Reserved Kalitta Ready To Make Some Top Fuel Noise

kalittalead2

Top Fuel driver Doug Kalitta doesn’t open his mouth a lot at the National Hot Rod Association racetracks.
 
But he has five words he wants everybody to understand clearly: I’m not planning on retiring.
 
The Mac Tools Dragster driver for uncle Connie Kalitta’s drag-racing operation was caught earlier this year “thinking out loud” about staying closer to home, the 48-year-old Ann Arbor, Mich., resident said. After all, he owns two airlines that cover passenger, cargo, and air-ambulance needs — and he and wife Josie have all the activities of son Mitch, 12, and daughter Avery, 9, to keep straight.
 

Image courtesy of NHRA/National Dragster

Image courtesy of NHRA/National Dragster

But all the commotion that ensued, all the chitchat about the notion of retirement that came his way, was about as heartwarming to him as one of his Kalitta Charter Boeing 727 engines sucking in a Canada goose.
 
However, one thing he definitely is aiming to do is earn his first Top Fuel series championship to match his 1994 USAC National Sprint Car title.
 
“The Mac Tools hot rod has been among the best all year so far,” Kalitta said, owning No. 1 qualifying positions (from Phoenix and Gainesville) and a semifinal finish in the first five races as evidence.
 
 He’s seeking his first victory of the season — and his first since the July 2010 Denver race — but he said he has faith in his team that has Jim Oberhofer and assistant crew chief Troy Fasching in charge.
 
“I’m really proud of my guys. Jim O and Troy and all my guys are doing a great job,” Kalitta said. “When you have such great people around you, good things are bound to happen, and they will.

I’m really proud of my guys. Jim O and Troy and all my guys are doing a great job. When you have such great people around you, good things are bound to happen, and they will. – Doug Kalitta

“We’ve had some quirky things go on a couple times that have cost us,” he said, “but all that will balance out and we’ll be on the lucky side of that soon. We’re showing a good sign that we’re going to have a good year. We’ve just got to start making that happen on Sundays. We’ve got a great effort going on.”
 
Kalitta doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone. He already has established himself among the best Top Fuel racers in class history — in NHRA professional-class history.
 
With 32 victories, he’s third among active Top Fuel drivers and seventh overall if one adds in such legends as Joe Amato, Kenny Bernstein and “Big Daddy” Don Garlits.  One of only six current Top Fuel drivers to have a better-than-.500 elimination record.

Only Funny Car’s John Force has more consecutive top-10 points finishes among current racers. Kalitta has 15, which ties him with Antron Brown’s combined performances in Pro Stock Motorcycle and Top Fuel. Force has 28.

 
His career-best numbers are among the best ever in the sport. His 3.733-second run this February at Phoenix is among the 10 best in Top Fuel, and his 331.45-mph speed from last October at Reading, Pa., is the sport’s third-fastest.

When you have such great people around you, good things are bound to happen, and they will.

When you have such great people around you, good things are bound to happen, and they will.

 At one point, from the 2000 Phoenix race to the 2007 spring Las Vegas race, Kalitta qualified for 164 consecutive events.
 
Gnawing at him is an equally glaring streak.

“We didn’t win last year,” Kalitta said. “You go without winning, it’s definitely a kick in the butt — for us, anyway. We’re really motivated to do some good out here. We’ve got all the resources and everything that we need. So we should be able to pull it off.”

Image courtesy of Kalitta Motorsports

Image courtesy of Kalitta Motorsports

Oberhofer said he doesn’t think the team has experienced a performance dip. He said he’s certain “the performance of the car is still there. We need everything to line up. It’s getting a little frustrating for us on our end. We want to win — we want a win bad.”
 
At Phoenix, Spencer Massey had a slightly better reaction time. At Gainesville, the tires lost traction at 2.6 seconds into the semifinal run. At Las Vegas, what could have been a possible 3.79-second Friday-night qualifying time ended with a broken barrel-valve joint that led to a supercharger explosion. (Oberhofer said he had no explanation why the Mac Tools car smoked the tires in that first round, “other than Brittany Force was destined to win her first elimination round against Doug Kalitta.”)

And the early rain at Charlotte, he said, caused some racetrack-prep issues that triggered his own incorrect tuning call. Still, the car started race day — Kalitta’s 350th — with a 3.78-second pass, then in Round 2 a 3.85 that was especially respectable with a cylinder out in the first second.

We didn’t win last year. You go without winning, it’s definitely a kick in the butt — for us, anyway. – Doug Kalitta

“When the drag-racing gods decide it’s time for Doug Kalitta to win another Wally, it’ll happen,” Oberhofer said. “Hopefully it’s sooner rather than later.”
 
Kalitta referred to his next victory as “the payoff the Mac Tools team deserves.”
 
