THREE OF A KIND

National Dragster, Dec 24, 2004 by Myers, Todd

KALITTA RACING'S THREE-CAR TOP FUEL TEAM DOMINATED THE 2004 TOP FIVE STANDINGS

Connie Kalitta had a simple approach to the 2004 Top Fuel season: More cars means more chances to win. In January, Kalitta, the czar and head wrench at his own Kalitta Motorsports in Ypsilanti, Mich., decided to expand upon his already potent nitro arsenal of nephew Doug Kalitta's Mac Tools dragster and son Scott's Mac Tools/Jesse James rail by adding a third "test" car to be driven by affable "Aussie Dave" Grubnic. At least initially, Kalitta would keep his new research and development toy under his thumb a bit more by decaling the basic black dragster with stickers bannering his own air-cargo company, and thus the Kalitta Air Top Fuel dragster was born.

Ready, set, go

Kalitta established a pecking order of co-crew chiefs to direct: Jim Oberhofer would oversee the "chopper" car; Jim's brother Jon, a longtime clutch man in the organization, was handed the rookie reins of the new Kalitta Air entry; and newly hired talented tuner Rahn Tobler would lead the seasoned Mac Tools group. Kalitta would dictate the tune-up on all three cars while his three generals would command their respective teams.. The race cars were ready, crewmembers were hired, the hierarchy was in place, and it was time for the first full-time three-dragster Top Fuel effort to go racing. The goal was to get the POWERade championship for either Doug or Scott, but there was an unspoken aspiration to get all three Team Kalitta drivers on the top 10 stage at the NHRA POWERade Awards Ceremony in November.

If it has been said once, it has probably been said at least 1,320 times that consistency wins drag races. Consistency also wins championships. If a dragster team can go three rounds regularly every Sunday (and sometimes Monday), there's a high probability that it's going to be atop the year-end points tally. With that in mind, the 2004 season began well for Kalitta Motorsports' championship hopes in Pomona. The Mac Tools team reached the Winternationals final round, and the season was off to a promising start. Kalitta was pleased, and all was going pretty well according to the plan.

A change in plans

At the next event, in Phoenix, Kalitta's plans began to change and his competitive spirit began to shine brighter than it had in quite some time. If the Kalitta Air car was truly an R&D car, then why did Kalitta elect to send low qualifier Grubnic out in the customary final pair in round one of eliminations? The low qualifier gets to pick his or her pair first, so it seemed more likely that he would choose to send Grubnic down the Firebird Int'l Raceway first just in case the track or atmospheric conditions necessitated last-minute changes on his two championship-contending entries, right? Although Doug darted to his second straight runner-up, it was now becoming more and more evident in the Kalitta pit area that Kalitta's 2004 agenda was getting an overhaul.

Throughout his legendary racing career, Connie Kalitta has been known for ruling his hot rodding roost with a strong arm and a mighty voice, making sure that his team ran his way. As the 2004 season got rolling, Kalitta's autonomous attitude began to wane somewhat as he began to focus his attention more and more toward his new race car and less and less toward his already dutifully supervised A and B cars. After all, Jon Oberhofer was in his first year of turning the knobs, and Kalitta rightfully needed to devote more time to teaching his upstart apprentice the ropes. In the process, Kalitta reinvigorated his competitive drive by making the radical adjustments and finding the unconventional means of horsepower that made his name legendary in the first place.

Jim Oberhofer, Kalitta Motorsports team manager and co-crew chief, explained, "From the beginning of the 2000 season until the end of the 2003 season, Connie and I would work together on a setup for Doug's car and then Scott's at the end of last year, with Connie having the final say. When Rahn came to work for our team this year, we knew that it would take time for Rahn to adapt to Connie's setup, but our plan all along was for Connie to work with both Rahn and myself and listen to our input but for Connie to continue to have the final say. Then came the third car, and we knew things were probably going to change. They did.

"It became apparent after our first race that it was going to be very difficult for Connie to make tuning decisions on all three cars on race day. Within a few events, Connie began to let me and Rahn make 80 to 90 percent of the tuning decisions on our respective cars. Connie realized that he was the guy who taught me how to tune one of these things and that Rahn was perfectly capable of making the necessary decisions on Doug's car. Connie also knew that neither I nor Rahn would do any major changes to the setups; we would leave that for him to do by experimenting on Grubnic's car. This allowed us to grow as a team much quicker than people thought. This also allowed Connie more time to teach Jon the way he taught me."