Johnny Gray has walked away from the National Hot Rod Association Funny Car class before a season was completed, and he might do it again.

If he did it, he said, this time his reason would be because the sanctioning body has mandated rules that make the car a potential death trap.

Whether he prematurely parks the Pitch Energy Dodge Charger that has been a tribute to his late father in this farewell season depends on how sensibly NHRA official react to his request to suspend use of the dual latch and tethering system while it conducts more research.

Gray said Wednesday he planned then to put the car on the Pacific Raceways 1,000-foot course when the O'Reilly Auto Parts Northwest Nationals opens Friday. It's the 16th event in the 18-race "regular season" on the Mello Yello Drag Racing tour before the six-race Countdown to the Championship begins.

Johnny Gray has walked away from the National Hot Rod Association Funny Car class before a season was completed, and he might do it again.

If he did it, he said, this time his reason would be because the sanctioning body has mandated rules that make the car a potential death trap.

Whether he prematurely parks the Pitch Energy Dodge Charger that has been a tribute to his late father in this farewell season depends on how sensibly NHRA official react to his request to suspend use of the dual latch and tethering system while it conducts more research.

Gray said Wednesday he planned then to put the car on the Pacific Raceways 1,000-foot course when the O'Reilly Auto Parts Northwest Nationals opens Friday. It's the 16th event in the 18-race "regular season" on the Mello Yello Drag Racing tour before the six-race Countdown to the Championship begins.

"Oh, I'm going to drive. You know what I mean? I'm too stupid not to," the veteran racer said.

But with his family urging him to walk away from the Funny Car deal he has with Don Schumacher Racing through November, Gray said he's in a wait-and-see mode, at least for a day or two.

He said he's sore, in more than one sense. And he wants rules changes made not just for his own sake but for the benefit of all his colleagues.

What prompted Gray's soul-searching was his accident during the quarterfinals of last Sunday's Sonoma Nationals at Northern California's Sonoma Raceway. His engine exploded, and the new latch-and-tether system triggered a chain of disastrous events.

The concussion ripped through the car with enough force nearly to knock him unconscious. It cracked the carbon-fiber body in two pieces and banged the firewall so violently that it flipped up and blocked his windshield completely. That left him with no idea where to steer the car. And something else, he said he thinks the body slammed down on his hand and further hindered him from finding the brake to halt the car. The car hit the wall before it stopped.

An angry and banged-around Gray, who never liked the tethering system from the start, has some hard evidence on his side today.

The system came in response primarily to an engine blast catapulting fellow Funny Car driver Robert Hight's Mustang body into the air, then into the grandstands this April at zMAX Dragway at Charlotte Motor Speedway. While Gray can appreciate the need to protect spectators or participants, he intimated this is not only a poor idea but that  it could be a deadly one.

He said, "You've got to get the pressure out from under the body. I don't care who you are or what they make that body out of, they cannot contain the pressure underneath that body. And if they do contain it all under that body, they're going to kill the driver."

He used an analogy of firecrackers in the hand to explain how the car behaved last Sunday with a latching and tethering system in place.

"It's crazy. If you take a Black Cat [a brand of fireworks] and lay it in the palm of your hand, and light it and it goes off, it'll sting," he said. "But if you light that Black Cat and squeeze your hand and hold onto it real tight, it'll blow your d*** fingers off.

"That's all they're trying to do is squeeze their fingers around the blower, and all that impact is being blown back onto the driver. And it all but knocked me out," Gray said.

"I woke up Monday morning -- my ribs are bruised. I'm not sure it didn't bruise my lungs a little bit. And you can't do that -- there's too big a concussion under there," he said. "I feel like a 350-pound lineman ran over me."

And he's still sore, as in angry.

"It's Wednesday," he said, "and I'm still very upset with the way everything went down. I'm not a happy camper."

Gray said Wednesday, "They've got to do something different." And he had a suggestion, starting immediately.

"I was talking to them awhile ago, some of The Powers That Be, and I said, 'Look, the bleachers are quite a ways back in Seattle, from the racetrack. They're not right next to the racetrack. So let's un-tether these bodies and look this deal over a little better before we get somebody hurt.' But I don't know what they're going to do," he said.

Will Lester/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin"They got all kinds of meetings, but the problem is when they design all this [equipment] and everything, they talk to the car-builders. But I ain't found any drivers they talk to," Gray said.

"I do not know what they're going to do at this point. There's meetings tomorrow [Thursday], and when I get to Seattle," he said, "we'll have meetings and find out what their thought processes are."

He didn't sound optimistic as he leveled harsh criticism at NHRA officials.

Gray indicated he doesn't think the meetings among NHRA officials are motivated by a quest for driver safety.

"In my opinion, and it's just my opinion," he said, "this is nothing but a knee-jerk reaction caused by the insurance company. It's all about protecting NHRA and their assets, nothing about protecting the driver. And I'm very, very upset with the whole mentality at this point."

Gray has his own personal concerns to consider, but his battle to rescind that latch-and-tether system mandate is for all the racers, especially those with younger children.

"What bothers me are the Matt Hagans, the Bob Tascas, the young guys with the young families that could get hurt real bad," he said. "It really, really bothers me."

As for himself, Gray has been receiving lots of passionate pleas -- to step out of the car that has carried him this season to four victories, the points lead on two separate occasions, and a top-five place in the standings as the Countdown looms after three more races (Seattle, Brainerd, Indianapolis).

"I've got my wife asking me please to walk away before I get hurt this last year. I got my sister asking me to please walk away before I get hurt this last year. I'm the only one who knows how bad I could have got hurt. So there is some soul-searching that has to take place," he said.

"I'm 60 years old, and I've got a great race car and I've got a great team," Gray said. "Do I want to continue the season and take a run at the championship? Or is the bull-headedness and the ignorance of the Powers That Be going to force me just to walk off and call it good?"

Walking away would not be a new move for Gray, but he qualified that.

"It would not, but I never walked away because I felt the cars were unsafe. I walked away for other reasons," he said. "But if I walked away today, it would be because the cars are completely unsafe. With the tethered system on 'em, these cars are completely unsafe."

Son Shane Gray, a Pro Stock Countdown contender who drives the family-owned Chevy Camaro, urged his dad to return to the Pro Stock class and be his teammate once again.

Gray said, "Shane's like, 'Dad, we've got another motor under the bench, and we've got another car at the shop. If you want to drive, let me get somebody to bring the other car out and let's run Pro Stock and get out of that thing before' -- his comment -- 'before these idiots kill you.'

"I understand his point. I'm not one to walk away from things," he said, "but as you can tell, I'm still not happy.

"If anybody wants to test my theory, tell them to get two Black Cats and put one in their hand and light it with their hand held flat out and see how bad it stings and then take the next one and light it and close their fist around it and hang onto it real good and tight and see what happens," he said, quickly adding, "Hopefully nobody's stupid enough to do that."

But, he said, that's what's happening to Funny Car drivers in the NHRA today -- something equally stupid. And he's speaking up because a rule meant to preserve a driver's safety shouldn't kill him.

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