Mon, 24 Nov 2025, 20:36 PM Doug Kalitta's Top Fuel Championship Run Fueled by Red-Hot Second Half of 2025 Season

Courtesy of NHRA Communications Photo copyright 2025 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Doug Kalitta celebrates Championship.

INDIANAPOLIS – For Doug Kalitta, this year’s fall visit to In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip for the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals marked a far different feel. There were no tense moments, no chance at heartbreak and not even a need for a thrilling winner-take-all finish.

Instead, the championship came on Saturday, summarizing an incredible jaunt through the Countdown to the Championship playoffs. After years of second-place finishes and near-misses, Kalitta won the Top Fuel championship for the second time in three years, continuing a brilliant run with crew chief Alan Johnson.

He matched his cousin Scott’s two world championships and added another impressive notch in the Kalitta family legacy. Doing it without any sort of championship drama in Pomona also made it just a bit sweeter as well.

Doug Kalitta and Alan Johnson celebrate Championship

Kalitta advanced to the final round at the first four playoff races, winning twice and showcasing consistency that none of his counterparts could match in the second half of the season. Kalitta and his team simply got better as the 2025 NHRA Mission Drag Racing Series rolled on, winning four times, advancing to seven final rounds and claiming yet another world title in his 12,000-horsepower Mac Tools dragster for Kalitta Motorsports.

“This is definitely a lot easier, I can tell you that,” Kalitta said. “I’ve never had a relaxing Pomona. It's always seemed to come down to the last race, last day, but we had a nice string of runs throughout the Countdown. Alan [Johnson, crew chief] and my whole team have had my car going down the track. It's been really nice, and just not doing something stupid on the track and getting good, solid runs.

“Alan is always throwing down and always has something up his sleeve. So, I’m just really proud of him and my whole team. It's a huge relief to be able to win the championship and we’re all just super happy.”

Doug Kalitta qualified No. 1 eight times in 2025.

Kalitta was a standout in qualifying, taking the No. 1 spot eight times in 2025, but minus a final-round showing early in Phoenix, the team didn’t get rolling until July. They had stayed consistently fourth in points behind Tony Stewart, teammate Shawn Langdon and Justin Ashley, but really turned it on in Sonoma.

Kalitta won back-to-back races in Sonoma and Brainerd, entering the playoffs fourth in points. The team’s resolve was tested at the playoff opener in Reading, where, after taking a first-round win over Tony Stewart, Kalitta’s car swerved across the centerline and collided with Stewart’s dragster.

Neither driver was injured, and Kalitta’s team continued on with a backup car, reaching the final round. He jumped into the points lead and never looked back, distancing himself from Stewart, Ashley and Langdon with a final-round showing in Charlotte and then wins in St. Louis and Dallas.

Kalitta defeated Ida Zetterström in the final round in St. Louis and four-time world champ Steve Torrence in the final round in Dallas to cement his points lead.

Doug Kalitta defeated Ida Zetterström in St. Louis final.

A semifinal finish in Las Vegas gave Kalitta enough of a points lead to ensure the championship was his.

“You have to have guys putting that car together exactly the same each and every run to get the consistency for any of these guys to be able to tune the car, so it's just huge,” Kalitta said. “It was definitely a tribute to the guys.

“We had a lot of confidence in our back-up car (in Reading) and we just hit the ground running once we switched. It’s a heck of an opportunity to drive for Connie. It’s so competitive out here and we all want to win. It’s very cool (to have two titles) and have this opportunity.”

Kalitta also put up big numbers this season, including an epic performance in Seattle that included a run of 3.628-seconds at 341.34 mph, which was the second-quickest and third-fastest run in NHRA history at the time.

Doug Kalitta and Connie Kalitta celebrate championship.

The championship is the sixth for team owner Connie Kalitta and Kalitta Motorsports, and its fourth in Top Fuel. Scott Kalitta won back-to-back Top Fuel crowns in 1994 and ’95 to precede his cousin Doug’s two titles. Del Worsham won Kalitta’s first Funny Car championship in 2015 and J.R. Todd won another in 2018.

The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series kicks off its 75th anniversary season in 2026 on March 5-8 with the NHRA Gatornationals at legendary Gainesville Raceway.