Doug Kalitta was the No. 1 qualifier at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals. Kalitta’s best qualifying attempt was during the final session Saturday afternoon when he won the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge with a 3.730-second run at 331.04. It was his second No. 1 qualifier in the season’s first four races, his second-straight at this event, his sixth on The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the 60th of his career.
As the No. 1 qualifier and the winner of Saturday’s Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge, Kalitta had a chance to score the Las Vegas hat trick, but it was not to be. He defeated Justin Ashley and Clay Millican with the quickest run of the first round to advance to the semifinals. There, he faced Justin Ashley, Tony Stewart and Steve Torrence. Kalitta left the starting line too early and was eliminated. Tony Stewart and Justin Ashley advanced to the final round.
When Kalitta advanced to the Las Vegas semifinals, he earned a spot in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge at the American Rebel Light NHRA Four-Wide Nationals near Charlotte April 25-27, 2025. During Saturday’s qualifying sessions, the drivers who reached the semifinals in Las Vegas will re-run the semifinals in the four-wide format with the four winners advancing to the “finals” earning additional purse and championship bonus points.
Kalitta leaves Las Vegas in fourth place in the NHRA Top Fuel point standings. He trails third-place Antron Brown by 26 points and leads fifth-place Jasmine Salinas by 15 points.
“Obviously, I just screwed up. For some reason, I thought I was the last to stage, and I thought it was a super-long light,” Kalitta explained. “I was just too amped up and got screwed up today. The boys had the car running great, but I just let ‘em down. On to Charlotte and we’ll try again, but I’m just really proud of Alan and Mac (Crew Chief Alan Johnson and Assistant Crew Chief Mac Savage) and the rest of my guys – they dug hard for Mac Tools, Revchem, SealMaster, Dayco and Toyota.”
J.R. Todd was the No. 4 qualifier at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals; it was his best qualifying result of the young season. He made four strong qualifying attempts, but his best one was the first pass Friday afternoon when he made the second-quickest run of the session with a 3.970-second effort at 323.66 mph.
After four strong runs in qualifying, Todd raced past points leaders Jack Beckman and Bobby Bode to advance into the second round. In the semifinals, the DHL GR Supra was on a strong pass, looking good to advance, when the car smoked the tires, and Todd was eliminated.
When Todd advanced to the Las Vegas semifinals, he earned a spot in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge at the American Rebel Light NHRA Four-Wide Nationals near Charlotte April 25-27, 2025. During Saturday’s qualifying sessions, the drivers who reached the semifinals in Las Vegas will re-run the semifinals in the four-wide format with the four winners advancing to the “finals” earning additional purse and championship bonus points.
Todd leaves Las Vegas in 10th place in the NHRA Funny Car point standings. He trails ninth-place Bob Tasca by seven points and leads 11th-place Bobby Bode by 29 points.
“The DHL Toyota team definitely made some strides, and our qualifying consistency was there,” Todd said. “We just have to fine-tune it on race day, but you really can’t take anything out of this weekend and apply it going forward because the track conditions were a challenge for everybody. What we thought would be conditions similar to yesterday’s turned out to be completely different today, with traction issues. We’ll keep working, go to Charlotte and do our best for DHL, Revchem, SealMaster, Dayco and Toyota.”
Shawn Langdon was the No. 11 qualifier at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals. His best qualifying attempt came in the first session Saturday afternoon when he reached the finish line in 3.952 seconds at 286.98 mph.
Langdon raced Antron Brown, Jasmine Salinas and Scott Palmer in the first round. The Kalitta Air Careers car was on a good run when it smoked the tires down track allowing Brown and Salinas to advance to the four-wide semifinals. It was Langdon’s first opening-round loss of the season.
Langdon leaves Las Vegas in first place in the NHRA Top Fuel point standings. He leads second-place Tony Stewart, today’s race winner, by 16 points.
“We didn’t qualify well, and we lost first round for the first time this year. We wanted to do better for everyone that supports us – Kalitta Air, Revchem, SealMaster, Dayco and Toyota. We hope to do better for them at the Charlotte four wides next race,” Langdon said.
Team Kalitta will be back in action April 25-27, 2025, at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals near Charlotte. For additional information, please visit www.nhra.com. For additional information on Kalitta Motorsports, please visit www.teamkalitta.com.
This story was originally published on April 14, 2025. 
