For J.R. Todd and his DHL GR Supra team, it’s a fresh start, a new beginning, a reset, a clean slate. Insert cliché here, and say it how you will. In summary, there’s a new sheriff in town, and his name is Dickie Venables. The 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series begins March 7-9, 2025 at the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla.
Venables is the new crew chief for Todd’s DHL team, and since starting with Team Kalitta in November, he’s been busy implementing his program. One doesn’t win four NHRA Funny Car championships without knowing how to get things done, and that means the DHL team is making a lot of changes in a healthy overhaul of race-team operations.
“It definitely seems like a bit of a new start,” Todd said. “We’re going into this season with a bunch of changes on the car with parts and pieces we never ran in the past, and we obviously have a new crew chief. I’m not expecting to light the world on fire right out of the gate, and I feel like it’s gonna take us some time to hit on our setup. I feel like once we do that, we’re gonna be contenders – it’s a different outlook compared to years past. I would definitely take a ‘getting laps and getting consistency under our belt’ approach compared to having a fast start and then not getting it done. I’d rather build towards the bigger picture, which is running better later in the season. I’m anxious to get started in Gainesville and see where we are.”
With a new crew chief, new parts and pieces and a new program, pre-season testing is more important than ever. The team tested in Bradenton, Fla., last month before competing in the special pre-season event, and the DHL team will be on the Gainesville Raceway track prior to this week’s Gatornationals making as many trips down the track as possible.
“Testing was good last month,” Todd added. “We were definitely there to test, not to race, and some people get confused by that. We just need more laps with this new set up, and that’s what we’re gonna do. It was great to see Dickie getting adjusted to the guys and working with Jon-O (Assistant Crew Chief Jon Oberhofer); Jon has a different role than he did in the past so it was neat to see them work together. Things progress day by day in testing, but the more laps we get I think the better we’re gonna be.”
And one year ago, Gatornationals race day ended just about as perfectly as possible from the Team Kalitta perspective when Todd took the Funny Car trophy, and his teammate, Shawn Langdon, took the Top Fuel title. It was the first double victory in Kalitta Motorsports history, and it happened with team owner and NHRA legend Connie Kalitta on hand to take it all in.
“It’s almost a year since all that happened,” the 2018 NHRA Funny Car champion said. “Like I always say, the guys work so hard all the time, and it was nice to reward them with the double-up win. For whatever reason, we could never make it happen. There are other teams with multiple cars that go out there and make it look easy to double up so hopefully we can start making this a regular occurrence. It would be nice to go back there and do it again for sure.”
This story was originally published on March 5, 2025. 
