When Connie Kalitta speaks, his team listens.
Doug Kalitta, Connie’s nephew and the defending NHRA Top Fuel champion, commented that his team needed to win the next three races to successfully defend its championship.
Kalitta, a former hard-nosed drag racer himself, laid it on the line for his nephew, but not in a negative way. He encouraged Kalitta to note that all the tools are in place to deliver a three-race winning streak.
One year ago, Kalitta entered the second half of the Countdown with the points lead. This week, he enters the Texas NHRA Fall Nationals in fourth place in points. He trails his teammate, third-place Shawn Langdon, by 27 points, leads fifth-place Steve Torrence by one point, and trails points leader Antron Brown by 87 points with three races remaining in the season. This race team is hungry and prepared for battle.
“He said, ‘We have the people and the parts,” Kalitta recalled. “We just need a little bit of luck for things to go well, but we definitely have the team behind us and the cars and the parts and everything else.’
“That was pretty good coming from Connie. He has a lot of confidence in what he’s put together with my team and J.R., Shawn, and their teams, so I think we should be looking good.”
Notching a 56th career win this weekend would be monumental in its timing. A win would be impactful in more ways than just winning a race. This weekend, the team will roll out a new paint scheme celebrating team marketing partner Mobil 1’s 50th anniversary.
Kalitta has three wins in six final rounds this season. Still, his last winner’s circle celebration was in late June in Richmond, Va., in extremely hot conditions – somewhat similar to those expected in central Texas this weekend. Like the other teams in the hunt for the championship, Kalitta wants to win the last three races.
“That’s definitely the goal so we’ll start with that and see how it shakes out, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t,” Kalitta said. “We’ve won at all three of those tracks, so we’ll set our goals for that and see what happens. With any luck, the other guys will get beat early and make it a little easier for us.”
This weekend’s Texas NHRA FallNationals completes the Stampede of Speed, also billed as the fastest ten days in Texas. Hosted by Texas Motorplex, the site of this weekend’s race, the Stampede of Speed is a 10-day festival of concerts, autographs, and racing, culminating with the final round on Sunday afternoon.
“It’s definitely pretty exciting what Billy and his daughter (Track Owners Billy Meyer and Christie Meyer Johnson) are doing with the whole Stampede of Speed weeklong promotion for the race,” Kalitta, a two-time Texas Motorplex winner, said. “It’s pretty impressive if you look at the schedule of what they’re doing. There’s a lot of excitement going into that race, and I’m sure it’ll be a huge success with all the activities they’re doing to promote the event. It’s kind of a ‘Billy Myers program’ for sure. When he came out with that track, it was all concrete and really something special. Now he’s doing this Stampede of Speed thing leading by example in how to promote a race, and he has the state of Texas behind him – it’s a great business model.”
