Some places just click for certain drivers. For Doug Kalitta, Brainerd International Raceway might as well be Kalittaville.
At a track where his uncle Connie Kalitta and late cousin Scott shined, Doug Kalitta had arguably the best weekend in family history. He qualified No. 1, won Saturday’s Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge, and then finished the weekend by chasing down upset-minded rookie Maddi Gordon for his third consecutive Top Fuel victory.
Kalitta’s 3.743-second run at 333.74 mph erased Gordon’s starting-line advantage and her 3.770, 328.78 in Sunday’s final. The victory was Kalitta’s fourth of the season, 63rd of his career and second straight at Brainerd. He also leaves Minnesota with the Top Fuel points lead and a 67-point advantage over teammate Shawn Langdon.
One race remains before the Countdown to the Championship, and it happens to be the biggest one of the regular season, the NHRA U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis.
“It was definitely an interesting day,” Kalitta said. “My guys did a great job throughout the weekend, through qualifying, the Mission Foods deal, and then being able to go rounds on Sunday and get to the final and beat Maddi. She’s doing a great job, and they’re tough.
“Alan [Johnson, crew chief] and those guys had my car running 3.74 like three times. That was enough, even with a little bit of a cushion. It was what we needed to do to get the job done today. The momentum is really good. We’re all really hungry.
“When you get down to those last six [Countdown] races, every round is so important. Today actually felt that way, too. Getting by those first couple rounds, I was like, ‘What a relief,’ because you don’t want to go out early.”
There wasn’t much relief available to anyone racing Kalitta this weekend. His dragster was quickest in all four qualifying sessions, and when eliminations opened Sunday, the consistency followed him to race day.
Kalitta beat Cam Ferre in the opening round before getting past four-time champion Antron Brown. Justin Ashley was Kalitta’s victim in the semifinals, and put the veteran up against Gordon, a Top Fuel rookie.
Gordon had already beaten Scott Palmer, Tony Stewart, and Leah Pruett to reach her second career final round. She also gave Kalitta everything he wanted at the starting line.
Gordon left first, but the advantage didn’t last. Kalitta’s Alan Johnson-tuned dragster went to work and drove around her entry before the finish line, putting an exclamation point on a weekend in which he collected nearly everything available to him.
Kalitta was willing to have a little fun with what three consecutive victories might mean to the rest of the Top Fuel field.
“Hopefully they’ll just go up there and do a lot of stupid stuff running against us. That’s all I can hope for,” Kalitta said. “They definitely realize that we’re there for the win. We’re obviously trying to get this championship and win races and just kind of see what we can do with it. … [We’ve got] to try to stay ahead of Shawn and just trying to get to that midseason championship thing – that and trying to win Indy.
“I was fortunate enough to win that thing years ago and it’d be nice … One thing about Indy, too, I mean, Alan, that’s been a place that he’s just been really good at over the years. Won a lot of races there. So it definitely would be good to win Indy with him for sure.”
The timing of Kalitta’s surge is difficult to overlook. Seattle, Sonoma, and now Brainerd have gone his way, and the reigning champ is once again hitting his stride with the Countdown approaching.
Kalitta knows how quickly things change once the six-race championship playoff begins. He also knows what a car capable of stacking up round wins at this time of year can become.
“The momentum’s really good. So, we’re just all real hungry,” Kalitta said. “You get down to the last six races and it’s just so important. Every round … Today actually felt that way, too. I mean, because just getting by the first couple of rounds, I was like, ‘Oh, what a relief.’
“Because you don’t want to go out early. That’s just kind of the same feeling you have when you’re in the last six races. You got to make it to the later rounds to have a shot at it. It’s going to be fun, it’ll just be obviously a huge challenge.”
The numbers have piled up during Kalitta’s career, but Brainerd holds a special distinction because of his family’s history there. Sunday’s victory added another chapter to it.
The win was Kalitta’s fourth at Brainerd, putting him in territory occupied by some of the most successful drivers at the Minnesota track. John Force’s 11 victories still leave everyone with plenty of catching up to do.
“John Force, obviously, I think 11 times. I heard that today. I thought that was pretty impressive,” Kalitta said. “So I got a ways to go, and it’s a good feeling for sure to be able to get four in a row.”
Connie, now 88, wasn’t at Brainerd as he continues to recover from a knee issue, but he was trying to follow the family’s weekend through NHRA’s television coverage. Doug said the team remains determined to get its founder back to the racetrack.
“It was kind of fun today because he was struggling getting his NHRA TV thing going. So we’ve got him all dialed in today. I’m pretty sure he was able to watch and trying to get him to watch Mitch [Kalitta] run. So I think he may have caught that last round when Mitch was running.
“But just our family name goes way back and obviously it’s taken us a while to get the momentum we’ve got right now with the championship opportunity. So I think people realize it, we’ve been working at this for a number of years and it’s good that it’s finally happening.”
Mitch Kalitta, Doug’s son, was making his Top Alcohol Dragster debut at Brainerd, and he won his opening round of eliminations. He was eliminated in the second round by Anthony Troyer despite a perfect .000-second reaction time.
Doug Kalitta heads to Indianapolis trying to secure the regular-season title while carrying three consecutive victories and a 67-point lead over Langdon. With the U.S. Nationals awarding points-and-a-half, an early exit for Kalitta and a deep run by Langdon could flip the picture entering the Countdown to the Championship, which begins Sept. 18-20 with the inaugural Great Lakes Nationals at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Mich.
What comes after Indianapolis is even bigger. Kalitta is trying to win his third Top Fuel championship in four seasons and continue a late-career stretch that has erased the old storyline about one of the sport’s best drivers never having won the championship.
The motivation, at this stage, sounds considerably less complicated when Kalitta explains it.
“Certainly, at my age, it would be just trying to just be a valuable member of the effort that’s going on,” the 62-year-old Kalitta said. “So everybody’s just trying to do their best. And that’s kind of where I fall, just trying to do a good job and certainly try to continue doing these things.”
