Kalitta, the No. 13 qualifier, raced his DHL flopper to the final round in Joliet by defeating Ron Capps, Cruz Pedregon, and Gary Densham in respective rounds. Kalitta’s previous final round was also in Joliet when he captured his final Top Fuel title trophy in 2005.
“Well, we’re disappointed, but then again we’re pretty happy,” Kalitta, a 46-year old resident of Palmetto, Fla., said. “We have struggled so much with our DHL Funny Car all year long, so just getting to the final is a major accomplishment for me and my team. We turned a very big corner this weekend with our car, and that’s what we’re the most excited about.”
Until today, Kalitta had only one round win in 2008 (Phoenix). He and the DHL team have failed to qualify at five events in 2008.
With only 24 hours notice that he would be driving in the Torco Race Fuels NHRA Route 66 Nationals, former Funny Car world champion Mark Oswald stepped back into the driver's seat and through the course of qualifying blasted his way in the A&R Transport Dodge Charger R/T to the No. 2 spot - just behind his teammate Melanie Troxel.
Until Thursday evening, Mark Oswald was planning to assume his usual duties as co-crew chief on Troxel's nitro Funny Car, but his plans were changed with one phone call from team co-owner Mike Ashley. Oswald has been out of competition since 1997, but his return netted a personal quickest and fastest run of 4.757-seconds at 328.46 mph in the final qualifying session of the day.
“I didn’t have a lot of time to get prepared for this race - I got the call from Mike at like midnight Thursday night letting me know that I’d be driving, but this car is so good that it made the move back behind the wheel easy for me,” Oswald said.
“This was a great day for the entire Gotham City Racing team. My teammate Melanie Troxel is number one qualifier and one of our sponsors, A&R Transport, is based right here in Joliet, so we’ve really been able to put on quite a show for them, too,” he said after Saturday’s qualifying.
As one of the many tuners on Team Gotham, Oswald is quick to give praise to his teammates for the successes of the day.
“Aaron Brooks and Rod Centorbi have done just a fantastic job for a car that hasn’t even been at all the races. I know the last two events they’ve been one of the toughest cars to beat,” Oswald said.
Crew chief Aaron Brooks cited Oswald’s skill both on the track and tuning as one of the reasons for the team’s success.
“Oswald is doing a killer job driving - especially given the fact he hasn’t driven in a while. He’s made some test runs here and there, but to get in this thing and run some big numbers was really impressive, and he did it like he’d never missed a beat,” Brooks said.
On Sunday, Oswald defeated Jack Beckman in the first round 4.822/319.52 to Beckman’s 4.895/316.82, but Tony P got the best of him in the quarterfinals with a close 4.882/297.61 to Oswald’s 4.884/316.08.
John Force, here being backed up by crew chief Austin Coil, was eliminated in the first round by Tim Wilkerson, 4.919/280.89 to Force’s 4.904/313.07. Wilkerson got the holeshot and held off Force, getting to the finish line .0024-second ahead of Force. Although he lost to Gary Densham in the quarter-finals, Wilkerson maintains his points lead.