Doug Kalitta, driver of the ROCKY Boots Top Fuel dragster, raced to his fourth runner-up finish of the season, the 62nd final round of his 13-year career, Sunday in final eliminations of the AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals in Madison, Ill., at Gateway Int’l Raceway just across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis.
 
Kalitta, the No. 8 qualifier (3.939 seconds, 304.53 mph), defeated  Steve Torrence in the opening round of eliminations, 3.885 to 3.966, and he got the win light over Antron Brown, 3.932 to 4.157, in the quarterfinals.
 
In the semifinals, Kalitta and the ROCKY Boots team defeated Brandon Bernstein. Bernstein had traction problems very early in the race and Kalitta cruised down the 1,000-ft. GIR drag strip with a 3.928-sec., 303.64-mph lap.

Doug Kalitta, driver of the ROCKY Boots Top Fuel dragster, raced to his fourth runner-up finish of the season, the 62nd final round of his 13-year career, Sunday in final eliminations of the AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals in Madison, Ill., at Gateway Int’l Raceway just across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis.
 
Kalitta, the No. 8 qualifier (3.939 seconds, 304.53 mph), defeated  Steve Torrence in the opening round of eliminations, 3.885 to 3.966, and he got the win light over Antron Brown, 3.932 to 4.157, in the quarterfinals.
 
In the semifinals, Kalitta and the ROCKY Boots team defeated Brandon Bernstein. Bernstein had traction problems very early in the race and Kalitta cruised down the 1,000-ft. GIR drag strip with a 3.928-sec., 303.64-mph lap.
 
The semi-final win for Kalitta was not without some unexpected problems, though. Just as the ROCKY Boots dragster crossed the finish line, a mechanical malfunction caused the engine to explode. Kalitta was uninjured and the race car was relatively unscathed, but the 8,000-horsepower, nitro-fueled power-plant in the ROCKY Boots race car was severely damaged and almost every mechanical part had to be replaced on the car before the team could go to the starting line for the final round.
 
In the final round, Kalitta raced against Tony Schumacher. Schumacher had lane choice as the two veterans staged their dragsters for the last race of the weekend. The ROCKY Boots rail dropped a cylinder as soon as the race started. Kalitta did a quick pedal of the throttle after the dropped cylinder decreased power in the engine and subsequently caused tire shake. Kalitta did a magnificent job of pedaling the ROCKY Boots dragster, but Schumacher was already too far ahead for Kalitta to catch up, 4.041 sec., 313.07 mph to 3.849 sec., 317.87 mph.
 
Kalitta is a three-time Top Fuel champion at Gateway Int’l Raceway with event wins in 2004, 2003, and 2001.
 
“I really thought we were going to get another win today in St. Louis,” Kalitta, a 45-year old resident of Ann Arbor, Mich., said. “First off, a huge thanks to my ROCKY Boots team and all of our Kalitta Motorsports teams for the great job they did after the explosion in the semis. That was quite a mad thrash in the pits.
 
“We’ve been to four final rounds now in seven events this year and that’s great, but we’re really hungry to get a win. It was great to have all of the ROCKY Boots folks out to the races with us this weekend and we hope we made them proud with our performance. We’ll get back to the shop in Michigan and get everything fixed up and see if we can’t get a win at the next event in Atlanta in a couple weeks.”
 
Kalitta remains in 3rd place in Full Throttle championship points, only 86 points away from the top spot.

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