Does Doug Kalitta drive an Avis rental car? The company says it’s No. 2 and it tries harder.

Kalitta’s cargo planes haul thoroughbred horses from the Kentucky Derby to the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. But maybe Kalitta would have been a perfect jockey for Alydar, the colt that had the dubious distinction of finishing a close second to Affirmed in all three 1977 Triple Crown events, a feat that never occurred before or since.

That’s because for yet another perturbing time, the Mac Tools Dragster driver had the No. 1 NHRA Top Fuel qualifying position yanked away from him at the last minute, leaving him in second place in the starting lineup.

This time it was Saturday, and the place was Bandimere Speedway, in the Denver suburb of Morrison, Colo. The race was the Mopar Mile-High Nationals, the first of three exhausting segments in the so-called Western Swing. And the culprit was Leah Pritchett.

In all her golden glory, the sun glimmering off her Papa John’s Pizza/Mopar Dragster, Pritchett left his 3.767-second, 323.97-mph performance in the Colorado dust. She ran a track-record 3.733-second elapsed time at 326.24 mph on the 1,000-foot course to blast to the No. 1 starting position for Sunday’s eliminations.

It’s her fourth No. 1 start this season and fifth totally.

She’ll face rookie SealMaster Dragster driver Troy Coughlin Jr., Kalitta’s teammate, in the first round of eliminations Sunday as she seeks her fourth victory. She’s hoping, as well, to put some serious pressure on points leader Steve Torrence (for whom her husband Gary is the clutch specialist).

“We were definitely swinging for the fence. But were we swinging for a .73? No,” Pritchett said of her Todd Okuhara-tuned team that competes out of the Don Schumacher Racing organization. “We said low- to mid-.70s. Mid-.70s is what we were going after.”

The turning point for her, she said was a previous pass in which the dragster hiked the front tires for a fairly lengthy time and started moving toward the center line, forcing her to pedal the car and try to control it. (“The air is so thin the downforce isn’t there,” she said.) She clocked a 3.801 from that experience, but she atoned for that by rebounding with the 3.733 to leap from eighth place in the lineup to first.

The 3.733-second showing, she said, “surprised us. We struggled in qualifying this whole, entire event. We got it right, so I feel good about tomorrow.

“Time will tell. Tomorrow will tell. At the end of Sunday, we help we can help Mopar blow out their candles on their 80th birthday.”

Kalitta, meanwhile, simply said, “Bummer to lose another No.1 qualifier in the last session, but my guys have been working hard and we have a great handle on this Mac Tools / Toyota [Dragster]. I am really excited to get to race day. I know we have a great shot at the win."

He’ll meet debuting Greg Carrillo in the first round of eliminations.

But tonight he probably isn’t eating any Papa John’s Pizza for dinner.