The nearly 75 years of drag-racing folklore includes countless tales laced with bluster, bravado and bawdiness. And because they’ve been repeated through the years, it’s difficult to say if half of it — maybe any of it — is true.
But for sure, Connie “The Bounty Hunter” Kalitta, who raced from the 1950s to the ’90s and now at age 86 presides over his multi-car NHRA team, is at the center of much of it.
Are the stories appropriate to print? Some of them are; some of them aren’t.
Kalitta’s late son, two-time Top Fuel champion Scott Kalitta, once promised, with a devilishly delicious smile on his face, “Oh, I’ve got lots of stories about my old man,” hinting that his were in the latter category.
What’s verified is that the 1992 inductee into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America was named one of the NHRA’s top 50 drivers (No. 21) in 2001. And he capped his collaborative-turned-contentious association with legend Shirley Muldowney with Beau Bridges playing his role in Muldowney’s 1983 biographical film “Heart Like A Wheel.”
Long before that, Kalitta became known as The Bounty Hunter. The clever nickname originated from his Wild West practice of painting a “Wanted” list of drivers he planned to defeat below the roll cage on his 1962 Top Gas dragster, and then crossing off each name as he put another notch in his piston, er, pistol.
Rival “Big Daddy” Don Garlits has said how that irked him. Nevertheless, Garlits displayed the 1967 version of it at his museum in Ocala, Fla.
Kalitta’s swashbuckling style is part of what makes it difficult to separate his racing persona from his business reputation, as his two investments are woven together. Perhaps his defining moment as a steely tough-guy came in October 1989, when a man brandishing a butcher knife barged into Kalitta’s air-freight headquarters in Ypsilanti, Mich., forcing a female dispatch clerk to the floor and demanding a Learjet to take him on a mission to the White House.
Kalitta intervened and agreed to fly the man to Washington, D.C. — but his plan was to depressurize the plane at altitude, neutralizing the thug unconscious.
The man poked the knife at Kalitta’s ribs as they made their way into a Learjet on the Willow Run Airport tarmac, but a state policeman arrived and parked in front of the plane – which set the man into a tizzy. Kalitta recalled to the Detroit Free Press that the man “really went crazy, swinging the knife around” and trying to take control of the jet’s throttle and revving the engine.
So “Conrad the Cunning” — 51 years old at the time — attacked the criminal and landed some punishing blows before the state trooper broke into the plane and took the man into custody. Kalitta emerged with a couple of cuts to his fingers and a rugged, larger-than-life reputation.
Since then, Kalitta has made hundreds of legitimate missions on behalf of the White House. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, while commercial jets were grounded, his airline was the only one allowed to fly, transporting military supplies.
Today, thanks to contracts with the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Department of Defense, Kalitta Air makes a daily flight from Newark, N.J., to Bahrain with mail for U.S. troops.
In Bahrain, DHL sorts that mail and completes distribution to Iraq, Afghanistan and other U.S. military locations. That partnership spilled over into drag racing. DHL has been a longtime sponsor of Kalitta Motorsports’ Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragsters.
A native of Mount Clemens, Mich., Kalitta began his aviation empire in 1967, ferrying small, but significant parts overnight to automakers – a job other companies declined.
Graham Light, now-retired NHRA vice-president of competition, said, “He did a lot of custom jobs during the Gulf War, all military equipment to Kuwait. At the spur of the moment during COVID-19, he went over to China and brought home U.S. personnel. He’s got the capability to be flexible and do those custom jobs, where FedEx and UPS may have a regular schedule every day. Connie’s more custom. He’s capable of doing things that other companies aren’t or don’t want to do.”
The NHRA honored Kalitta during its 2016 year-end awards ceremony as the first recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award. That’s especially remarkable, considering that about 50 years ago, NHRA banned him for life for the same kind of fisticuffs that made him a hero back in Ypsilanti.
Light said, tongue in cheek, “I’ve told Connie a number of times that he got his start in the airline business when he was disqualified from NHRA and he learned how to fly. Since then, he’s built it into this multimillion-dollar cargo company that goes all over the world and he’s making a ton of money. And in my opinion, he owes some of that money to NHRA.”
For the current Kalitta Motorsports drivers – J.R. Todd, Shawn Langdon and Connie’s nephew, Doug Kalitta — the most valuable currency they’ve accumulated is knowledge, the benefits of learning from their unique team boss.
“As long as he’s smiling and tells me that I’m doing a good Job, that’s all I need to hear,” Top Fuel ace Langdon said. During down-time at the track, he and the elder Kalitta often shoot the breeze “just about life, about things, about racing, about race cars, about everything.
“So it’s neat to be able to race out of his trailer. I just get to have easygoing conversations with him. He’s a great man. He’s a wealth of knowledge. He’s still very, very sharp. It’s neat to be able to have Connie at all these races and to be able to pick his brain on things and just learn about life, really.”
