Doug Kalitta relishes tying late cousin Scott for NHRA Top Fuel titles

A second NHRA Top Fuel championship brings to mind family for Doug Kalitta.

“My cousin Scott Kalitta ended up with two,” Kalitta told RACER. “So, I had always hoped that after getting the first one that somehow, we’d manage to get a second one and tie him because that’s the relationship we had. We were always if one guy could do it, the other guy could do it better.”

Scott Kalitta, described as a larger-than-life character, won the Top Fuel title in 1994 and '95 for Kalitta Motorsports, which is owned and operated by his father, the legendary Connie Kalitta. He lost his life in a Funny Car crash during the event at Englishtown, N.J., in 2008.

Doug Kalitta began racing for his uncle Connie in 1998. It took him 26 years before he won his first Top Fuel title in 2023, and now he’s won two in the last three seasons.

If the first title was about finally reaching the top of the mountain, Kalitta said the second was relief. Kalitta won four races in 2025, made seven final rounds and had eight No. 1 qualifiers. In the five races that made up the Countdown (the sixth being canceled because of weather in the finale at Pomona), Kalitta won twice and made the finals or the semifinals in the other events.

“It was a relief because my guys had me running well,” Kalitta said. “All of us were just trying to do our part and make sure we could get it. We could do it two times. That was probably the biggest thing.”

Kalitta never led the points during the reason season, but he was never worse than fifth in the standings. Then came two back-to-back victories, at Sonoma and Brainerd, leading into the regular season finale at Indianapolis, when Kalitta and the team realized how good a shot they had for the championship.

“I was thinking that this is pretty realistic goal here the way everything was clicking,” Kalitta said. “Then we started the Countdown and started going rounds, and that the main thing with this format is you have to go rounds. Even if just get to the final; just go rounds and that’s what we were doing.

“I was kind of glad to see people that we were hoping were going to maybe struggle a little bit did. But we kept going rounds and it was a lot a fun, actually.”

Unlike his 2023 triumph, or in any of the seasons in which he came up short in a title fight, the finale in Pomona was anticlimactic. Kalitta needed to make a qualifying attempt to lock up the title, and once the weather washed out Friday and Saturday activity, it was official.

NHRA never put a pro car on track in Pomona, a difficult and controversial decision to some. But Kalitta, who still wanted to end the year with a chance at another victory, could tell going into the weekend that the weather was going to be an obstacle, and ultimately agreed with the decision. It came down to track conditions, and the driver knew it was in really rough shape.

“It was going to take quite a bit of work to get it up to speed enough and we probably would have missed the TV window,” Kalitta said. “Then (to run in) the middle of the week, I can’t imagine there would be a lot of fans like there would be on a weekend. So, the owners that had a shot at it, they went to (NHRA) and talked to them and they’re very open, the NHRA was, on not forcing anybody. They didn’t come right out and say, ‘We’re canceling this thing, tough luck.’ They tried to communicate and get some input and fortunately, it was positive enough that we went ahead and canceled the thing.”

To be the series champion and represent the NHRA does not come lightly to Kalitta. And he’ll remember that as he does so for a second time going forward.

“With my family being out there and doing what we’ve done over the years, it’s just nice to keep it going more so than anything,” Kalitta said. “Connie, obviously, is giving us the parts that we need, so he’s definitely holding up his end of the bargain. It’s just a big team effort and it’s fun to be a part of.”

And how does one celebrate now being a two-time champion? In typical Kalitta fashion, after arriving back in Michigan from the finale, the celebration gave way to shifting back into the day job with the airline business. Kalitta admitted he “slipped back into” his work clothes.

“Nothing too out of the ordinary,” he said. “Just different interviews with different places. It’s been good.”