Scott Kalitta, driver of the yellow and red DHL Toyota Solara Nitro Funny Car, is hoping that the stars will align in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania for him and his team to get a much-deserved title trophy at the Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Penn.
“We really need everything to come together at once, ” Kalitta, a 45-year old resident of Palmetto, Fla., said. “Sometimes the driver makes a mistake, sometimes we miss the tune-up, sometimes we have a mechanical failure and so on, but that’s why it’s such an incredible feeling when you do win a race because you know how hard it is to get everything to work exactly right at exactly the same time. ”
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.
Kalitta won the Top Fuel title in Reading in his two championship campaigns of ’94 and ’95.
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