Todd said, “He’s always up to date on current events going on in the world, especially with his business, so it’s always neat to hear his perspective on things outside of drag racing. I’ll never forget when I first started driving for him, he would give me advice on what he did, as far as reaction time things or how Scott drove the car, and just make those suggestions. Those are kind of like lifelong secrets. You don’t pass that along to just anybody. That means a lot that he’s the one to give you those pointers and just wants you to be the best that you can.”
Connie Kalitta lost son Scott in a crash at New Jersey’s Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in 2008 and Scott Kalitta’s memory has never faded from the sport. Yet Connie Kalitta hasn’t placed pressure on his drivers.
“It’s really humbling,” Langdon said. “When you talk to him about race cars, there’s a lot of things that he compares driving to when he drove, but also a lot of things to Scott. And he gives you things that him and Scott used to talk about or how Scott used to approach certain races or rounds, or how Scott would drive the car. So it’s actually very humbling to be a part of those conversations of things like that.
“The neat thing about him is you are racing as a part of his legacy, but you don’t ever feel like you have any shoes to fill because of how he talks to you and how he approaches things. He gives you the opportunity, but he also gives you a pretty long leash to allow you to go out and learn on your own.
“But he’s also there if you ever have any questions or need any advice,” Langdon continued. “He’s very level-headed to talk to. At the end of the day, he pays you to do your job and you have to do your job. And as long as you don’t act a fool; you are part of the family, really, that Kalitta family.”
Todd agreed. “That’s one thing that I learned right away working here is how much of a family environment that it is. I was always a fan of Kalitta Motorsports way before I worked here, and I get reminded every day that I see the car that I drive, how lucky I am to be driving Scott’s Funny Car. I’m not trying to live up to Scott’s legacy or anybody else that’s driven the car before me. They’re all big shoes to fill. We just want to carry on Scott’s legacy and the Kalitta legacy.
“My early years of racing Junior Dragster was like Scott’s heyday of dominating Top Fuel. I definitely remember watching Scott whip up on everybody,” Todd noted. “And then once I got into racing Top Fuel when I was 18, I really learned how awesome Scott was, hearing all those stories and then to finally get to know Scott and hang around him. And then working here at Kalitta’s and hearing even more stories just makes you really appreciate what he did and trying to carry on his legacy even more.
“And whenever Connie’s happy, that usually means we’re doing a good job,” Todd said. “Over the years, I’ve gotten to known Scott’s boys, Corey and Colin, and I feel like I have a good relationship with them, which means a lot. And we got to win in Gainesville this year with Scott’s wife, Kathy, there, so that was very cool.
“She hadn’t been to the races since Scott was driving, so that was awesome to be able to give her the trophy in Gainesville. You’ve kind of got to pinch yourself that you’re getting to live out your childhood dream and drive for one of the biggest teams in a NHRA drag racing.”
Reigning Top Fuel champion Doug Kalitta has a unique perspective of his uncle.
“I started right out of high school working for Connie, and that’s been over 40 years,” he said. “And it’s been an interesting go. He’s just a real hard worker and he’s obviously very passionate about the airline and racing. But now it’s cool that he still has the drive that he has to stay with it.
“He’s 86, and he’s still in the office for usually two or three hours every day, just to make sure he checks in with everybody and sees what’s going on. And then same with the racing; he’s over at the shop. So certainly we’re just wanting this effort to continue and having a good time. We keep dragging him up through the winner’s circle, so it’s good stuff. He didn’t mind that.”
A ruffian, a brawler, perhaps, in his heyday, Connie Kalitta has mellowed. A knee replacement — after which he didn’t bother with too much of his physical therapy assignments, Doug Kalitta reports — has kept him more in the background these days.
“He’s very protective of just not wanting to fall, so he’s pretty cautious. I’m not sure if it had anything to do with the physical therapy, but we still give him a hard time about it,” Kalitta said about his uncle.
Surprisingly, Doug Kalitta believes loosening the reins hasn’t been difficult for Connie Kalitta.
“I don’t think so. At some point, and that’s one thing I’ve always said about racing and working at the airline during the week is, I mean, you have to get good at delegating as much as you can to try to manage what’s going on,” he explained. “You just can’t do it all yourself. We have a lot of stuff going on, so you really have to find the right people to put in place and give them the opportunity. But driving these cars and tuning these cars has been one of his passions forever.
“Since he wasn’t really able to get up to the starting line and be able to really see what the car’s doing like he used to, I think at that point maybe is when he decided to go ahead and let the guys tune it and take care of it. He’s been doing this his whole life and it’s good that he finally feels confident he can let these guys do what they do.”
And that is a mark of leadership — and proof that Connie Kalitta’s legacy continues to grow.
<p><span style=”color: #ff0000;”><strong>THIS ARTICLE IS REPOSTED FROM THE July 24 EDITION OF <em><a href=”https://speedsportinsider.com”>SPEED SPORT INSIDER</a></em></strong></span></p>
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