KALITTA, DEJORIA LEAD TOYOTA IN NHRA GATEWAY QUALIFYING

MADISON, IL – Doug Kalitta qualified fourth in Top Fuel, while Alexis DeJoria placed fourth in Funny Car to lead Toyota in preparation for Sunday’s AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals at the Gateway Motorsports Park in suburban St. Louis.

Kalitta, who enters Sunday’s playoff race second in the championship, registered a career-best 3.681-second pass at 331.85 mph in Friday night’s qualifying run. He earned bonus points in two of the four Top Fuel sessions during the weekend.  He now has qualified in the top four at each of the three Countdown to the Championship playoff races to date.

Antron Brown, a five-time winner at Gateway, qualified sixth, with Richie Crampton in ninth and Shawn Langdon in tenth to round out the Toyota Top Fuel drivers.

In Funny Car, DeJoria turned in career-bests in both elapsed time at 3.863 and speed with her 333.16 mph run to earn her third consecutive top-six qualifying effort. She will be looking to score the fourth win for a Camry in the last seven races on Sunday.

DeJoria’s Kalitta Motorsports teammate J.R. Todd placed tenth overall and scored one bonus point after running one of the three quickest times in the final session.

After sitting out the past two races, Del Worsham returned to qualify 11th, while Cruz Pedregon placed 13th after suffering a parachute failure on Friday that forced him to a back-up car for the final three sessions of the weekend.  He will match up with DeJoria in the first round of eliminations.

Saturday featured a sell-out crowd at Gateway, with the track also announcing a sell-out in advance of Sunday’s NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series eliminations.  The race will be televised live on FS1 beginning at 2:00 p.m. (EDT).