The tragic news that rippled though the NHRA firmament early Friday immediately touched off a deep and unfathomable shockwave among all who follow professional drag racing. The news was that Bruce Sarver, the handsome, gregarious, and multi-talented racer from Bakersfield, Calif., had taken his own life at the age of 43.

Only a day earlier, Sarver had personally contacted Gary Scelzi to congratulate him on winning the 2005 NHRA POWERade Funny Car championship. This past weekend, Sarver had attended the last race of the 2005 season, the Auto Club Finals at the Los Angeles Fairplex, where he had spoken to a host of people including racers, fans, and past acquaintances. The impression all were left with was that Sarver was scouting out the possibility of putting a new deal together to return to the NHRA in 2006.

But for whatever reasons, within a matter of hours, he was the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“It’s a total shock,” said NHRA national event announcer Bob Frey. “A lot of people say they saw Bruce and spoke to him over the weekend and to have something like this happen really doesn’t seem to make sense.”

Sarver had been in the midst of divorce proceedings in recent months and leaves a son, Cole. He had competed in both Top Fuel and Funny Car during his NHRA career and scored two memorable victories in Funny Car. In Top Fuel he may be best remembered as the racer in the other lane in the final round when Cristen Powell won her first and only national event in Englishtown, N.J. in 1997, a race where Sarver would make his mark again five years later.

It seems more than a coincidence that one of Sarver’s final acts was making a phone call to Scelzi to offer congratulations. It was back in 2002, when Scelzi made the switch from Top Fuel to Funny Car, that the three-time champion suffered a string of disappointing performances behind the wheel of Alan Johnson’s untried Toyota Celica fuel coupe. After seven races, Scelzi left the team and Johnson placed Sarver into the driver’s seat. Sarver was a logical choice, since he and Johnson had been partnered two years earlier when they had campaigned a nitro Pontiac Firebird sponsored by emoola.com.

In his very first race in the Celica, Sarver advanced to the final round in Englishtown, thus causing some unfair criticism to rain down on Scelzi, a situation which for a time shook Scelzi’s confidence.

Sarver’s call may have been the final step in permanently healing Scelzi’s old wounds.

We may never really know what drove Bruce Sarver to end his own life so abruptly and unexpectedly. But for the brief time he spent racing on the sport’s biggest stage, he conducted himself like a winner. Had his life not ended so disastrously soon, there’s little doubt Bruce Sarver would have been well on his way to many more victories.

His warm and engaging personality and unquestioned talent will be missed by all.