Yahoo Autos Doug Kalitta Reaching NHRA Milestone with Next Start
Professional pilot Doug Kalitta will start his 600th career NHRA drag race, the Lucas Oil Nationals at Minnesota’s Brainerd International Raceway, Aug. 15-18.
The milestone achievement puts him an elite class of only four NHRA professional racers who have logged 600 or more national events.
Funny Car legend John Force leads the pack with 861 races.
NHRA Top Fuel points leader Doug Kalitta has flown Thoroughbred horses from one Triple Crown race to another, rock legend Ted Nugent and Broadway-play sets on their tour schedules, Category 1 explosives, organ donations, military supplies to Poland for the Ukrainian war effort, and even a whale—a whale!—as part of his Kalitta Charters business.
“That’s kind of what we do. It seems like the more chaos in the world, the busier we are with that,” he said. Kalitta’s Ypsilanti, Mich.-headquartered airline also handles medical/air ambulance service, passenger service, and on-demand cargo, and he has three aviation turbine-servicing enterprises.
And later this month, he will fly himself to his 600th drag race, the Lucas Oil Nationals at Minnesota’s Brainerd International Raceway, as he pursues his a second consecutive Top Fuel championship.
The milestone achievement puts him an elite class of only four NHRA professional racers who have logged 600 or more national events. Funny Car legend John Force leads the pack with 861 races. Funny Car racers Cruz Pedregon (678 events) and Ron Capps (641) are the other two.
Of his 600 races, he spent 587 trying to earn his first championship. (That’s more than the 567 races Tony Schumacher has recorded, the 546 by Greg Anderson, the 516 of Antron Brown, and Steve Johnson’s 500th from last weekend at Sonoma.)
A three-time winner so far this season (at Las Vegas; Epping, N.H.; and Richmond, Va.), Kalitta has earned 55 victories. He’s tied with Steve Torrence for fourth place on the class’ all-time victory list, behind Schumacher, Larry Dixon, and Antron Brown.
His uncle, Connie Kalitta, runs the racing operation.
Doug Kalitta, who’ll turn 60 the week after the Brainerd race, said, “I started right out of high school working for Connie. And that's been over 40 years, and it's been an interesting go. He's just a real hard worker and he's obviously very passionate about the airline and racing, but now it's cool that he still has the drive that he has to stay with it. He's 86. I've worked with him for a long time every day. He certainly has given me–and a lot of people—a lot of opportunity. So certainly we’re just wanting this effort to continue and having a good time continuing to build what we're doing.
“The other interesting thing, too,” he said, “is we always raced on a pretty thin budget with what I was doing with my dad and whatnot [in the beginning of his racing career]. When I went to work with Connie, we actually really had the funding to do what we were doing. So, he's done a lot for aviation and racing.”
The same could be said of Doug Kalitta.
All-Time Leaders in NHRA National Events
John Force Funny Car 861
Cruz Pedregon Top Fuel/Funny Car 678
Ron Capps Funny Car 641
Doug Kalitta Top Fuel 599
Tony Schumacher Top Fuel 567
Greg Anderson Pro Stock 546
Antron Brown Pro Stock Motorcycle/Top Fuel 516
Steve Johnson Pro Stock Motorcycle 500