Part-time nitro Funny Car racer Todd Simpson confirmed to Competition Plus that he will not compete in the remainder of the Mile-High Nationals in Morrison, Colo., near Denver.

Simpson was forced to withdraw from the NHRA national event because of damage to the front-end of his Funny Car’s body.

“We don’t have a spare body with us and we couldn’t fix that part here,” Simpson said. “We will just have to take it back. We might be able to fix the body, buy a front clip for it, but more than likely we are going to have to work on getting a new body.”

The Funny Car body Simpson damaged was one he purchased from Don Schumacher Racing. The Dodge Charger body initially was campaigned on the DSR Funny Car driven by Matt Hagan.

Simpson was the first competitor to qualify in Friday’s first session. He made a solid pass at 4.462 seconds at 270.81 mph.

Unfortunately for Simpson, the run didn’t end well.

After going past the finish line, the parachutes in Simpson’s Funny Car never came out. Simpson’s car went up the hill and into the sand trap and came to a stop just before the safety nets. Simpson did get out of the car and was uninjured. Simpson did not run make a run during Friday night’s final qualifying session, and then made the decision to load up and go home on Saturday.

Simpson was No. 13 on the qualifying ladder after Friday’s two sessions. With Simpson’s departure, it leaves the Funny Car field with 16 cars.

“It wasn’t a fast pass, but it would have been a good place to start with the tune-up and try and come back and make another pass and hopefully it would have been better,” Simpson said. “I had not had any trouble with my chutes opening and that’s the first time they didn’t open, and I was in trouble. I pulled them and NHRA has their safety on it and the levers went, but there was about an eighth-inch of a cable in the chute packs. The wire was just long. I was just hoping we didn’t go through the net because I didn’t want to tear the body up. I didn’t think the sand would have torn it up, but it tore it up.”

Simpson said his team does have another body at the team’s shop in Ponder, Texas. It is a Monte Carlo body.

“The next NHRA race I will run will be Dallas (Oct. 4-7), and I run the Monte Carlo body there,” Simpson said. “I don’t know what I will do with the body I damaged (in Denver). Some people say you can clip it, but you get just as much tied up in I think if you do it that way, you can go buy another used body from somebody, plus it would be stronger. I think any time you repair a body, it only makes them heavier and they will never be as strong as it once was. Kalitta (Motorsports) was maybe working on getting us a body and we have some things in the works and there are some teams out here who will help us.”

Simpson does have a Mile-High Nationals victory in his career. That came in the Top Alcohol Funny Car class in the late 1990s.