“Alan Johnson (crew chief), Mac (Savage, assistant crew chief) and all of these Mac Tools Toyota Revchem guys really got this thing running,” said Kalitta. “Each round, we were running quick times. It’s great to do it in (Las) Vegas and my first Four-Wide win. It’s pretty special!”
- Doug Kalitta
Doug Kalitta continued Kalitta Motorsports strong start with a Top Fuel win in Las Vegas.
NHRA
Doug Kalitta made it four wins for Kalitta Motorsports in the first four events this season with a Four-Wide Nationals victory in Las Vegas on Sunday evening. It is the fourth consecutive Top Fuel win for Toyota to start the year. Justin Ashley took over the points lead with a runner-up finish.
“We had control of the restart that mattered, and we didn’t execute,” said Reddick. “Just kept focusing on the wrong things. All day long, I’d been really aggressively blocking the car behind going me into turn one, and it really hurt us going into the center of turn two. Just made bad adjustments at the wrong time, and we gave away the race.”
- Tyler Reddick
In Funny Car, Ron Capps led Toyota with a third-place finish in the final quad. Bob Tasca was the race winner.
NASCAR
23XI Racing led Toyota at Texas Motor Speedway with both of their NASCAR Cup Series entries for a second straight race. Tyler Reddick led 37 laps and looked in control of the race before a rash of late race cautions jumbled up the field. Reddick would finish fourth – his fourth consecutive top-10 finish, while his teammate, Bubba Wallace, scored a seventh-place finish to move back into the top-10 in the point standings.
“Started off really good,” said Truex. “I felt like we were a top-three car. You just cannot pass – at all. As soon as the track moves up – the preferred lane moves up to the top – nobody could pass. You are just stuck in dirty air, so I just rode in fifth. I tried to pass somebody and ended up sixth in stage one. At the end of the race there, I just didn’t even try to pass him, because I knew if I did, I was just going to get freight trained. Our GR Supra was really good. I think we were probably an adjustment away from being able to win. I just got too high in (turns) three and four and got in the residual junk they have up there, and I just lost all of my grip and fenced it. Obviously, my fault, and I feel really bad about it because this car deserves to be winning races, not running seventh. But I’m glad we at least got lucky and had a good restart there at the end.”
- Ryan Truex
Ryan Truex led Toyota with a seventh-place finish in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Texas, which was won by Sam Mayer. Chandler Smith continues to lead the point standings.
“He (Kyle Busch) does such a great job aero blocking,” said Heim following the race. “I had a couple runs, here and there. It was pretty single lane tonight. You could make a run in the second groove on older tires, but with all of the throttle time we had – wide open – it was hard to make a lane change and gain momentum. Track position was the biggest thing, but he did a great job too. You can’t take anything away from him – he’s one of the greatest of all time. Just huge thank you to TRICON Garage, Toyota Racing, Safelite for all they do. We were solid tonight. I think we were probably a fifth-place truck. I admittedly struggle here a lot, so to finish second is pretty good. I will take it. Obviously, you want to win, but not a bad day for us.”
- Corey Heim
Corey Heim battled race winner Kyle Busch for the last several laps before coming up just short of his second win of the year in Friday’s Truck Series event at Texas. Heim, who continues his streak of top-10 finishes in every race this season, closed within two points of the championship lead. Taylor Gray scored his sixth straight top-10 finish in seventh – while his brother, Tanner, moved into the provisional Playoff field with an eighth-place run.
FORMULA DRIFT
Ken Gushi led Toyota with a strong final four run in the season-opening race on the streets of Long Beach. Multi-time champion Fredric Aasbo also won multiple rounds, advancing to the Great 8. Both Gushi and Aasbo sit in the top-five in the standings, while Toyota took an early lead in the Auto Cup.
XTREME MIDGET/POWRI
Toyota drivers swept a pair of national midget feature events this weekend at Farmer City Raceway in races co-sanctioned by Xtreme Outlaw and POWRi.
On Friday, Ryan Timms led teammate Ashton Torgerson in a Toyota one-two finish. It was all Torgerson on Saturday, though, leading 29 of 30 laps to capture his first Xtreme Outlaw Series victory ahead of Cannon McIntosh and Timms as Toyota drivers captured all three podium positions. Toyota-powered drivers have now won five of the first six 2024 Xtreme events.
What’s Next
It’s time for superspeedway racing as Talladega Superspeeedway hosts three races in two days this weekend.
On Saturday, April 20, the ARCA Menards Series kicks off the racing action at 12:30 p.m. ET on FS1, with the NASCAR Xfinity Series following at 4:00 p.m. ET on FOX. Then, on Sunday, April 21, the NASCAR Cup Series takes to the high banks at 3:00 p.m. ET on FOX.