All season, Kalitta Motorsports Top Fuel drivers Shawn Langdon and Doug Kalitta have been the ones to beat.
And just when it seemed Langdon was going to cruise to the NHRA championship, Kalitta had other ideas.
The 2023 and ’25 NHRA Top Fuel champion delivered a clutch win at the 26th annual MOPAR NHRA Las Vegas Nationals on Sunday to put himself squarely in a battle with Langdon to capture his third title with one race remaining.
Kalitta clocked the fastest elapsed time of the event – 3.658 seconds, coupled with a speed of 338.60 mph – to defeat Leah Pruett, who hazed the tires shortly after leaving the starting line and slowed to 5.751 seconds.
Kalitta’s 2026 scorecard shows five wins – Charlotte, Sonoma, Seattle, Brainerd, and now Vegas. This was his 64th career national event victory.
“I have to hand it to my guys. They really had my car on a rail today – 60s all day and that 65 in the final,” Kalitta said. “We definitely had her hopped up good. The track is incredible out here, you know, with these conditions. I guess those are the kind of conditions that my car likes. Obviously, [crew chief] Alan Johnson, just … what can I say about him and Mac [Savage]? They’re just really incredible tuning these things. It’s a great privilege, I must admit, to be in the spot that I am driving this thing for those guys. And Connie [uncle and team owner Kalitta], obviously, he’s always got my back, and I appreciate everything he does for me, and Shawn and J.R. [Todd]. We’ve got a great three-car effort going here, and it was just a really fortunate day to win here.”
More importantly, Kalitta left Vegas in second place in the standings, trailing Langdon with the season finale set for Nov. 12-15 at the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif.
“Shawn’s obviously a great driver, and the Kalitta Air guys are doing a hell of a job, and my Mac Tools guys, and Alan Johnson, everybody, we’re really hungry,” Doug said. “Yeah, so we’re hoping [to win the championship]. It’s … Pomona and Pomona has been good to me, so we’ll see what happens.”
Kalitta leads all Top Fuel drivers with seven career wins at the In-N-Out Pomona Dragstrip.
What’s more, Johnson was the crew chief when Tony Schumacher made “The Run” winning the 2006 NHRA Auto Club Finals in Pomona with a national-record elapsed time propelling himself to the championship Schumacher entered the final race of the season trailing points leader Doug Kalitta by 45 points.
“Alan Johnson, he’s the creator of all this stuff. … For us, I have to admit, it feels like a long shot. It’s hard, but anything can happen with points and a half at Pomona. Pomona is really one of my favorite places to race. We’ll be up on the wheel and hoping that it doesn’t rain like it did last year, because that would be bad for sure. So, praying for no rain and an opportunity is all you can hope for, for sure.
“We all work together and do whatever needs to happen as a team. It would be a hell of an opportunity – it is a hell of an opportunity. It’s between those two teams and the guys, there’s a rivalry for sure. They share the same shop, so it’s bragging rights. It’s just an incredible opportunity to even be able to have this conversation with you. We’ll just have to let it play out and see what happens.”
On Sunday, Kalitta, piloting the Mac Tools dragster, ousted Will Smith, Justin Ashley, Langdon, and Pruett.
Defeating Langdon in the semis is something Kalitta knew had to happen to keep his title hopes off life support.
“That was a sigh of relief to see that win light come on, finally to get by those guys. And the conditions were tough out there. It seemed like it was warmer before that session, and we ended up having to go back, change head gaskets, and just realize that the grains, you know, for what we’re doing out here with this, needed to change,” he said. “They adjusted the compression in that thing, and it worked. Hats off to my guys, for sure. But definitely, that was what I was hoping for, was to get a shot at Shawn in the third round and hopefully beat him. It worked out well.”
This was Kalitta’s fourth career win at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Kalitta now just one win away from tying Antron Brown (65 victories) for second on NHRA’s all-time Top Fuel win list headed up by Tony Schumacher with 88 wins.
