Veteran Top Fuel driver T.J. Zizzo will make his 2016 season debut at the Route 66 Nationals July 7-10 in Joliet, Ill., his home track.

“There’s multiple reasons for everything we do,” Zizzo said. “First of all, we really wanted to be prepared because the last couple of seasons we absolutely have not been prepared as we normally are, and it was showing. We qualified well, but we really wanted to get things in order. This kicks off our third year with Rust-Oleum, which is fantastic and there’s many years to come, which is even better. Those are the reasons: cash flow, preparedness, and we wanted to test first, and we tested three weeks ago at Route 66 and it went better than expected.”

Zizzo will driving his Rust-Oleum dragster at the same Route 66 Raceway he tested at, and is thrilled to be competing for the first time since the 2015 U.S. Nationals Sept. 2-7.

“I was so excited to go testing,” Zizzo said. “We have not gone testing in like five years, and now to get to go and compete I’m absolutely ecstatic.”

Zizzo also acknowledged he has simple goals for this season, which will consist of him competing at Joliet, Sonoma, Calif, (July 29-31), Seattle (Aug. 5-7) and Indianapolis (Aug. 31-Sept. 5).

“We have a goal for this year,” Zizzo said. “Our goal is to not qualify. Our goal is to not win a round, and our goal is to not win a race. Our goal is different than most, our goal is to keep all of our Red Line Oil in the car. We have taken a lot of precaution on trying to make sure that we’ve done everything we can to make sure we don’t oil the race track. I’m not saying that we are going to be able to do that because these cars have nitro in them, but it is certainly a goal. We’re going to plan a little differently for these events than we normally would. We have more quality parts and pieces than we’ve had in our Top Fuel career. Our goal is to go to four events this year and run clean.”

Zizzo made his Top Fuel debut in September of 2003, and his team was at a crossroads at Indy last year.

“A lot of teams came over after we put the car in the trailer and said you guys don’t struggle like that,” Zizzo said. “(Tim) Wilkerson, (Rahn) Tobler and (Jim) (Oberhofer) all came to my rescue in the winter time. Those are guys who I’ve been in touch with since I started my Top Fuel program. We’re doing everything differently. We are just trying to do what is right. It wasn’t that we had sh**** parts on our race car. It’s just we didn’t give the guys enough time to think about what they were doing last year. I didn’t give my team enough time to think because I was in the middle of refurbishing what makes me money in our body shop, and growing our business (Zizzo Auto Body in Lincolnshire, Ill., a northern suburb of Chicago).”

Zizzo competed at Joliet, Indy and Las Vegas’ fall race in 2014, and then at Joliet and Indy last year.