Preseason testing pointed to a strong start, which has held true with Kalitta just two points shy of a top-five placing in the standings as the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour headed to Houston.

Actually, Kalitta Motorsports’ “testing” — what got Doug Kalitta into championship-contention range — dates back to the early part of the 2012 season. Oberhofer said the Mac Tools Dragster finally began to comply after the Atlanta race last May. New cylinder heads have made a significant difference, as well.

Image courtesy of NHRA/National Dragster

Image courtesy of NHRA/National Dragster

“We tested cylinder heads for Alan Johnson after Norwalk and then when the time was right we actually had some of those going into the Brainerd race. But we chose not to run ’em there,” Oberhofer said. The second weekend of Indy we tried ’em and said, ‘Whoa – This thing’s way different.’ So we shelved them but put them back on for Charlotte [last September] and said, ‘We’re going to make these things work.’ It was a little bit of a learning curve, but the car just makes power so much easier now and the parts look so much nicer now than they’ve ever looked.
 
“It took us awhile to understand — because everybody out here has a tune-up program, and we have our own — and just getting to understand the factor numbers that we needed to run to be successful,” he said. “So going into West Palm [Florida, for preseason testing] we had a plan. We weren’t going to go in there and make changes. We were going to try to build off what we had. Most of the time when we went to West Palm Beach, we were having to alter things — the starting line’s funny there. We were always having to crunch the car all the time to get it off the starting line.

I would put him up against any great driver past or present. He’s a very good driver, and he deserves to win. I hope that between me and my guys that we can help him win a championship. – Jim Oberhofer

“We went there [this time] and said, ‘We’re not changing anything.’ And we didn’t, and the car ran good. We made nine runs in the 3.70’s zone and never hurt a part.”
 
That, he said, was unprecedented: “It’s like insane, what we did. We were really encouraged, because everything we did, the car responded. And it was just really nice to do that. We just felt really good about testing when we left there.”
 
Does he have that vibe that this could be his year?
 
“Yeah, I do,” the modest Kalitta said. “Hopefully it will happen.”
 
Pro Stock’s Kurt Johnson, along with Funny Car’s Ron Capps and Top Fuel’s Cory McClenathan, have to answer the question about when they’re going to get off the list of most successful drivers with no series championship to show for it. But Kalitta is fourth on that list.

 
“I would put him up against any great driver past or present. He’s a very good driver, and he deserves to win. I hope that between me and my guys that we can help him win a championship,” Oberhofer said.
 
“He’s paid his dues,” Connie Kalitta said.

When he gets a chance to cash in, Doug Kalitta said he’ll dedicate the championship to his cousin, Connie’s son, Scott Kalitta. A two-time Top Fuel champion, Scott Kalitta was killed in a 2008 Funny Car qualifying accident. And Doug said he always will remember him.

I would put him up against any great driver past or present. He's a very good driver, and he deserves to win. I hope that between me and my guys that we can help him win a championship

Image courtesy of NHRA/National Dragster

 “He was a big part of the airline and our racing effort,” he said. “We all miss him, and it would be wonderful to be able to dedicate a championship to him. That would certainly be the guy that I would if given the opportunity.”
 
Doug Kalitta came tantalizingly close to doing it in 2006, the year Tony Schumacher stole his thunder on the final run of the final race. Kalitta came up 14 points short. But he received an extended standing ovation at the award ceremony the next day.
 
That ranks right up there with retirement talk, as far as Kalitta is concerned.

Image courtesy of Kalitta Motorsports

Image courtesy of Kalitta Motorsports

“Congratulations for being second,” Kalitta said, adding that the ovation “was very nice and very much appreciated,” something he regards as acknowledgement of “a good effort put forward by me and my guys.”
 
But he said he would rather downplay that moment, however lovely or humbling it might have been, because “at the end of the day, he [Schumacher] got what I wanted.”

If anyone — even Doug Kalitta — tries to make you believe the Mac Tools Dragster driver is “a non-communicator . . . a quiet guy,” content that “that’s the role I’ll have to sit back and take,” don’t believe it for a second.
 
“I’m not an attention-seeker or want to be like John Force. It’s my personality. Just want to go run good and support my guys and do a good job for them,” Kalitta will say. “And I enjoy doing it. That’s the reason I’m still out there doing it.”
 
He might have that poker face working for him, but a determined set of his jaw and a steely look in his eye leave no doubt.
 
He’s ready to make some noise.

 

About the author

Susan Wade

Celebrating her 45th year in sports journalism, Susan Wade has emerged as one of the leading drag-racing writers with 20 seasons at the racetrack. She was the first non-NASCAR recipient of the prestigious Russ Catlin Award and has covered the sport for the Chicago Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger, St. Petersburg Times, and Seattle Times. Growing up in Indianapolis, motorsports is part of her DNA. She contributes to Power Automedia as a freelancer writer.
Read My Articles

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