Everyone got back to work yesterday here at the Michigan-based Kalitta Motorpsorts shop. We thought last year was busy and hectic building our new KB Racing team from the ground up, the Funny Car team from the ground up and preparing two other dragsters. Well, this year is 1,000 times more hectic. We are changing everything. Actually, I’m just kidding. Although I’m obviously not the one working on the cars, it doesn’t seem to be as hectic, especially for my team. For the most part, no major changes are happening. We aren’t trying to prepare a new hauler and new dragster in the short off-season.

The major project for the guys before the Christmas break was to actually take a dragster hauler apart in order to turn it into a support trailer. They completely gutted one of the dragster haulers that was formerly used by the StriVectin-SD team. It was rebuilt over the holidays at Elite Trailers so it has more useful shelving for spare items and a machine shop area in the old lounge. The rebuilt trailer will be used by all four Kalitta Motorsports teams and go to every test session and race.

Another thing the teams do is have the dragster chassis’ front and back halved. They cut the front end off and the back end off so it’s just the roll cage. Then they take it up to our chassis builder, Attac RaceCars, in Charlotte, Mich. Chuck Lett and his guys rebuilt the front and the back portion of the dragster will all new tubing. This is common to do with dragsters. The car that I drove for the first half of the season was finished and we got it back before Christmas. It’s basically a new car but with the same roll cage. Doug Kalitta’s and Dave Grubnic’s car’s are currently at Chuck’s shop getting the same treatment.

I happened to answer the phone yesterday when Chuck Lett, who owns Attac, called the shop. He said that they have been extremely busy getting our dragsters and spare dragsters done in time for the new season, but they were handed another project at the last minute just before the holidays. Connie (Kalitta) called Chuck and needed him to build five funeral carts for Doug Kalitta’s charter company, Kalitta Charters. The airline is going to haul military coffins from Washington D.C. to different destinations in the U.S. Each of Doug’s planes can haul two of them. Chuck had to make the karts that can carry the coffins. Chuck said they had never undertaken such a project before but they did some research, worked night and day and got the carts done over the holidays. Apparently they look really nice with Formica tops and everything. Now they have returned to building race cars. Chuck says as soon as we leave to go out West for testing, he is going on vacation.

We leave for testing in just over two weeks. We will attend all three test sessions which include Las Vegas, Phoenix, and then Vegas again. We will then stay out West and go to the season opener in Pomona Feb. 8-11. We will be gone from home for nearly a month. I really can’t wait to get back in my dragster. There’s still enough to keep us busy though before we head out West. I would say it will be nice to leave the winter weather here in Michigan, however, it doesn’t feel like winter. Even the radio DJ said yesterday it feels like spring training for baseball should be starting soon. I don’t mind the warmness a bit.

I’ll check back in tomorrow. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to talk about, but I’ll think of something. At some point in the next coming days I’ll do a profile of each member of the KB Racing Top Fuel team as I did last year. The deserve lots of recognition for all the hard work they do.