Doug Kalitta, Mac Tools Top Fuel Dragster

Bristol, TN – Qualifying: Doug Kalitta was the No. 6 qualifier at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals. Kalitta’s Mac Tools dragster made four qualifying attempts all within .107 seconds showing excellent consistency. Kalitta’s quickest elapsed time was recorded in the Friday night session when he reached the finish line in 3.764 seconds.

Bristol Eliminations: Kalitta advanced to the semifinals on the strength of two excellent runs posting elapsed times of 3.724 and 3.773 seconds. Including the four qualifying attempts, the Mac Tools Toyota team made six strong runs in a row expanding on the consistency it showed in qualifying. Kalitta defeated Clay Millican and Steve Torrence before losing to Antron Brown in the semifinals. The two were side-by-side late in the run when the Mac Tools car began dropping cylinders allowing Brown to win the round.

NHRA New England Nationals Eliminations: Kalitta was the No. 12 qualifier at last week’s New England Nationals which was run during Bristol qualifying. Kalitta posted a strong 3.764-second effort but lost to Leah Pruett’s 3.745-second run by eight thousandths of a second.

Unofficial Point Standings: Kalitta leaves Bristol in ninth place in the NHRA Top Fuel point standings. He trails eighth-place Josh Hart by 29 points and leads his teammate, 10th-place Shawn Langdon, by 37 points.

“Kalitta on Bristol: “It felt good to get in the semifinals, and Bristol is a great place so we’re happy to have some success here this weekend,” Kalitta said. “It’s also great to get back into the Mission challenge (Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge) for Norwalk. In that semifinal run, we definitely needed everything we could get on that one so we were pushing it hard. I’m really proud of our guys on this Mac Tools Toyota team. My guys just keep plugging – we’re all trying hard, and we’re all hungry.”