They’re Keeping Everything in the Family : Drag racing: Scott Kalitta has followed the trail blazed by his father, Connie, in both drag racing and the air-freight business.

It may come as a shock to some race car drivers, who spend every waking moment thinking about or working on their cars, but Scott Kalitta, the newly crowned top-fuel drag racing champion, considers racing his weekend hobby.

During the week, Kalitta is president of his own air-freight company, Trans Continental Airlines, in Ypsilanti, Mich.

If Kalitta sounds like a familiar name in both drag racing and air-freight circles, it should. His father, Connie, started out as the drag racing “Bounty Hunter” while barnstorming with Dan Garlits in the 1950s and is still one of the sport’s top competitors.

And Connie’s company, American International Airways, is the sponsor of his and Scott’s top-fuel dragsters.

Connie, 56, has won 10 National Hot Rod Assn. top-fuel events--three this season. Scott, 32, has won six, five this year, and one in a funny car.

But this season Scott accomplished something his father never has. He won the family’s only NHRA Winston championship.

He’s not even close in the air-freight business, though. Connie has about 60 planes, one of the busiest fleets in the world. Scott has two.

Until last year, the Kalittas tried to run their businesses and the racing team all at the same time. It finally became too much work.

Connie took a year off from racing to concentrate on his airline, and Scott who had driven top fuelers for nearly half his life--he drove his dad’s on a test run when he was 16--with only minimal success, concluded that a full-time crew chief would help solve his racing problems.

Dick LaHaie, the 1987 Winston top-fuel champion, was the choice and in their second season together, Scott won the family’s first national championship.

“Seeing the joy and fulfillment in Scott and Connie’s faces when he won was probably even more satisfying than winning myself,” LaHaie said Friday at the Pomona Fairplex, where both Kalittas are competing in the Winston Select Finals this weekend. “I expected myself to win but when Scott did it, I was able to enjoy their excitement in a different way. It really meant a lot to me.”

LaHaie had been luxuriating in semi-retirement in Lansing, Mich., when the Kalittas approached him.

“I was enjoying myself, watching talk shows on TV in the morning and doing what retired people do the rest of the day,” LaHaie said. “I was getting a little bored, though, so it didn’t take much to talk me into coming back.”

The change was apparent almost immediately. With LaHaie setting up the combinations in 1993, Scott was No. 1 qualifier at seven events and although he won only one final round, he chased Eddie Hill to the championship until the second-last race. He also won the Winston Invitational, a prestigious non-points race at Rockingham, N.C.

His quarter-mile run of 308.64 m.p.h. last year at Topeka, Kan., was the fastest in drag racing history at the time. He came back this season to better it with a national record 308.95 during the Keystone Nationals at Reading, Pa.

“This has been an exciting year,” LaHaie said. “Not only winning the championship, but setting the (elapsed time) record of 4.726 seconds at Houston and the speed record at Reading, and making nine final rounds.”

And when he returned to racing, Connie, noting the difference LaHaie had made with his son’s car, hired veteran tuner Tim Richards for his car. Part of Richards’ crew is Kim LaHaie, Dick’s daughter and crew chief when her father won his national championship.

The Kalittas met three times during the season. Scott won at Houston, in the fastest race in history, in the semifinals, and at Denver in the second round. Connie won in the finals at Gainesville, Fla.

“It was nice, working closely with Kim, but when the cars lined up side by side, they were competitors, pure and simple,” LaHaie said.

The association will come to a close next year, however, as Richards and Kim LaHaie are returning to Chuck Etchell’s funny car. LaHaie will continue to wrench Scott’s top fueler, but says he has no thoughts of handling both Kalitta cars.

“One car is hard enough,” he said.

Scott was quick to credit LaHaie for his winning season.

“When he came, it left me with no responsibilities in the car except to drive,” he said. “That is my only involvement. Dick works at it 24 hours a day. He goes 100% all the time, and it sure paid off.

“Before we got Dick, it seemed like we were always either tearing the car apart or tuning it, but we never seemed to have enough time.”

The elder Kalitta won his first national event at Pomona, the 1967 Winternationals, when Scott was 5.

“I started going to the races with my dad when I was 11 or 12,” Scott said.

“By the time I was 14, I was spending every summer with the team. I was always wanting to work on the car and once in a while they’d let me polish the wheels. I thought that was great.”

Connie Kalitta had never completed high school and he wanted to make sure that his son did, so he made Scott a deal.

“If you graduate from high school, I’ll build you a car,” Connie said.

Scott graduated from Belleville High in Belleville, Mich., in 1980 and when the 1981 season opened at Pomona with the Winternationals, the Kalittas were there with a pro comp car, an injected nitro dragster that ran about 189 m.p.h.

Scott, not yet 19, surprised even himself by qualifying for final eliminations.

“It was pretty impressive, I thought, even though I lost in the first round,” the younger Kalitta recalled.

Since then, he has been to Pomona with one car or another every year, but he is still looking for a victory here.

“This hasn’t been a good track for me,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever made it past the second round. Hopefully, things will change this week.

Both Kalittas are in the Budweiser Classic, an eight-car shootout for $50,000 that will highlight today’s program. Scott will race Kenny Bernstein, and Connie will race Cory McClenathan in first-round matchups at 11 a.m.