EPPING, N.H. — Sunday’s NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series eliminations at New England Dragway featured plenty of highlight-reel moments.
From John Force’s 157th victory in Funny Car to Jeg Coughlin Jr.’s holeshot Pro Stock victory, the weekend was already stout.
However, perhaps the moment of eliminations was defending Top Fuel champion Doug Kalitta finally scoring a victory in the New England Nationals.
The 59-year-old now boasts at least one victory at every track on the NHRA schedule.
Kalitta outgunned eight-time Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher with a 3.802-second run at 332.92 mph in front of a sold-out crowd.
For Kalitta, it was a relief to finally win in New Hampshire.
“It’s a dream come true with Alan (Johnson, crew chief), Mac (Savage, assistant crew chief) and this whole team that got behind me,” Kalitta said. “We’ve been digging hard; the car’s so good, I just really want to make sure I’m not the weak link.
“I probably relied on those guys a little more than I’d like to today, but we got it done for Mac Tools, Revchem, SealMaster and Toyota. We finally got the win at Epping.”
Kalitta endured multiple close rounds on his way to the finals.
To reach the semifinals, Kalitta defeated an old foe from his USAC midget and sprint car days, three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Tony Stewart, by the closest of margins — eight thousandths of a second.
“Running Tony Stewart today, that was pretty cool in my book,” Kalitta began. “I ran him at the four-wide (Las Vegas), he was in one of the four-wide quads.
But to go one-on-one with him on elimination day… and that was (an) incredibly close race.”
In the semis, Kalitta was matched with teammate Shawn Langdon, where Kalitta’s dragster reached the line a mere two thousandths of a second ahead of Langdon.
Thus, brought on Schumacher, where Kalitta and his Kalitta Motorsports team finished the job.
“Every round except (the) first round, they were just incredibly close. With my reaction times, I just held on for the win for a couple of them,” Kalitta laughed.
“It was one of those days that it almost seemed like it was just a lucky day for me with the way today turned out.”