Photo by Steve Reyes at www.reyesontour.com

A lot more than the elapsed times have changed since the days when Conrad “Connie” Kalitta raced a 1951 Willys on an abandoned Michigan airstrip for pink slips. One of only a handful of racers from the early days still active in the sport, he has had a front row seat for some of the more significant developments that have helped to shape the sport of drag racing. While semis and 8,000-horsepower nitro-burning machines have replaced flatbed trailers and front-motored dragsters, one thing remains the same – Connie’s desire to win.

In addition to 22 NHRA national event final rounds with 10 wins as a driver, Connie also has five world championships to his credit. The first came in 1977 when he served as crew chief for Shirley Muldowney. He earned the next two, 1979 and 1982, when he drove to IHRA championships. The last two came as team owner of Kalitta Motorsports when his late son Scott drove to the NHRA titles in 1994 and 1995. Nephew Doug, now the driver of the team’s Top Fuel dragster, earned Connie a team owner championship when he drove his Kalitta Flying Service entry to the 1994 USAC National Sprint Car Championship.

Connie’s first NHRA national event win came in 1967 at the Winternationals. It was also at the Winternationals in 1989 that he became the first person to break the 290-mph barrier. He was the runner-up for the coveted U.S. Nationals title in 1982 and 1984 before finally winning the event in 1994. Also in 1994, he won the Gatornationals by defeating son Scott in the first-ever father-and-son Top Fuel final in NHRA history. These are just some of the achievements that earned him a spot in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America into which he was inducted in 1992. He was also inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame on March 14, 2002.

The same force that drives him to excel on the track also drives him to excel in the skies. It was in the early 1960s that Connie first got involved in flying. He had a one-plane flying service where he served as booking agent, freight loader and pilot. By the time he sold the company in 1997, it was a worldwide operation with over 100 aircraft in the fleet. While the pressures of running that type of operation can be enormous, the rewards are gratifying. During Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1991 the company flew over 600 missions for the military, the second largest number of cargo-only flights during the effort. Connie traveled to the White House on behalf of his employees to receive their accolades in a meeting with President Bush. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, when airports were closed and all flights were grounded, there was one plane in the sky that night that was not an F-16 fighter. It was a Kalitta Air 747 hauling relief supplies from the West coast to aid disaster workers.

Connie’s dedication to his companies earned him the 1993 Michigan Entrepreneur of the Year award and 1994 Air Cargo Man of the Year honors. When he is not at the track, Connie keeps busy running Kalitta Air. Based at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Mich., Kalitta Air transports cargo worldwide utilizing B-747 airplanes.