As Gary Densham sees it, his career of fielding a team in the NHRA Camping World Drag racing Series is likely finished. Densham has raced a fuel Funny Car for five decades and has been remaining afloat by a slim margin in the last few seasons.

An incident at the recently completed NHRA Vegas Four-Wide Nationals, he says, might be the nail in the coffin, pending a miracle.

On April 12, NHRA issued the following Statement of Action against Steven Densham, Densham’s son who drives the family’s Funny Car.

“The following action has been taken against Steven Densham regarding their disabled parachute system at the completion of his run during qualifications at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, NV.. Steven Densham’s qualifying run was disqualified and he has been fined Two Thousand Five Hundred dollars ($2,500). The fine will be dedicated to enhancing the capabilities of the Safety Safari.”

Densham said the combination of disallowing his run and then fining the team could have prevented the team from incurring an $8500 loss. While this might be a drop in the bucket to some of the fully sponsored teams, for Densham’s team the loss could be the difference in racing and parking.

Densham says the whole issue started when Saturday’s schedule at the Four-Wide Nationals took a beating, forcing the professional sessions delayed by almost two hours on Saturday’s Q-3 session.

Densham was reminded of the hardships the smaller teams face when the time between sessions was shortened in an attempt to get back on track with the schedule. The team Densham had in Vegas was comprised of new part-time crew members.

“We were trying to make between rounds time but we were shorted about an hour because of the first qualifying session being delayed,” Densham explained. “We assumed the second would be also. Unfortunately, we don’t have any communication between NHRA and the teams anymore telling us what time we’re actually going to run. So we had some problems and we were running late. “We showed up slightly late out in the staging lanes and we’re having trouble with the right-hand parachute. We had to make some adjustments in order to be able to make the run, but I’m here to tell you right now, what we did was safe. No way on Earth would I endanger my son or any fans at NHRA drag racing.”

Densham could not bypass the final session because his team was No. 17.

Densham, running in a pair alongside Jason Rupert, made the field on the run with a 4.029 elapsed time at 308.00 miles per hour pass.

So what did Densham do that was described as NHRA on Fox color analyst Tony Pedregon as hazardous and dangerous?

“On a normal parachute packing. What we do is we take the string from the pilot chute of the parachute, run it through the pack and up through this device, which has a wire that goes through the string,” Densham explained. “When the wire is retracted, the string is then allowed to go into the parachute pack itself, allowing the flaps to open. The parachute pilot chute has a spring on it. It will then pop out, dragging the rest of the chute with it to slow the car down.

“To activate this, we have levers inside the car. The parachutes have two actual handles on this particular car. Each car is slightly different. Some of the cars actually use a front wheel timer. So many revolutions and it will automatically open the parachute and the driver has to do nothing. Some cars have a air button on the steering wheel that activates one or both of the parachutes. Since we run some match races on eight-mile tracks, we’ve separated these into two separate entities.

“By moving one lever forward, we activate one parachute. If we hit this main lever, it will move both handles forward at one time, activating both parachutes. That one is also hooked into the Leahy safety device on the side of the guardrail a few feet past the finish line. So the parachutes will automatically open when they go through that section of race track.”

The issue began when the team suffered a broken cable on the right side parachute with only minutes to spare for the final qualifying attempt.

“That made it about a half-inch short and would not go back all the way, we simply moved this handle over so it would activate by itself and not be hooked into [the broken one],” Densham described in a video produced by his team. “Since we couldn’t get the cable to come fully through to put the string on, [which] we ended up doing in the staging lanes, to be able to make sure that it would operate and yet be able to be able to make the run, is we simply put it through like we normally would.

“Instead of having the cable go through the string, we put an Allen wrench in through the hole, in through the string.”

Densham said he secured the Allen wrench so it wouldn’t fall on the track.

“That would be our bad if we did that,” Densham said. “But I didn’t think that is worth throwing the car out and disallowing the run, especially when we have a track like Vegas, one of our longest, best-equipped racetrack’s uphill shutoff area. Most all the cars that did it utilized two parachutes had to be pushed off the track, which is bad for the show and the spectators that are out there.

“We have some cars that automatically always use one parachute so that they can try and get around the corner and help the show flow. In fact, the car we were racing on that particular run only had one parachute. So both cars had one parachute.”

Densham said Steven only used the one unmodified parachute, making the altered one a moot point.

Densham said there’s no way he’d ever put his son in harm’s way.

"Never, never, never," Densham said. "We planned to use only one parachute anyway. And when the run was over, we only used one parachute. There's plenty of high profile drivers who use one parachute in Vegas. It's a long track."

Densham said the whole issue could have been avoided had the NHRA race officials who he alleges witnessed the whole situation intervened and warned him. He said he assumed since the officials witnessed the situation that he had the green light to go forward.

"If I wanted to do something illegal, I could have just set something up in the pits," Densham said. "Why would I do this in front of two NHRA officials that are taking pictures of it? If I thought I was doing something illegal. Do I look that stupid? That would be like running a red light while a policeman was there.

If this was such a horrible infraction, then why was I allowed to run?"

“I love this sport so much, and I hate to think that I am going to have to quit, but I don’t have much of a choice,” Densham said. “I just can’t afford to take that kind of a hit now."