Top Fuel driver Doug Kalitta wins with wild ride at Topeka
A dragster that almost went sideways and literally started falling apart didn’t prevent Doug Kalitta from winning the Top Fuel class in the NHRA Kansas Nationals on Sunday at Heartland Park Topeka.
After he and finals competitor Antron Brown both lost traction at the start of the race, Kalitta was nearly pointed toward the wall before maneuvering his vehicle across the finish line first while losing body panels in the process.
“It’s just a seat-of-your-pants kind of deal,” said Kalitta, who finished in 5.452 seconds. “You just try and stay off the center line or avoid hitting the wall. You can kind of feel what the car is doing, but there is a limit. That’s probably the most sideways I’ve ever had a Top Fuel car, but it kept going. It was exciting. These wins don’t come easy, that’s for sure.”
Moments earlier, both participants in the Funny Car finals also lost traction and spent the entire race trying to regain control.
Matt Hagan, who set national records for elapsed time and speed during Friday’s qualifying session, came close to crossing the center line three times before eventually directing his car across the finish line ahead of Jack Beckman.
“That was a wild ride. It was kind of one of those things where you’re thinking, ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no,’ and sometimes you’re just thinking, ‘Don’t blow up,’ ” Hagan said. “When we went out there for the final I didn’t really expect to be pedaling the car like that when we’d been laying down numbers and times like we have all weekend.”
Hagan’s time of 5.724 Sunday was almost 2 seconds behind his record-setting time, and his speed of 179 mph was more than 150 mph slower than his record run. Hagan said the unpredictability of the final was representative of the sport in general.
“You don’t know what to expect,” he said. “It’s drag racing. It’s a 10,000 horsepower car that goes over 300 mph. Every time I crawl in it it’s a different ride. I’ve been on fire before and the car’s blown up and exploded before, and those are deals where you can’t even see the finish line because of all the smoke. But this (race) was right up there with those. It’s exciting. And that’s why we crawl in these things. It’s an adrenaline rush.”
Jason Line won the Pro Stock class in the most normal final of the day with a time of 6.664 seconds, edging teammate Greg Anderson by .0023 of a second.
Line, who said after coming out of qualifying Saturday as the top seed that it was, “the first good thing I’ve done at Topeka,” dominated the event as he also recorded the quickest elapsed time and fastest speed.
“It was the perfect weekend. Topeka’s my new favorite place,” Line said with a chuckle. “The fact I didn’t mess it up and we put the car in the winner’s circle is a big deal to me. It’s nice to win some place you’ve never done well at, and I can’t stop smiling, I really can’t.”
▪ The No. 1 seed in Top Fuel, Brittany Force, who set the national elapsed time record in Friday’s qualifying, was disqualified Sunday for an early start in the quarterfinals. She would have lost to Brown regardless after failing to gain traction.
This story was originally published May 22, 2016 at 7:31 PM with the headline "Top Fuel driver Doug Kalitta wins with wild ride at Topeka."