No Going Out on Top for New NHRA Top Fuel Champ Doug Kalitta

Doug Kalitta fans—and there's a lot 'em—can rest easy.

The many-time NHRA bridesmaid and king of woulda, coulda, shoulda is not going to pull a Super Bowl champion John Elway and walk away from the sport now that he's finally got his Top Fuel championship trophy.

More about the trophy later.

The 59-year-old Kalitta, who came into the NHRA Finals at Pomona Raceway as the sport's all-time winningest driver without a championship, finally checked the championship box when he won it all on Nov. 12 in dramatic fashion with a win over Leah Pruett in a winner-take-all final run to close out the season.

Earlier this year—in September at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pa.—Kalitta snapped a winless streak dating back to 2020 to earn his elusive 50th career win.

There's more to come, he says.

"Both of those were nice to check off the list," Kalitta said in a Zoom interview on Monday. "I'm really looking forward to just continuing to see what this can turn into with my guys. They really had that thing running good toward the end of the year, in particular. We just learned a lot about all the things that were going on—things that Alan (Johnson) and Brian (Husen) and the guys were just kind of tweaking on. Just real lucky, fortunate you can say, that it came together like it did."

Johnson came on board at Ypsilanti, Michigan-based Kalitta Motorsports at the start of the 2022 season after winning multiple championships in the class. He called the shots for seven of Tony Schumacher's eight Top Fuel championships, and he most recently did his thing to help Brittany Force win the Top Fuel crown for John Force Racing in 2017.

Kalitta, who came into the season having finished second in the season championships an incredible six times, has finished in the top 10 in 15 seasons. He has no intention of stopping.

"I've always said that as long as you're running up front and obviously enjoying what we're doing here, that makes it certainly worthwhile," the Michigan native said. "I've definitely got a lot going on with my work and business (at Kalitta Air) during the week, trying to stay current on all of these different airplanes that I fly."