Doug Kalitta won the Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals No. 1 qualifier, and his teammate, Shawn Langdon, won the Mission Foods NHRA Challenge in a busy afternoon at Sonoma Raceway.
After struggling in the opening round of qualifying Friday afternoon, Kalitta was the first to make a qualifying attempt in the Friday-evening session, and the Mac Tools Toyota team made the most of it. Kalitta blistered the Sonoma Raceway track with a 3.649-second run at 336.40 mph that set the Sonoma Raceway elapsed-time record and was good enough for the No.1 qualifier.
“That was really cool. I got my first win here in Sonoma, and I have a lot of cool history here,” Kalitta said. “(Crew chief) Alan Johnson puts a lot of thought into his tune-up, and he had a plan. He’s one bad dude. I could tell it was on a run and honestly, I was happy to be the first car out. I knew it would get cooler as the night went on and you never know what conditions might do. I thought it might have rattled a bit but not much. The car was hooked up, and I managed to keep it in the middle, as straight as possible. This is one of the nicest tracks on the tour, and I love the layout with the road course. I’d love to get another win this weekend.”
Kalitta’s Friday-night run held up through two rounds of Saturday qualifying giving the reigning NHRA Top Fuel champion the 58th No. 1 qualifier of his career. With five wine country wins to his credit, Kalitta has more Top Fuel wins at Sonoma Raceway than any other driver, and he’ll look to add to that total on Sunday.
Kalitta joined Langdon in the Mission NHRA challenge, a rematch of the semifinals and finals from last week’s race near Seattle, Wash. Langdon raced Clay Millican in the first semifinal rematch and defeated Millican with a strong 3.677-second run at 336.65 mph. Kalitta raced Steve Torrence in the second semifinal rematch and advanced to the final round with a stellar 3.679-second effort at 334.32 mph. Those two semifinals set up the first all-Kalitta Motorsports final round in the brief history of the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge.
In the final round featuring the top-2 teams in the NHRA Top Fuel point standings, both teams had problems. Kalitta smoked the tires almost immediately, and Langdon’s Kalitta Air Careers car had issues down the track, but it was enough for him to claim his first Mission Foods NHRA Challenge of the season and earn some valuable championship bonus points.
“That run just shows how tough this class is,” Langdon said. “I mean, you have top-quality drivers, top-quality crew chiefs, top-quality teams and it’s awesome for the sport. It’s great to be a part of it, really, but it’s awesome to be a part of Team Kalitta. Connie (Kalitta, team owner) has done such a great job over the years organizing this team, and right now, I feel we have two really good cars. Little anticlimactic on that final round, but looking at the numbers, I can see where Brian (Husen, crew chief) was trying to push it. He was trying to get up a little on the qualifying spot. But all-in-all, first one (#2Fast2Tasty challenge win) of the year. Obviously, we’ll take that. A couple playoff points too. Great job to Brian, the guys, everybody at Kalitta Air, Toyota, Revchem. It’s good to get that win, and every little point matters; it’s nice for our crew to win these deals. It’s a nice reward for all they do.”
“On that last run, we pushed it a little harder than we should have, but we were trying to get a feel for what tomorrow’s gonna bring,” Kalitta added. “Shawn ended up with the Mission Foods title so we at least kept it in the family so that was good. The conditions were good; some cars were real close to our .64 (3.649-second elapsed time) from Friday night so we obviously held on. It’s gonna be some tough racing tomorrow – close racing, I’m sure, because I think it’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow so it should be some great racing.”
Kalitta will open eliminations against Ron August, Jr., and Langdon will race No. 13 qualifier Tony Stewart. In Funny Car, defending event champion, J.R. Todd, qualified No. 6 in the DHL GR Supra and will race No. 11 qualifier, Jason Rupert, in the first round of eliminations.
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