For Pete Kaiser, everything he accomplishes this season is a trial run for next year. Saturday in Bakersfield, the Nostalgia Top Fuel driver used this logic to score his first win of 2025.
Kaiser stopped Tyler Hilton in the final of the delayed Tulsa NHRA Heritage Series event hosted by Famoso Dragstrip. He won from the No. 1 qualifying position, making the win a clean sweep.
“I’m trying to get better for next year,” Kaiser said. “I’m trying to get better every pass. This is our first year doing this as our own, me and my wife own this thing and we’re just trying to build up a team and building up parts and come out swinging. We’re not going anywhere for a while.”
While Kaiser was the strongest in Friday’s first round, Saturday’s semi-final established Hilton as the clear favorite. Hilton laid down a 5.67 to beat Bryan Hall, while Kaiser delivered a 5.72 to stop Adam Sorokin. Kaiser knew that headed into the final, he needed to find .05.
“I was really nervous going the final,” Kaiser admitted. “I know they had the performance advantage on us. And I know Tyler was going to be amped up on the tree, which he was, he left on me by quite a bit, and something must have happened to them because they slowed down and luckily we got the win light.”
By the time the dragsters reached the eighth mile, Hilton was starting to make a move for victory when his Great Expectations entry inexplicably quit pulling.
“The clamp that holds the throttle cable in broke,” Hilton said. “So it just snapped the blade shut, about 900 feet, and he drove around me. I saw him about half track, and then I was pulling away, and it broke. So it’s just one of them things of 5 cent part bites you in the behinds.”
