YPSILANTI, Mich. (March 4, 2025) – Doug Kalitta is absolutely ready to start the new year, but as much as he enjoys all that comes with the beginning of a new season, the team owner might be even more excited than his nephew. The 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series begins March 7-9, 2025 at the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla.
For more than a quarter century, Doug Kalitta has been driving Top Fuel cars, and the start of the new season is a new opportunity to win races and maybe even a championship. But no matter how fired up the 2023 NHRA Top Fuel champion is for the new season, he may be the runner-up to his uncle and team owner, Connie Kalitta.
“I’ve always said over the years that I certainly enjoy driving these things and doing what I’m doing,” Doug Kalitta said. “But to watch Connie – he just had his 87th birthday last week – he’s just as excited about getting started as any of us. I’ve always found that pretty motivating.
“We had a little bit of an off-season, but our Mac Tools team is in good shape and real fortunate. We didn’t have a big turnover of guys so I have the same team I had last year. We just have one new guy on my team, and he fit in real well when we were down testing in Florida last month. We have (Crew Chief) Alan Johnson, (Assistant Crew Chief) Mac Savage and all the rest of my guys back so it should be a good year – we’re looking forward to it!”
Kalitta enters the 2025 season coming off consecutive three-win seasons winning a championship along with his seventh second-place finish in the season standings. This team is hungry to get the season started and win some races.
“After getting second last year and first of the year before that, I have to admit the first was a lot more fun than the second,” Kalitta added. “We got to spend some time at Tool Fair last week with Mac Tools. It was definitely motivating to be hanging out with all the Mac Tools distributors and their upper management. We’re starting our 24th season with Mac Tools on the side of our car, we have new livery on the car, and we re-wrapped our trailers – everything has a nice fresh look. Mac Tools is a great supporter of our effort and so we left Tool Fair with plenty of motivation for the new season.”
Kalitta is the second seed in Saturday’s Right Trailers NHRA Top Fuel All-Star Callout. Drivers accrue qualifying points all season, and the top-eight drivers start the following season with this special event in which the top seed “calls out” or picks his or her opponent, followed by the second seed and third seed. The driver with the quickest winning elapsed time in the first round calls out the opponent for the semifinals.
“It’s a different format, and everybody’s real tough so it’s one of those “flip a coin” kind of things on who you should pick,” Kalitta said. “It’s a cool format and you know Gainesville really brings in a lot of people too so hopefully the weather will be good, and everyone can have a great day. I think the performance of our car should be hopefully where it needs to be for us to come out of there and see if we can win some races. Gainesville is a great place to start the year with the call-out race on Saturday.
“We tested for three or four days in Bradenton (Fla.) last month and made a lot of runs – the car’s really good, and we’re all excited to kick the season off for sure. Throughout the week of testing that we did, I think the quickest we ran was at 3.64 (seconds) so it was good. We weren’t tearing up parts so that’s always good, and it seems like we’re pretty much where we ended last year which was pretty good performance and consistency so we should pretty much start off where we left off, I’m hoping.”
Race Information:
Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals Gainesville Raceway; Gainesville, Fla.
TV Schedule (All times eastern):
2024 NHRA Gatornationals Recap: Qualified No. 7.; defeated Clay Millican; lost to Steve Torrence.
Doug Kalitta Career Stats: 607 events, 55 wins, 63 runner-up, 800 round wins, 59 No. 1 qualifiers.
The post DOUG KALITTA, UNCLE CONNIE MOTIVATED FOR NEW SEASON first appeared on Team Kalitta Motorsports.
Continue reading...
For more than a quarter century, Doug Kalitta has been driving Top Fuel cars, and the start of the new season is a new opportunity to win races and maybe even a championship. But no matter how fired up the 2023 NHRA Top Fuel champion is for the new season, he may be the runner-up to his uncle and team owner, Connie Kalitta.
“I’ve always said over the years that I certainly enjoy driving these things and doing what I’m doing,” Doug Kalitta said. “But to watch Connie – he just had his 87th birthday last week – he’s just as excited about getting started as any of us. I’ve always found that pretty motivating.
“We had a little bit of an off-season, but our Mac Tools team is in good shape and real fortunate. We didn’t have a big turnover of guys so I have the same team I had last year. We just have one new guy on my team, and he fit in real well when we were down testing in Florida last month. We have (Crew Chief) Alan Johnson, (Assistant Crew Chief) Mac Savage and all the rest of my guys back so it should be a good year – we’re looking forward to it!”
Kalitta enters the 2025 season coming off consecutive three-win seasons winning a championship along with his seventh second-place finish in the season standings. This team is hungry to get the season started and win some races.
“After getting second last year and first of the year before that, I have to admit the first was a lot more fun than the second,” Kalitta added. “We got to spend some time at Tool Fair last week with Mac Tools. It was definitely motivating to be hanging out with all the Mac Tools distributors and their upper management. We’re starting our 24th season with Mac Tools on the side of our car, we have new livery on the car, and we re-wrapped our trailers – everything has a nice fresh look. Mac Tools is a great supporter of our effort and so we left Tool Fair with plenty of motivation for the new season.”
Kalitta is the second seed in Saturday’s Right Trailers NHRA Top Fuel All-Star Callout. Drivers accrue qualifying points all season, and the top-eight drivers start the following season with this special event in which the top seed “calls out” or picks his or her opponent, followed by the second seed and third seed. The driver with the quickest winning elapsed time in the first round calls out the opponent for the semifinals.
“It’s a different format, and everybody’s real tough so it’s one of those “flip a coin” kind of things on who you should pick,” Kalitta said. “It’s a cool format and you know Gainesville really brings in a lot of people too so hopefully the weather will be good, and everyone can have a great day. I think the performance of our car should be hopefully where it needs to be for us to come out of there and see if we can win some races. Gainesville is a great place to start the year with the call-out race on Saturday.
“We tested for three or four days in Bradenton (Fla.) last month and made a lot of runs – the car’s really good, and we’re all excited to kick the season off for sure. Throughout the week of testing that we did, I think the quickest we ran was at 3.64 (seconds) so it was good. We weren’t tearing up parts so that’s always good, and it seems like we’re pretty much where we ended last year which was pretty good performance and consistency so we should pretty much start off where we left off, I’m hoping.”
Race Information:
Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals Gainesville Raceway; Gainesville, Fla.
TV Schedule (All times eastern):
- Qualifying Show 1: 8-9 p.m. Saturday, March 8 on FS1
- Top Fuel Right Trailers All-Star Callout: 9-10:30 p.m. Saturday, March 8 on FS1
- Qualifying Show 2: 12:30-2 p.m. Sunday, March 9 on FS1
- Finals: 7-107 p.m. Sunday, March 9 on FS1
2024 NHRA Gatornationals Recap: Qualified No. 7.; defeated Clay Millican; lost to Steve Torrence.
Doug Kalitta Career Stats: 607 events, 55 wins, 63 runner-up, 800 round wins, 59 No. 1 qualifiers.
The post DOUG KALITTA, UNCLE CONNIE MOTIVATED FOR NEW SEASON first appeared on Team Kalitta Motorsports.
Continue reading...