Driving a brand-new Brad Hadman-built car at Atlanta, Morgan Lucas scored his first pole position in just his 15th Top Fuel race.

Eventual winner Kalitta qualified seventh, which pitted him against cousin and teammate Scott Kalitta in round one, where Scott immediately went up in smoke while the points leader made a near-perfect pass. That set up a second-round match against teammate David Grubnic, who went red by .162 seconds a couple of weeks earlier against D. Kalitta in the second round at Bristol, and this time left .137 seconds too soon while Doug pedaled a smoky ride to the win. (Grubnic threw away a string-straight 4.536 at 324.59 mph.)

That put Kalitta up against second-place-in-the-points Schumacher in the semis after he had dispatched Luigi Novelli and Larry Dixon to their trailers. Though he won by only about a car length, Kalitta left first and ran quicker and faster to reach the final round against David Baca, who beat Doug Herbert, Lucas, and Brandon Bernstein to reach his second career final.

David Baca took a costly path in Atlanta, as he lost an engine in both his semi-final win over Brandon Bernstein and in the final round against Doug Kalitta. “I think this payday is going right back into parts,” he said later.

Baca’s luck ran out in the final, though, as Kalitta strapped a .047 holeshot on him, then streaked to the win in 4.567 seconds at 325.69 mph, while Baca’s car broke a little past half-track and he coasted through in 4.851 seconds. Afterward, he explained he was a little distracted by a problem with the starting tree, in which the pre-stage bulb was not

ADVERTISEMENT

operating properly. (In fact, the Top Alcohol Dragster semi between Ashley Force and Karen Benkovich was briefly postponed by the same glitch.) 

“They told me about it at the last minute,” Baca said, “but they didn’t say anything to Doug. I’m surprised it didn’t throw him off when I went in and only my staged light turned on. It didn’t really affect the race, but it was weird going in and not having a pre-stage bulb.”

Kalitta said his only problem all day had been a broken fuel tank suffered during his tire-smoking win over Grubnic. “We didn’t realize it until we started it up, so it was a real thrash to get it fixed in time for the semis,” he said. Also, despite appearances, Kalitta insisted there are no team orders when he lines up against his cousin or Grubnic. “You can ask [team owner] Connie (Kalitta), too. He’d tell you if there were team orders, and maybe if we were late in the season in a tight points battle there would be, but right now there’s not.”