Tue, 09 Sep 2014, 17:43 PM One-on-One with Doug Kalitta

Courtesy of NHRA Communications Photo copyright 2014 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Doug Kalitta celebrates Seattle win.

The following are excerpts from a teleconference featuring Doug Kalitta (Top Fuel) No. 1 seed entering the NHRA Mello Yello Countdown to the Championship, NHRA's six-race playoffs.

THE MODERATOR: We have Doug Kalitta, driver of the Mac Tools dragster. Doug secured the No. 1 seed in the Countdown with two wins and seven runner-up finishes. He was also a No. 1 qualifier at five events this season. This is the first time Kalitta has been the No. 1 qualifier for the Countdown and he is gunning for his first Top Fuel world championship. Doug, your car has been really dominant during the course of the season. Does that give you any extra confidence going into this six race grind?

DOUG KALITTA: Oh, absolutely. I'm super proud of my guys, Jim (Oberhofer, crew chief), Troy (Fasching, asst crew chief), just all of them working together incredibly. We've got a good, consistent car. So, yeah, we're really excited about taking this thing to Charlotte and starting this countdown thing off and hopefully repeating the performance that we've had pretty much all year.

Q: I wanted to look a few weeks ahead. When you come down here to Texas, does the facility present any unique challenges or opportunities you don't find anywhere else?

DOUG KALITTA: Well, we won there last year. So I'm pretty excited about going back there. Having hopefully the same success as what we had. So the Motorplex, Billy Meyer has that thing in as good a shape as it's been in from what I can remember. Every year he makes improvements. Just looking forward to going down there. I don't really see any major challenges other than just trying to qualify good and win the thing.

Doug Kalitta and crew celebrate Seattle win.

Q: Doug, you've always been a really good competitor, year in, year out. And you've gotten wins before, but this year it just seems like just like everybody almost kind of expects to see you pulling off another great event. And talk a little bit about that, what that's like for you and your team to be able to the guy with the target on the back now?

DOUG KALITTA: It's what it's all about. Listening to the last part of what John was saying there, it's all about the heart and then winning these things. And just wanting it just as bad or worse than anybody else out there is what keeps you out there. So our class is incredibly competitive. Just any one of the cars can win the thing, the top 16 on a Sunday. So like you say, though, my car has been more consistent this year than it's been in a number of years, it's probably the best year that I've had that I can remember. So that's our mission for sure is to go to each one of these things, qualify good, be consistent and be ready and going rounds on Sunday. We definitely plan on continuing what we've been doing.

Q: As far as your team goes, how has that affected your team this year, to be able to have those good results?

DOUG KALITTA: It's definitely brought the confidence up. And obviously with Alexis winning her races. We've had J.R. (Todd, teammate) winning there in Denver. We've got a lot of positive stuff going on within our organization. And we're all feeding off one another. And obviously with Alexis winning in Indy, that was huge for all of the four teams. And we're going to be definitely ready, hit the ground running when we get to Dallas and really the next six races, the excitement, just what the Countdown format has brought our sport. And for the fans, too, it will be fun to watch and be a part of.

Doug Kalitta

Q: You talked about J.R. Todd, how important was that to get him into the top 10 there?

DOUG KALITTA: If you're in the top 10, you've got a shot at winning the championship. So he's super excited. He's doing a great job driving the thing. And obviously Connie (Kalitta, team owner), it's a big relief for really everybody at Kalitta Motorsports to get all four of our cars in the Countdown this year. But particularly for the guys on that team and Connie and J.R., I mean it brings life to the team knowing you've got a shot at it. And they'll be ready, I'm sure, just like the rest of our four teams or three teams, I guess.

Q: To that point, that's an accomplishment in itself to get across the Top Fuel and Funny Car to get all those teams in there. Is Connie really starting to get the right pieces and not physical pieces, but kind of moving everybody around, getting everybody kind of where they need to be to get that success you're having?

DOUG KALITTA: Yeah, I think you can see it in the results that we're having with all of our teams. So we've definitely got Tommy D. (Delago). We've got Del (Worsham) and Jon O. (Oberhofer), just the whole Nick Boninfante. We've got some great people like you say Connie and Jim and everybody there worked real hard at putting the people in the right places. It's a good effort. We're pretty proud of what we've put together.

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