At the previous NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series event two weeks ago in Las Vegas, Doug Kalitta, driver of the 8,000-horsepower Mac Tools Top Fuel dragster, failed to qualify for Sunday’s race day for only the third time in his storied career. The disappointment that he and his team felt was certainly sour, but with this weekend’s, April 26-29, annual running of the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, Ga., a few miles northeast of downtown Atlanta, Kalitta and his Mac Tools team have three great reasons to expect a peachy rebound in the deep south.
Before the DNQ in Las Vegas, Kalitta’s previous failure to qualify came at the Phoenix event in 2000. At the next event in Gainesville, Fla., Kalitta and his Kalitta Motorsports team went from zeros to heroes by taking the Gatornationals Top Fuel crown.
“Boy, that would be awesome if we could pull that off again, ” Kalitta, a 42-year old resident of Ann Arbor, Mich., said. “That was really something back then. I remember we tested after Phoenix and we still were struggling, but when we got to Gainesville, everything got back in sync and we won it all.
“I’m not worried about our Mac Tools team. We have some great folks and great leadership, so I’m sure we’ll be okay. We’ve had quite our fair share of turmoil this year so far, so hopefully now the luck will start swinging back in our favor. ”
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