Doug Kalitta was the No. 1 qualifier at the Gerber Collison & Glass NHRA Route 66 Nationals. Kalitta’s best qualifying attempt came in Saturday’s first round when he made a 3.661-second effort at 335.23 mph setting the Top Fuel track record for elapsed time. It was Kalitta’s third-straight No. 1 qualifier and his fourth in six races this season.
Kalitta defeated Lex Joon and Josh Hart before losing to Justin Ashley in the semifinals. The Mac Tools dragster was off to a good start but smoked the tires early in the run giving Ashley the win.
Kalitta leaves Joliet in fourth place in the NHRA Top Fuel point standings. He trails third-place Antron Brown by 29 points and leads fifth-place Justin Ashley by 33 points.
“The Mac Tools car qualified well, but I’m still kinda struggling with my lights for some crazy reason so I’m a little down on myself right now. We just have to keep going rounds and keep working it. The car was there. It smoked the tires for some crazy reason which is very uncommon, but we’ll get it. Thanks to Mac Tools, SealMaster, Dayco, Revchem and all our partners for supporting us – we’ll keep digging.”
Shawn Langdon was the No. 3 qualifier at the Gerber Collison & Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals. Langdon’s best qualifying attempt came in the third round early Saturday afternoon when the Kalitta Air Careers dragster reached the finish line in 3.687 seconds at 335.65 mph. That run was also the first round of the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge, and it put Langdon in the final round against Tony Stewart. Langdon’s 3.704-second effort at 332.10 mph in the final round gave the 2013 Top Fuel champion his third Mission Foods Challenge win of the season. With Doug Kalitta’s two wins in the Mission Foods Challenge, Team Kalitta maintains the season sweep in the event so far.
Langdon defeated Kyle Wurtzel in the first round before Steve Torrence upset him in the second round. Langdon was off the starting line first but the Kalitta Air Careers car smoked the tires almost immediately ending Langdon’s day.
Langdon leaves Joliet in second place in the NHRA Top Fuel point standings. He trails points leader Tony Stewart by two points and leads third-place Antron Brown by 63 points.
“It was a good weekend overall; we tried our best, and we’re working together really well as a team. We obviously didn’t expect to smoke the tires in the second round, but we qualified well and won the Mission Foods Challenge so we kept our streak alive there; great job to Brian (Crew Chief Brian Husen), everybody on this Kalitta Air Careers team, Kalitta Air, Toyota, Dayco, SealMaster and Revchem. We’re really excited to get to Epping and hopefully go four rounds in New England.”
J.R. Todd was the No. 4 qualifier at the Gerber Collison & Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals, equaling his best qualifying effort of the season. His best qualifying attempt came in the final round of qualifying Saturday afternoon; he made a 3.884-second pass at 336.40 mph, the fastest speed of his career and fastest Funny Car run ever at Route 66 Raceway. Todd made excellent runs in three of the four qualifying sessions; he was the provisional No. 1 qualifier after Friday’s qualifying sessions but slipped to fourth on Saturday.
Todd raced Cruz Pedregon in the first round, but despite the DHL GR Supra’s strong performance in qualifying, the car smoked the tires almost immediately, and Pedregon won the round.
Todd leaves Joliet in 10th place in the NHRA Funny Car point standings. He trails ninth-place Bob Tasca by four points and leads 11th-place Alexis Dejoria by 19 points.
“Dickie, Jon-O (Crew Chief Dickie Venables and Assistant Crew Chief Jon Oberhofer) and the guys have made a lot of changes – we’ve been talking about it all season, but the progress is starting to show with what we did in qualifying and setting the track speed record. You hate to smoke the tires and go out in the first round, or any other round really, but hopefully, this weekend overall is a good sign of things to come for the DHL GR Supra. Thanks to DHL, SealMaster, Dayco, Revchem and Toyota – we’re definitely trending in the right direction.”
This story was originally published on May 19, 2025. 
