fenced in area where I stood and watched it all until the car was about at the 60foot mark was destroyed, that way to close for me and think about how lucky I was and spent the next few days appreciating life...

As we were running from the fenced in area and as the dragster hit the crew car parts were hitting us in the back of the head and then parts were falling from the sky, it was crazy.

[SLOW_85]

http://www.tulsaracewaypark.com/

My condolences to the family. Sad day.

[TurboedV6]

wow thats messed up

[Just a Six??]

You wouldnt think they had enough fuel to do 2 passes! That is a Really Sad Story!! She died doing what she loved! But it still Really Sucks!! Bigtime!!

[BuickGN Boosted]

Really a freak accident. They have a hard enough time keeping those motors together for a full pass and this one goes thru a rollover and keeps running for another full pass. Unheard of. Wonder if they can come up with some sort of safety device to keep this from happening again? I know the monster trucks have some sort of remote kill device that the starter can trigger, maybe they can use them on the faster classes of drag cars. Of course, what are the chances of something like this happening again? Sad.

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by BuickGN Boosted

Really a freak accident. Of course, what are the chances of something like this happening again? Sad.

Weirdest stuff happends everyday with life in general I guess .