Scott Kalitta, driver of the bright yellow and red DHL Toyota Solara Nitro Funny Car, is positive that an optimistic outlook will help him and his team start producing NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series wins, beginning this weekend, Aug. 9-12, at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd Int’l Raceway in Brainerd, Minn.
“We have to keep thinking positively, ” Kalitta, a 45-year old resident of Palmetto, Fla., said. “We have struggled this year for sure, but we can’t walk around mad all the time with our heads hanging down.
“It’s up to all of us to keep the spirits up on our DHL team. Our crew works so hard to give me a fast race car, and it’s so disappointing to them when we don’t run like we know we can. We just have to keep reminding each other that we can only get better and we’re still doing what we love to do. ”
This season the NHRA instituted the new Countdown to the Championship points system. Only the top eight in POWERade points after the first 17 national events will be allowed to vie for the season championship. This weekend’s event is the 16th of the season.
Going into this weekend’s event at Brainerd Int’l Raceway, Kalitta is in 16th place in points. He is 264 points shy of 8th place.
Kalitta is the son of team owner and drag racing legend Conrad “Connie” Kalitta. He returned to the Funny Car class last season after many successful years at the helm of a Top Fuel dragster. He won the NHRA Top Fuel World Championship in 1994 and 1995 as well as 17 NHRA national event trophies, but got his first professional NHRA national event win under the carbon fiber canopy of a Funny Car in Houston in 1989.
The Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals begins Friday, Aug. 10, for the Top Fuel and Funny Car classes with one qualifying session at 3:30 p. m. (CT), and then another qualifying session at 6:15 p. m. Two more qualifying sessions follow on Saturday at noon and 2:45 p. m. The top sixteen qualified cars will race Sunday in final eliminations beginning at 11:00 a. m.
All times and dates subject to change.
The Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals is the 16th of 23 national events in the 2007 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series.
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