Those of us Parnelli Jones admirers — and those of us who appreciate the innovators in motorsports — never will forget the 1967 Indianapolis 500, Andy Granatelli’s revolutionary Pratt & Whitney gas-turbine engine and the shocking end of the race.
Jones led closest competitor A.J. Foyt by nearly a full lap, but on the 197th lap, three from the finish, a $6 ball bearing in the gearbox failed, shoved “The Whoosh Mobile” into neutral, and silenced championship auto racing’s “Quiet Revolution.”
 Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the famous No. 40’s rise and demise. But since then, racing has seen a thousand cases of the same kind of problem. And drag racing’s Cruz Pedregon warned last weekend that inexpensive parts could cost drivers dearly.
In the first round of the National Hot Rod Ass’n’s mid-March classic, the ACDelco Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla., the throttle on Pedregon’s Chevy Impala Funny Car stuck open, triggering a series of split-second events that turned his 4.8-second ride into exploding, expensive mayhem. Aside from being knocked what he called “a little bit loopy,” Pedregon was unhurt.
A relatively cheap bracket broke, disconnecting a cable to which his foot was attached and knocking out a spring that would have stabilized the accelerator. “With the fuel pressure in these cars,” Pedregon said, “the throttle needs help closing. It needs return springs.” His Advance Auto Parts crew bolstered the offending bracket, replaced the spring, and installed more springs, including some on the other side of the injector for added tension.  
The solution isn’t in the dissection of this particular problem. However, after analyzing the cause of his incident, Pedregon said at last weekend’s O’Reilly Spring Nationals at Houston that teams need to be aware that parts no one pays much attention to, could cause calamity.
“These throttle linkages and brackets are a little bit of a weak link, and they’ve not been looked at much. We’re looking at bigger things: chassis, tires. But little things like that can cause catastrophe,” the No. 1 qualifier said. “I’m glad we can share this with crew chiefs.
Anything that we learn like that that can develop into something, we definitely need to share it.”
Veteran Pro Stock driver Warren Johnson had a scary, then aggravating, incident on the opening day of qualifying at Houston Raceway Park.
He said a dropped valve — again, not a costly part — started a domino effect that resulted in about $150,000 in damage to his GM Performance Parts Pontiac GXP and a thrash until 2 a.m., Saturday by his team to prepare the car for a return to the track.
When his engine gave out, smoke started filling the cockpit of his car. Unable to see where to steer his car, Johnson spun into the other lane and hit the opposite wall.
Said Warren Johnson, “Unfortunately, the new belly pan that was mandated for 2008 may have contained some of the oil, but it also served to funnel all the smoke inside the car, effectively blinding me. It was so thick I couldn’t even see the windshield. The sad part is that if I could have seen where I was going, I believe I could have stopped it without any further problem at all.
 “My troubles were complicated even further,” he said, “by this new, taller wickerbill we have to run for some unknown reason. It puts so much downforce on the back that it effectively creates lift on the front end of the car, reducing the amount of steering control a driver has. This made it even harder for me to keep the car under control. These are issues that I have mentioned throughout the year that need to be addressed before something worse happens than a bent race car.”
While the high-ticket items receive the most attention, perhaps crew chiefs might find some time to get together to discuss some of the seemingly benign malfunctions they all experience and pledge to be vigilant about those. They could help each other save money and, more important, lives.