In a rare four-car showing for all of the Ypsilanti, Michigan-based Kalitta
Motorsports nitro-fueled entries, Team Kalitta took the opportunity Monday to
test and refine the tune-ups of its race cars at Gainesville Raceway after this
past weekend’s running of the ACDelco NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville,
Fla.
The Mac Tools dragster team started “from scratch” Monday in an effort to
pinpoint the woes that have followed them since the end of the 2007 season. “We
basically took everything off of the car and started over,” crew chief Jon
Oberhofer said. “It was time to just step back and re-work the whole car.”
Doug Kalitta, driver of the “Big Red” Mac Tools machine, and his team have
struggled to get their hot rod to perform at the level that has seen them be
perennial championship contenders since Doug’s inaugural season in 1998, in
which he won Rookie of the Year honors. “It’s been tough,” Doug, a 43-year old
resident of Ann Arbor, Mich., said. “We know that our Mac Tools car can be one
of the most dominating cars on the tour, so it’s definitely been frustrating,
but I think we’ve taken the right steps now to get everything figured out and
get back to the level of performance we know we’re capable of.”