Doug Kalitta celebrates his first win of the 2024 NHRA season. (Photo: Kalitta Motorsports)
LAS VEGAS — The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series continued their march on through the season this past weekend in what would be their first of two 4-Wide Nationals events and featured thrilling racing from start to finish.
The reigning Top Fuel champion Doug Kalitta had not yet won a Four-Wide event, despite having 52 career victories leading up to this weekend’s event at Las Vegas. So far, the 2024 season has not been kind to the champion with three quarterfinal losses at Gainesville, Pomona and Phoenix.
This weekend, Kalitta began turning it around a little bit by securing the No. 1 qualifier for the first time in 2024 and the 54th time of his career. The Team Kalitta driver made a stellar pass during the final two qualifying sessions on Saturday with a 3.738 seconds at 336.82 mph. The No. 1 qualifier was his first since St. Louis of last year.
As the season’s first four-wide event, this meant there would be three unique rounds with the races in quads. In short, four drivers would face each other at one time in different pairs.
Meanwhile, whoever won the quad and finished runner-up in the same pair would move onto the next quad and face off again until the drivers reached the final round.
As Kalitta earned the No. 1 qualifier, he faced his teammate Shawn Langdon and four-time Top Fuel champion, Steve Torrence in the first round. Having 15 cars on the property saw only three drivers face each other in this pairing. Langdon had a quicker reaction time of 0.044, while Torrence was 0.096, and Kalitta had the slowest light of 0.120.
Even though he had a slower reaction time to the other three, the defending champion outpaced the other drivers with an elapsed time of 3.728 at 335.32 mph. The round victory wasn’t by much though as Kalitta won by seven feet ahead of Torrence, who was the runner-up in the round.
Moving on to the semifinals, Kalitta would see an even tougher match with 2022 Top Fuel champion Brittany Force and former race winner Josh Hart alongside Torrence. Again, both Kalitta and Torrence were victorious over the other three and moved on to the finals. In this pairing, Kalitta went 3.751 at 336.65 mph, while Torrence went 3.777 at 333.00 mph.
During the final round, race fans got to witness an epic race with veterans Justin Ashley, Torrence and Top Fuel newcomer, Tony Stewart. Ashley had already won a race this season at the WinterNationals, which meant Kalitta, Torrence and Stewart were seeking their first victory of the year.
Ashley left first in the final round quad with a reaction time of 0.040 and Kalitta was the last one on the Christmas tree posting a light of 0.067. However, the 2023 Top Fuel champion began coming back and never let out of the gas, hoping his run was just enough to be the first across the finish line. Eventually, Kalitta would secure the win with a pass of 3.715 seconds at 333.58 mph earning his first win of the season.
“That was a helluva run (in the final), and I was really happy to see that win light come on,” Kalitta said. “Those other three teams are all hungry and all running pretty strong. That was about as exciting as it gets – it was a super-close race for all four cars. The fans got their money’s worth today, and we came out with the win.
“Getting my first four-wide win was real special for me, and it was great to have our friends from Mac Tools, Revchem, Safety-Kleen and Toyota here with us to enjoy it. I’ve been really hungry to try to pull off one of these. My Mac Tools guys really had my car running strong this week. We qualified low, and I think we were low of each session so it would have been quite a shame to miss this opportunity.”
On this occasion, Kalitta did not miss the opportunity. He capitalized in style and expressed his gratitude to his team.
“Fortunately, we got it done,” he said. “I just love being out here. Connie [Kalitta, team owner] gives us great cars, and we’ve put together a helluva team with Chad [Head, general manager] leading our charge.
“We’re real fortunate to have this early success with all of our cars winning this season so we’re just trying to keep all three teams running strong with everyone working together. We’re trying to make Connie proud of all of us. We were able to pull it off so it was a good day.”
Finishing second in the event, Ashley saw his second runner-up of the season and the 10th of his Top Fuel career.
“I thought it was a very good weekend, “Ashley said. “When you look at everything start to finish, we feel very proud of what we accomplished. Although we fell just short it’s a testament to how good this Top Fuel field is going to be all year long,” Ashley said. “I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to be a part of such an amazing team on and off the racetrack. It’s so much fun working, learning and growing with the group that we have. I’m looking forward to Charlotte.”
Justin Ashley At The Las Vegas Four-Wide Nationals. (Photo: NHRA Media)
The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series returns in two weeks at the zMax Dragway in Concord, North Carolina, on Apr. 26-28.
