NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

It took a disastrous event for Gary Densham to say the unthinkable. With his Lawson Rock & Oil Dodge Charger Funny Car bended and twisted in the safety net in the sand trap at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona weeks ago after a parachute failure during qualifying, the veteran nitro racer conceded to the FOX Sports 1 cameras (see video below) that his team might be done for good.

It's hard to imagine Funny Car racing without a driver who has been doing it since the early 1970s. Densham, never one to mince words, meant what he said at the time. However, it didn’t take long for the outpouring of support at his home track to flood his pit and wash away any thoughts of retirement.

“It’s the people, 100 percent,” said Densham. “It’s the people who came up at the racetrack and said, ‘Make sure you fix it. Make sure you come back.’ It’s the people who came by our pit and gave us $5, $10, $20 — some people gave us $100. It’s not that it’s a huge amount of money, but the idea that they actually want to help to get us back out again. My wife dragged me in the house on Sunday night for a couple hours and made me read some of the 3,000 posts that were on the Facebook page about, ‘Gee whiz, we need people like you out here.’ ”

The same kind of outreach has been made by his peers in the racing community. 16-time Funny Car champion John Force, who Densham helped early in his career while racing in Australia in 1979 and Densham later drove for from 2000 to 2004, offered the retired schoolteacher a chassis that Densham is trying to have ready for the next race on his schedule, the Denso Spark Plugs NHRA Nationals in Las Vegas, April 1-3.

“The outpouring of help from the racing community has just been unbelievable,” said Densham. “John Force, Chad and Jim Head, Don Schumacher, Chuck and Del Worsham, and Chris Bennett — who is putting a car together — all called and offered help. The idea that the racing community gets behind people like that makes you think to yourself, ‘I can’t quit doing this. People are too great.’

“John Force has offered us a car. What John has offered to do is incredible, and Robert [Hight] has been trying to help. Meanwhile, I’m trying to get the Grant car fixed so that if we’re sitting here three weeks from now and decide that we can’t get enough parts for the Force car in time, maybe I’ll still have time to put that one together with the old, heavy Dodge body on it. We’re kind of hedging our bets.”

Densham’s sponsors and team have all been proactive in getting him back on the racetrack. The members of his Ed Boytim-led crew have full-time jobs outside of racing but are doing everything they can to get his car together at his Murrieta, Calif., shop.

“The crew didn’t want to take their pay at Pomona,” said Densham. “They wanted to put their money directly back in the car to go racing. Some of my crew is taking a week of vacation time to get the car ready. The sponsors all said they’d try to help a little more to put it back together. John Lawson from Lawson Rock & Oil, Charlie from Midwest Finishes, and Chris from Far West Freighters are all trying to chip in to get this thing going.

“I actually might be announcing some stuff from people who want to come on board. It’s just phenomenal. It’s all part of the whole community. If I don’t get one penny, it doesn’t matter. It’s the feeling of how great it is that the people are so wonderful.”

At 69 years old, the passion for the sport still runs deep for Densham. In addition to the limited schedule he keeps at West Coast events with his Funny Car, he enjoys his time racing his Teacher’s Pet ’69 Camaro Nostalgia Funny Car that son Steven drove to the 2015 NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series championship.

“At the end when we were running all the races, there were times where you would end up thinking, ‘This is really getting to be tough,’ ” Densham recalled. “Luckily, the last year that we raced full time, we had a great year. We made the top 10, made the Countdown [to the Championship], and did everything else that we did in 2008. Now, when you’re racing five to seven times a year and another four to six [times] with Steven’s car, they’re spaced out enough that, man, you’re really excited about them. Right now, I’m busting my butt on my car, but, boy, I’m really looking forward to going to the March Meet in Bakersfield in a couple weeks. You know what I mean?”

Densham, who praised the NHRA Safety Safari presented by AAA and the safety manufacturers and rule makers who helped him leave the incident without a scratch, is as invigorated as ever to go racing.

“From the lowest of the low to the highest of high, I am so blessed,” said Densham. “I am more excited about racing than I have been in years. This is the reason I got in this sport. Everybody is so phenomenally great, from the spectators to the other competitors to the manufacturers. It’s been wonderful. It brings tears to your eyes, it really does.

“We’ll still be the same guys out there with not enough money trying to beat those guys. It may last a year; it may last two years — who knows? I was pretty serious there at the end of the track. The people, like I said, it made me cry. It was wonderful. This racing community is awesome. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”