Seven years is a long time to go without a victory. The patience is starting to wane as Doug Kalitta, driver of the Mac Tools Dragster, seeks to end his lengthy Firebird Raceway drought during this weekend’s Checker Schuck’s Kragen NHRA Nationals.

“I can definitely remember the win in Phoenix in ’01,” Kalitta, a 43-year old resident of Ann Arbor, Mich., said. “We didn’t qualify all that great and we had to run [Dave] Grubnic, who is now my teammate, in round one. We were able to get by him and had a very close race with [Larry] Dixon in the second round. [Kenny] Bernstein smoked the tires against us in the semis, and we were fortunate enough to get by the late Darrell Russell in the finals.

Seven years is a long time to go without a victory. The patience is starting to wane as Doug Kalitta, driver of the Mac Tools Dragster, seeks to end his lengthy Firebird Raceway drought during this weekend’s Checker Schuck’s Kragen NHRA Nationals.

“I can definitely remember the win in Phoenix in ’01,” Kalitta, a 43-year old resident of Ann Arbor, Mich., said. “We didn’t qualify all that great and we had to run [Dave] Grubnic, who is now my teammate, in round one. We were able to get by him and had a very close race with [Larry] Dixon in the second round. [Kenny] Bernstein smoked the tires against us in the semis, and we were fortunate enough to get by the late Darrell Russell in the finals.

“As you can tell, we beat some really good drivers and teams that day, and our car ran in the 4.60s (seconds) all during eliminations. Hopefully we can get that consistency to happen again for us this weekend. It would be great to put our “Big Red” car in the winner’s circle again at Firebird.”

Kalitta was the event runner-up in 2004. He was the No. 1 qualifier at Firebird Int’l Raceway in 2003.

I can definitely remember the win in Phoenix in ’01. We didn’t qualify all that great and we had to run [Dave] Grubnic, who is now my teammate, in round one. We were able to get by him and had a very close race with [Larry] Dixon in the second round. [Kenny] Bernstein smoked the tires against us in the semis, and we were fortunate enough to get by the late Darrell Russell in the finals. - Doug Kalitta

Since winning the NHRA’s equivalent of Rookie of the Year, the Automobile Club of Southern California’s Road to the Future Award after the 1998 drag racing season, Kalitta has driven his dragster to 30 Top Fuel national event titles, which places him in sixth in career wins for the sport’s quickest and fastest class.

In the past five NHRA seasons, Kalitta has solidified his place among the best Top Fuel pilots of all-time. In 2006, he won a career-high five national events in 2006 and led the POWERade points for almost the entire second half of the season. After finishing just 14 points shy of his first NHRA championship, Kalitta garnered his third career runner-up points finish in 2006. He was also points runner-up in 2003 and 2004. In 2007, he won one event – the event held in Richmond, Va.