{"id":93501,"date":"2023-11-14T16:54:01","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T00:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=93501"},"modified":"2023-11-14T16:54:01","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T00:54:01","slug":"26-years-is-all-it-took-for-kalitta-to-be-champ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/26-years-is-all-it-took-for-kalitta-to-be-champ\/","title":{"rendered":"26 Years is all it Took for Kalitta to be Champ!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Doug Kalitta beats Leah Pruett in the In-N-Out Burger NHRA finals – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maybe this is Doug\u2019s year? How many times – and how many people – have discussed that in the NHRA pits every single year? Doug Kalitta has been a runner-up six times in his 26-year career. Season after season the pits would be whispering the question. Again and again and again his competitors and those who know how much the driver and his team have put into an eventual title have whispered, maybe this is Doug\u2019s year?<\/p>\n

It turned out to be 2023, a season that started slowly for the Michigan driving ace, but this time his campaign for a Top Fuel championship came alive when it needed to: during the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs. Kalitta has been turning laps all year long but going deep into eliminations occurred when it mattered.<\/p>\n

And yes, this is Doug\u2019s year! He won his first championship – and hopefully not his last – in the final lap of the final race of the year, on a track with enough history to lift him up all by itself. The In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip has seen plenty of superlative ascensions to titles, but none was as thoroughly enjoyed and applauded as Sunday\u2019s last lap of the year. It almost seemed like the track was as happy as the people. Doug Kalitta is finally a champion. All is right with the world.<\/p>\n

Never forget that Doug Kalitta is a multi-talented racer. True, he\u2019s been racing in NHRA Top Fuel for 26 years and, until this weekend, was a runner-up for the dragster title on a half-dozen occasions. There\u2019s more to Kalitta than his NHRA activities: he\u2019s an accomplished pilot and, before he became an NHRA racer, Kalitta raced in USAC competition. In fact, 29 years ago, in 1994, Doug Kalitta became the USAC National Sprint Car champion. In all, he earned 17 career USAC National feature wins between 1992 and 1997, 10 in National Midget competition and seven Sprint Car victories.<\/p>\n

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Doug Kalitta is all smiles after achieving his championship goal – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many have called Kalitta a rare breed for his capabilities on any type of track, from straight-line tarmac and on dirt, as well as asphalt roundy-round tracks. The racer\u2019s composure throughout his lengthy trek to a Top Fuel championship easily endeared him to both fans of the sport and to just about everyone in the straight-line community. In the 2023 season alone, he\u2019s won three races – including his 50th at Maple Grove to start the six-race Countdown to the Championship and the series finale that gave him the title – and he went to an additional two final rounds as he accounted for 29 round wins in the 21-race campaign.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been no secret that the Kalitta Motorsports team has focused on helping Doug Kalitta secure the title he claimed this past Sunday. Last year, team owner Connie Kalitta hired Alan Johnson and Brian Husen who have, before now, been responsible for six drivers securing NHRA nitro championships. Now this crew chief duo have delivered a seventh. Kalitta joins Gary Scelzi, Tony Schumacher, Larry Dixon, Del Worsham, his current teammate Shawn Langdon and Brittany Force as drivers who have flourished with the Johnson and Husen brain trust.<\/p>\n

Many expected immediate results from the hiring of Johnson and Husen but it wasn\u2019t meant to be. Last year Doug Kalitta finished tenth in the final standings. It\u2019s often said it takes time to get a team to gel and be successful. Kalitta, Johnson, Husen and their chosen crew showed that in 2023; they needed time to adjust to the crew chiefs\u2019 manner of doing business, but they never gave up and never went anywhere else. Every Kalitta Motorsports team member believes in Doug Kalitta. That mosh pit after the win light went on was definitely something to see!<\/p>\n

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Doug and Connie Kalitta celebrate the driver’s title – Kalitta Motorsports photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So finally, it came down to the ancestral home of the National Hot Rod Association. Doug Kalitta qualified No. 5. In the first round he beat Canadian rookie Dan Mercier; in the second round Josh Hart\u2019s day was done; in the third round he faced the driver who led the \u201cregular\u201d season of 15 races, Justin Ashley who had moved up to fourth place after Mike Salinas lost in the first round. All four drivers capable of winning the title advanced to the semifinals: Steve Torrence, Kalitta (-15 at the start of the season), Leah Pruett (-19) and Ashley.<\/p>\n

Kalitta had lane choice on Ashley and chose the left lane, while Torrence did the same in his meeting with Pruett. The left lane liked Doug but didn\u2019t do the trick for Steve and there they were, the only two drivers who could win Top Fuel\u2019s title had to battle it out as the sun went down. Pruett had the quicker lap in the semifinal round and took the left lane in her bid to conquer Kalitta. This time it didn\u2019t work for her, but theirs was a straight-up fight without fouls, without chatter, without anything but destiny. Doug Kalitta\u2019s better reaction time of .047 to Leah Pruett\u2019s .064 set him up for a 3.673-second lap down the 1,000-foot track and he hit 334.98 at the beams to Puett\u2019s 3.720\/326.16.<\/p>\n

That was it. Doug Kalitta was champion. Finally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It turned out to be 2023, a season that started slowly for the Michigan driving ace, but this time his campaign for a Top Fuel championship came alive when it needed to: during the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":93505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,5029],"tags":[3488,6555,9267,1336,511,10015,9631,4730,7,73],"class_list":["post-93501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","tag-alan-johnson","tag-brian-husen","tag-camping-world-drag-racing-series","tag-connie-kalitta","tag-doug-kalitta","tag-in-n-out-burger-nhra-finals","tag-in-n-out-burger-pomona-dragstrip","tag-kalitta-motorsports","tag-nhra","tag-top-fuel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/1Kalitta-beats-Pruett-min-e1700009622261.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-ok5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93501"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93510,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93501\/revisions\/93510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}