It’s nine o’clock Friday morning and the usual suspects have started assembling in the vast airplane hangar at Kalitta Charters. This group of Kalitta Motorsports fly boys of course includes the two most well known flying Kalittas, drag racing patriarch Connie and his nephew and quarter-mile ace Doug, who will soon take their respective helms as pilots of this aerial adventure. Also on the passenger list are two Team Kalitta crew guys who have crisscrossed the country many times taking off and landing at one NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series event after another with Doug and Connie.
Scott Finnis has been flying with the Kalittas for the longest amount of time. Finnis’ association with one of the most respected names in drag racing history began when he signed on in 1993 to help as a crewman for Doug when the younger Kalitta was still driving open-wheel Sprint racers in USAC. Finnis worked with the Sprint car team until 1998 when Doug got the call from his uncle to go straight line racing in the family business. According to Finnis, he helped back then with “everything but putting together motors”. Doug, with the guidance of his father Doug Sr., crew chief and engine builder Jerry Danowski and Finnis, captured the 1994 USAC Sprint Car World Championship as well as runner-up points finishes the two following years.
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