Determined Doug Kalitta Weathers NHRA Top Fuel Winless Streak with Class

• With 49 career wins, Doug Kalitta is the winningest driver never to have won a championship.

• Unfortunately, he's also been staring at that 49-win total next to his name ever since he won the Midwest Nationals at Madison, Ill., in October of 2020.

• Kalitta is ninth in the NHRA Top Fuel standings after Norwalk.

Another NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series weekend meant another disappointing weekend for Top Fuel Dragster driver Doug Kalitta.

Kalitta, one of sports' true gentlemen in every sense of the word, is one of the NHRA's all-time greats. With 49 career wins, he's the winningest driver never to have won a championship, though he has finished runner-up in the championship an incredible six times.

Unfortunately, he's also been staring at that 49-win total next to his name ever since he won the Midwest Nationals at Madison, Ill., in October of 2020. Nearly every press release coming out of the Kalitta Motorsports camp since his last win touts, "this could be the week" that Kalitta gets No. 50.

Sunday at Summit Motorsports Park at Norwalk, Ohio, was another one of those coulda, woulda and maybe ever shoulda weekends. The Michigan native was strong and qualified fourth off the truck in the Top Fuel class only to get eliminated in the first round on Sunday by 57-year-old journeyman racer Dan Mercier.

Mercier was making just his fourth Top Fuel start of 2023 and 14th of his NHRA career. Mercier had never won a round in NHRA pro competition.

"It's just a rebuilding thing," the 58-year-old Kalitta said. "It's a team effort and you just got to pull together. Keep everybody motivated. We all know what the mission is. I've got a lot of great fans, and a lot of great support. Connie obviously is still out here and doing his thing, and he's probably my biggest cheerleader."

Connie Kalitta is another NHRA legend. He's the 85-year-old team owner, CEO of Kalitta Air, and Doug's uncle.

"He loves everything we're doing out here, the effort we've put together," Doug said. "He's involved with what we're building, what we're doing and people that are doing it. He's definitely on top of it.