Scott Kalitta
“Scott was a larger-than-life character.”
“He was a big brother, a mentor and a best friend rolled up in one.”
“He had a big, big heart.”
“He was a practical joker; he messed with everyone.”
“If you were loyal to him, he was 10 times more loyal to you.”
“He’s the baddest-ass racer I’ve ever known.”
Those are just a few of the ways some of the people who knew Scott Kalitta best describe him today. Whether it was fighting to win races and championships, giving friends from other teams a race car after they crashed their own or flying his team to California for a funeral in 1996, the son of NHRA legend Connie Kalitta was by all accounts, an amazing person.
Scott Kalitta won the NHRA Top Fuel championship in 1994 and ’95 and is one of only 18 drivers to win races in both Top Fuel and Funny Car. After Kalitta Motorsports resumed operation following a brief shutdown, the team hired Dick LaHaie in 1992 as Kalitta’s crew chief and brought back the core team members to run his Top Fuel car.
After finishing second in the final season standings in 1993, Kalitta became the first Top Fuel driver to win four-straight races in 1994 reaching the winner’s circle at Columbus, Ohio, Topeka, Kan., Denver and Sonoma, Calif. He won five races that season on the way to his first NHRA Top Fuel title. The next season, he won six races and his second-consecutive season championship and followed the championships with a runner-up finish in 1996. That was the first and second in four seasons. Not bad.
Although he made his mark in Top Fuel, his first win came in the Kalitta Flying Service Funny Car in 1989. It was a win for the ages that showed the kind of driver and competitor Scott Kalitta was.
“Scott was very competitive; he wanted to win races,” teammate Jim Oberhofer remembered. “Early on, you could see his struggle with that. In the old days, it was show up at the racetrack, and the thought mentality of the crew was like, ‘we hope we can qualify’, getting to the second round was like winning a race. Anything further than that was amazing. We always thought, ‘Scott will win a race when hell freezes over.’”
In Houston in 1989, it almost did. The race was snowed out. When they raced the next weekend, the Kalitta Flying Service Funny Car nearly hit the wall after dropping a cylinder in the final round, but Kalitta came from behind to defeat Bruce Larson and claim the first of his 11 race wins.
“Scott was an old-school racer,” Oberhofer continued. “He was an interesting mix because you have the guys who were the foundation of drag racing like Don Garlits and Connie, The Greek (Chris Karamesines) and all these guys. And then somewhere in the middle falls Scott. I think he was very under-appreciated as a legend of the sport.”
It wasn’t all about the competition, though; Kalitta was a practical joker and a generous soul. When a friend’s team wrecked its only car, Kalitta didn’t loan them a car, he gave them a car.
When Scott met Kathy, whom he would later marry, family became his focus. Despite all the racing accolades, the fun, friends, and frivolity, being a good husband to Kathy and a good father for Corey and Colin was more important to Kalitta than anything else.
“As good a race car driver as he wanted to be, he wanted to be the best father ever, and he worked hard at that,” Oberhofer said. “I give him tremendous credit for how hard he worked at that. He was an awesome dad, an awesome husband, and an awesome son.”
Scott Kalitta – a two-time champion, a larger-than-life big brother, mentor, best friend, practical joker, and bad-ass racer with a big, big heart is now rightfully a member of the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame. Connie and Scott Kalitta join Walt and Pat Austin as the hall’s only two father-son inductee pairs.
