It’s been a great season for Doug Kalitta and the Mac Tools team – ending the regular season with a second U.S. Nationals win would be the perfect way to cap off a strong performance. The 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Season resumes Aug. 30-Sept. 2, 2024 at the Toyota NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.
Kalitta won the U.S. Nationals in 2019 and has three runner-up finishes in the event known as the largest and most prestigious in the sport. He enters the final regular- season race as the points leader on the strength of three wins in six final-round appearances. The reigning Top Fuel champ feels good about the race and a certain crew chief who’s had a touch of U.S. Nationals success over the years.
“It’s always a cool race; obviously, it’s our biggest race of the year and one we’re all shooting to win,” Kalitta said. “We’ve been fortunate to win it, and we should be in a really good position to try to win it this year with Alan (Crew Chief Alan Johnson) tuning my car with his success at Indy. It’s pretty exciting for me so we’ll definitely hit the ground running. It’s probably one of my better opportunities to win this race so we’ll definitely do everything we can to take advantage of it. Really, it should be a good opportunity for all three of our cars. I think we’re in a great position to hopefully come out of there with the win.”
Johnson led the Mac Tools team’s return to form over the last three seasons, and his Top Fuel success is no secret – especially at the U.S. Nationals. Johnson has eight U.S. Nationals wins with four different drivers. His most-recent triumph came in 2013 with none other than Kalitta Air Careers driver Shawn Langdon in the car. The team is fresh off a Brainerd, Minn., test session and appears poised for great things this weekend.
“We did well testing, and we should be good,” Kalitta said. “We’ll see, but we’re all super excited with what we have going on with our Mac Tools car and everybody doing what they do on the car. I think our team is ready for sure to have a good run at Indy and then be ready for the Countdown. If we could be first in points after the regular season, it would definitely look good on the resume, that’s for sure. But as the year goes on, it comes down to a point here or a point there. If we can hold onto the No. 1 spot, that would be very cool in my book, and then obviously any additional points we get as a result of that will be positive. We’re gonna be counting points for the rest of the year for sure.”
This story was originally published on August 27, 2024. 
