Hello Everyone,
I hope all of you have enjoyed a great week thus far and have some great plans in store for the coming weekend! Racing in March usually means one thing, the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida! I personally look forward to the Gatornationals, as it was my first official race with the Kalitta family way back in 1988. I remember flying into the Gainesville Airport, and Scott Kalitta coming to pick me up, and within an hour, Scott borrowed $200.00 from me, I don’t think he ever payed me back lol! Oh well, I remember that race like it was yesterday, and then when I think of everything that has happened since then, I shake my head in pure amazement!
We started off our Gainesville week with a very cool display down at DHL Americas Home Office in Plantation, Florida. Reg Kenney, who is the President of Global Engineering and Manufacturing for DHL Americas, is a huge supporter of the DHL Toyota Funny Car Team and Kalitta Motorsports. Reg wanted to show off the DHL Funny Car Team to all of the great employees at the Plantation offices, and let them know how DHL and Kalitta Air work together to make this racing program work. Christine Nashick and Michelle DelValle, who run the DHL Americas Marketing Department, were also very instrumental in making this a great display and getting the word out to all of the DHL Employees, thank you Christine and Michelle! I attached a few pictures from the display, one of the pictures is from the lobby of the DHL Offices, and it was a wall display that changed pictures every 5 seconds, with some great shots of the DHL car and team. Very cool!
By now, most of you know about Mac Tools coming back on board with Doug Kalitta’s team, starting at the Mac Tools US Nationals. Doug and some of the guys from his team, made their way down to Nashville, Tennessee, a couple of weekends ago, to announce the new sponsorship of Doug’s car, in front of thousands of Mac Tools Distributors and their families at the annual Mac Tools Fair. Since I had a prior commitment, I was not able to attend this years Tool Fair, but I got plenty of pictures from my friends, letting me know how much they missed me…at least I think they missed me! Most of the pictures I received were of Pittsburgh Steeler Hall Of Fame running back, Rocky Blier, who was there as a guest Motivational Speaker for Mac Tools. The best picture came from Custom Car Guru, Chip Foose, who sent me a picture of him standing with Rocky Blier, and to top it off, wearing all four of Rocky’s Super Bowl Rings! Now I am not smart enough to figure out how to get that picture off of my phone and attach it to this e-mail, but if you want to see that picture, you will have to come to the track!
Back to the race in Gainesville, Grubby will be running the Rocky Boots colors this weekend, and I think everyone will really like the new design that the folks at Rocky Boots came up with. We really are very thankful for the relationship we have with Rocky Boots, and look forward to running their colors when we get the chance. It is also cool that we were finally able to put a nice paint job on Alexis’ Tequila Patron Toyota Funny Car. We received the body back from SD Enterprises on Monday, and let me tell you, Stevie D and his crew did an awesome job!
With all of the time off we have had before Gainesville, it gave all of the Kalitta Teams, time to catch up and make sure we are fully prepared for the Gainesville race. Del Worsham made his way back to Michigan for a week, and went over the Tequila Patron Toyota from front to back, and is ready to make some great runs in Gainesville. I am confident that Alexis, Del and the Patron Team are going to have a great weekend in Gainesville! I have that same confidence about all of Team Kalitta’s hotrods this weekend!
Well that’s all from me right now, take care and I hope all of you have a great week and an even better weekend!
Jim O
