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.

"He's delegated the responsibilities at little more that what he used to in the past. He was a little more hands on with tuning all the cars, and he was really good at it, too. He was more of a swinging-for-the-fence guy, but he usually had that thing running pretty good."

Doug Kalitta's winless streak came has come rather out of the blue. He won twice in 2020 and finished second to Steve Torrence in the championship that year. He finally scratched a career itch by winning the U.S. Nationals one year earlier in 2019.

"Yeah, it's just one of those deals," Kalitta said. "Persevere, right?

"Now, I'm really just all about trying to keep this program going, supporting our sponsors and obviously we've got a three-car team and we're trying to build on everything we're doing right, all three cars, just a team effort."

All three Kalitta Motorsports drivers—Kalitta and Shawn Langdon in Top Fuel, and J.R. Todd in Funny Car—are all sitting too close for comfort when it comes to the cutoff line for the NHRA Countdown playoffs reserved for the top-10 in the points after the series' U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis in September. Kalitta is ninth and Langdon 10th after Norwalk. Todd, who had an eventful weekend at Norwalk—beating John Force and Ron Capps in eliminations before bowing to Matt Hagan in the semifinals—is ninth in Funny Car points.

"We're trying to build on everything we're doing right with all three cars," Kalitta said. "It's just a team effort. It's a family business, and some times are easier than others."

One thing making it easier for Kalitta is that his son Mitch, a recent graduate of Northwood (Mich.) University, is working with the team this year on the finance side. Just one more piece to the family atmosphere that surrounds Kalitta Motorsports.

Having Mitch around has also kept dad smiling, even after a tough weekend. And, no, Doug Kalitta is nowhere near done chasing that elusive 50th win or the even more elusive first season championship. He knows patience. His first U.S. Nationals win came in 2019, and that silenced some naysayers.

For Kalitta, this current stretch in what is now a 25-year run in the NHRA, is just something he hopes to look back on one day with that gentlemanly smile.

"As long as I'm having fun," he said. "I'm trying to balance racing, working the airline (Kalitta Air), and family. I've got a good balance. I've been doing this a lot of years. This business definitely forces you to delegate, build teams to where you don't have to be knee-deep in everything you're doing.

"I'm still out here, and that's the only way you can ever win a race or a championship. We've just got to stay with it."

There's no throwing in the towel for Doug Kalitta.

"Not yet," he said.