KALITTA LEADS TOYOTA AT BRISTOL NHRA
BRISTOL, TN –Doug Kalitta advanced to the Top Fuel semifinals to lead Toyota at the NHRA Thunder Valley 
Nationals at Bristol Dragway, Sunday. The race marked Kalitta’s 500th in NHRA Top Fuel competition.
Kalitta, who earned his 50th number one qualifier on Saturday, had the advantage at the tree and never trailed in an opening round win over Cameron Fere, to set up a wild second round match-up with Terry McMillen. It appeared Kalitta’s day was going to be over when he was up in smoke right at the hit, but McMillen smoked the tires around 150 feet. Kalitta pedaled it and chased McMillen down right in the lights for the win with a speed at the top end more than 100 mph faster than his opponent.
Kalitta would have a much better run in the semifinals against Mike Salinas, but wasn’t quite quick enough as eventual event winner Mike Salinas would win 3.817 to 3.887.
“We really would have liked to get a win in our 500th race, but we just fell a little short in the semifinals,” said Kalitta. “All in all, it was a good weekend. My Mac Tools Toyota guys gave me a great car in some tough conditions. We picked up our 50th number one qualifier and we keep going rounds. We were really fortunate in that second round. We went up in smoke at the hit, but I looked down there and McMillen was having problems and we were able to run him down. If you’re going to go rounds in this sport, you have to some lucky ones and that one was ours. Now we have to get ready for Norwalk in a couple days.”
Antron Brown advanced to the second round today with a win over Audrey Worm in the first round, but was up in smoke at the hit on the second round against Salinas.
Rounding out the Toyota Top Fuel contingent, Richie Crampton had a solid pass going in the opening run until smoking the tires before the 600-foot mark and fell to McMillen.
In Funny Car, both Shawn Langdon and J.R. Todd drove their Toyota Camrys to the second round. Langdon, who qualified second, defeated Jeff Diehl in the first round and then lost a close contest with Ron Capps in round two while running a 4.08 in rising afternoon temperatures.
Todd ran an impressive 4.048 in a win over Terry Haddock in round one, and then held an early lead in the second round against Jack Beckman before smoking the tires at the 300-foot mark.
The Mello Yello Drag Racing Series concludes a four-races-in-four-weeks portion of the schedule next weekend with the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at the Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio, June 21-23.
