MADISON, Ill.– This weekend, May 2-4, Scott Kalitta, driver of the 8,000-horsepower, nitro-fueled, bright yellow and red DHL Toyota Solara Funny Car, and his team will be seeking a reversal of fortune at Gateway Int’l Raceway in Madison, Ill., just across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis, at the annual running of the O’Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals.
Kalitta and the DHL team have failed to qualify for the previous three NHRA POWERade Drag racing Series events in Houston, Las Vegas, and Atlanta.
“We’re going to get this thing figured out,” Kalitta, a 46-year old resident of Palmetto, Fla., said. “We have no choice. We’re going over every inch of our DHL race car trying to figure out what’s keeping us from running at the level that we know can and should. Kalitta Motorsports has been known throughout the history of NHRA drag racing as being one of the best performing teams out there. We will get our DHL Funny Car turned around and up to the level that our fans and our sponsors expect and deserve.”
“The past is gone. All we can do now is look forward and keep giving it our all. Hopefully, we can get qualified and go some rounds in St. Louis and turn the corner.”
Kalitta will join his DHL team and their race car at a display at Scott Air Force Base (Ill.) Wednesday, April 30, 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. Scott and the DHL team will “warm up” the car a few times for the military personnel and their families in attendance, including Vice Admiral Ann E. Rondeau, Deputy Commander, United States Transportation Command, and Brigadier General S. Taco Gilbert III is Director of Strategic Plans, Requirements and Programs, Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott AFB. Scott will be signing autographs as he and the DHL team interface with the troops.
Kalitta is currently in 19th place in 2008 POWERade Funny Car championship points.
Kalitta is the son of team owner and drag racing legend Conrad “Connie” Kalitta. He returned to the Funny Car class in 2006 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 O’Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals begins Friday for the nitro-fueled classes with two qualifying sessions at 4:00 p.m. (CT) and 6:30 p.m. Two more qualifying opportunities take place Saturday at 12:30 p.m. and 3:00 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 O’Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals is the 7th of 24 national events in the 2008 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series.
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