Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season with their families and friends. I know I did! My dad and I spent Christmas with my Uncle Jon O, Aunt Kim, and my cousins Jessica and Julia. Some of you may not know this, but Jon O is an amazing cook. I always look forward to heading to his house for the holidays so I can stuff my face! As usual, Jon O made a five-star meal which included ham, potatoes, corn, and my personal favorite—sweet potatoes. I basically ate myself into a food coma, and then I ate some more. For Christmas, my dad surprised me with a ticket to fly to Las Vegas so I could spend New Year’s with my best friend, Rachel! It was one of the best surprises ever, and I couldn’t be more thankful for the thought that my dad put into that gift. Rachel and I had a great time together, as always, and I got to hit up two of my favorite spots out west: In-N-Out Burger and Popularity. If you live in the Vegas area and like popcorn, I highly recommend dropping by Popularity! They have classic flavors like cheddar and caramel, but they also have some more adventurous flavors like black raspberry cream and white cheddar truffle. I’ve tasted pretty much every flavor of popcorn Popularity has to offer, and I haven’t had a bad one yet!
This time of year between November and February may be referred to as “the off season,” but that doesn’t mean that the work stops. The crews got a two week vacation to go home and spend time with their families for the holidays, but now it’s back to work! We had a bit of turnover this year and hired a few new people to join the Kalitta crews. These few weeks before we head to Phoenix for testing are going to be crucial for the new crew members to learn about their positions on the team, get familiar with their responsibilities and teammates, and prepare for the season to start. Some of the crew members that have been with us for years will be tackling new responsibilities this season, so this time is also important for them to learn as much about their new roles as possible.
One of the things I’m most excited about for the 2016 Mello Yello season is seeing what Connie, J.R., Rob Flynn, and James Riola do with the SealMaster dragster! Everyone here at Kalitta Motorsports is thrilled to welcome SealMaster to the Kalitta family in this capacity, and we’re all stoked for J.R. to have full time primary sponsorship on his ride. It’s also super exciting to welcome Rob Flynn to the team as co-crew chief on J.R.’s car! Rob worked for Connie when my dad first started here at Kalitta’s in 1988, so it’ll be cool to have him back here. Leah Pritchett’s car was making some great passes in 2015 with the help of Rob Flynn, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what he can bring to J.R.’s car while he works alongside Connie.
The folks at MAD Creative Design have been spending a lot of time at our shop the past few weeks getting our trailers and dragsters ready for the 2016 season. Not only did they wrap two dragster bodies with the new SealMaster design for J.R., but they wrapped two new bodies for Doug’s Mac Tools dragster. It takes about a day to print the wrap, and then another day to install the wrap onto the panels of the car. On top of the dragsters, they unwrapped five of our trailers, re-wrapped those five trailers, and have also made some adjustments to the wraps of two other trailers. We’ve definitely been keeping the “MAD men” busy!
Our dragsters get wraps put on them, but the Funny Cars get painted by Steve Dekkenga. If you ever get a chance to take a close look at Del or Alexis’ Toyota Camry funny cars, check out the amazing detail that Steve has put into making these bodies absolutely beautiful! Depending on the level of detail in the design of a funny car paint scheme, it will take around two weeks for the body to be completed. Even though this may seem like a long time, the work of Steve Dekkenga is definitely worth the wait!
The Bounty Hunter Chassis and Fabrication Shop has also been staying busy this off season! The Chassis Shop crew has been building a new Bounty Hunter chassis for Doug and the Mac Tools team. This specific chassis is pretty special because it is only the second top fuel chassis to come out of the Bounty Hunter Chassis Shop, and it is the very first chassis to be built on our brand new jig fixture! Once all of the fixtures (tubing, etc.) have been completed and perfected, it takes approximately two weeks to build a top fuel or funny car chassis from scratch. When it’s time for one of the dragsters or funny cars to get front halved, it takes about two days because of the way we have everything set up. One day is dedicated to building the new front half, and then it takes a day to attach the new front half to the chassis.
Chuck Lett and Scott Finnis have done an outstanding job of getting the Bounty Hunter Shop up and running since we finalized this portion of the shop in September of 2014. These two, along with the addition of CNC shop manager Tim Evans, have put together a great group of guys to really take our operation to the next level. Adding Zeke Thompson, Nick Coffin, Jason Fairbanks, and Brian Nelson to the mix at the beginning of 2015 helped to bring new technology and insight into the chassis and CNC program here at Kalitta Motorsports, and all of these guys are helping us make progress toward our goal of building the nicest Top Fuel and Funny Car chassis in drag racing! We’ve already made such great advances in the past year, so it’s really exciting to think about what else we’ll have in the works in the coming years.
It’s hard to believe that it’s already been two months since the 2015 season ended, but it’s even harder to believe that there’s less than a month until the 2016 season starts. Where has the time gone?! They say “time flies when you’re having fun,” so I guess that explains why time’s been flying by! If it’s already going this fast, I can only imagine how fast it’ll go once this season starts and the real fun begins!
Sidenote: I got to press studs out of a flywheel this week! One of the perks of having a boyfriend that works on race cars is that I get to help out and get my hands dirty every now and then!