Domination: Connie Kalitta and The Only Triple Crown In Top Fuel History

it would be Folly to try to make a video about the entire drag racing career of Connie Keta as we sit here in 2024 we can trace it back in honest 70 years to 1954 when Keta started street racing his homebuilt hot rod against fellow friends and rivals in his home state of Michigan now that car was followed by a gaser or two but we could just skip ahead a few years with his first dragster homebuilt to start with but then advancing with each and every consecutive build in both performance and quality traveling west with the likes of Gordon kollet Don garlet among others in the early 60s he gained National recognition for his ability to stand in the ring and battle against the biggest names in the sport and he did it all with a flare of Showmanship his Fame Bounty Hunter Dragsters with the names of vanquished opponents on the side were match race promoter gold starting around 1961 and he traversed the nation running on gasoline and Nitro in those days heck we could even start the story in 1964 10 years after his humble Street racer began Innings Keta would achieve one of the sports great Pinnacles of success with his victory at the fame Bakersfield March Meet which at the time was rivaled by scant few other events in the country in both Prestige and press coverage winning Bakers field in March meant that your match race schedule would be booked for the entire year and you'd be making money week after Relentless week throughout the season oh and late that summer Connie Keta became the first guy to run 200 mph at an NH National event when he cracked off a 200. mph pass off the trailer at the US Nationals but with all that said the story we're here to talk about today was told over the span of just a handful of weeks in early 1967 from late January through late February Connie Keta wasn't just successful in Top Fuel he went on what was then the most dominating streak in history and completed a task that no one had before and as you'll learn no one has since and of course he did it all with Ford power so let's tell the story of January and February of 1967 by going back to 1965 man I am so bad at this if you're watching this video you likely know what the famous 427 Ford camera engine was intended to be when the company created it in a crash 3month development program in 1964 if you don't this was Ford's budget friendly answer to the Chrysler Hemi which was set to mop up the entire NASCAR season if the Daytona 500 was any indication by taking the existing 427 Fe short block and creating a set of single overhead cam cylinder heads they could save the money of developing an entirely new engine and likely improve horsepower and boy did they ever reports of the era say that these things made more than 600 horsepower on the dyno by the time they were in full test mode of course there was the small problem of NASCAR's Bill France Banning the engine before it was ever allowed to see the track and unbanning it was so many attach rule stipulations that it would never be competitive this hairy knuckled Racing Engine had nowhere to go go and then because this was Ford's total performance era they called some drag racers a handful of top level competitors around the country were contacted and offered engines and support if they'd basically do the final development work on their own in the field Michigan's own Connie Keta was one of them the engines were large and they were reasonably heavy with iron blocks and cylinder heads but so weren't the 392 hems that dominated strips at this time Connie Keta was a wizard with those Chrysler hems and while this for engine was a hemispherically headed machine it was a totally different animal with the overhead cams a much more rev happy nature and as Connie and others would soon find out some inherent flaws when it came to Nitro racing while Pete Robinson was running his car as a blown gas dragster Connie Tom Hoover Lou bany and a handful of others were running on Nitro in their 1965 season of trial by fire all the racers learned one thing quickly and that was in effect that they had a connecting rod problem the rods are splitting in half sometimes with the effect of taking the whole iron block out with them Keta tried to Rifle drill the rods to Aid in oiling in their health but that was only marginally effective finally by the end of 1965 Mickey Thompson was making an aluminum rod that would work the racers had re-engineered the already re-engineered oiling system from Ford and they had also made a move by and large to the Chrysler hem siiz bearings in the lower end of the engine these things combined brought the camera up to a much more robust spec and made made it all the match for the hems at the time with respect to Raw horsepower but to spend one more minute on Connie's 1965 car specifically this thing was a gem the chassis was created by Michigan's Loi stamping company the car was drenched in gold paint with Connie's name and the Bounty Hunter name just ahead of the engine a large Ford logo got secondhand billing and the big Cammer engine hillborne four-port injector on top and typically slicks with smoke rolling off them all the way down the drag strip really made this car beautiful at the time Connie and his crew Chief Jack Powers were mastering this engine and they knew it was capable of making more power than anything anyone had ever used before the massive nearly straight intake ports were unencumbered by the need to accommodate push rods and the overhead cam design with its simplified valve train could RPM like nothing the sport of fuel racing had ever seen yes this engine did have a timing chain that ran the cams which was over 6 feet long but according to multiple interviews with Keta over the years it never stretched all that much and there were ways to phase the cam Sha to make sure they stayed in perfect time throughout the entire rev range other people like Ed pink dispute the stretching comments but everyone does agree that once the cam timing was set right for the whole RPM range these engines were gnarly the 165lb dragster was lightning quick and fast the machine was ripping low Sevens at 210 early in the season while Keta did not win any national meets in 1965 he run it up with frequency at places like the new NH Spring Nationals in Bristol and some others the car was plenty successful in match racing and Ford was very happy they had come across this intrinsically talented mechanically gifted highly motivated kid from Michigan 1966 was looking promising some changes were a foot for the small but Elite Army of camera racers in ' 66 Pete Robinson had upgraded his car and program to compete in the top fuel ranks Connie had a brand new Loi Top Fuel dragster that was mostly sans's Bodywork and after a year of running experience he came into the season well armed with with knowledge Tom Marsh would serve as his right-hand man on the 1966 National touring route now the 1966 Keta car was longer the profile lower with the addition of an enderly injector hat instead of the taller hillborne once again the famed Alexander Brothers of Detroit laid on the paint an interesting part of this chassis was that the uprights between the upper and lower frame rails were welded at the top and then sat on the bottom with a saddle this allowed the car to be very flexible at the launch the rails separating in allowing for much more weight transfer rearward were also combating the wheelstands that these shorter Dragsters would often go into while launching the most interesting part of the car it didn't have a clutch instead the machine used a B&M torque Master drive now this was an interesting setup that several top Racers around the country went to like Don prome for example this was a fluid coupling that replaced the clutch and was engaged either gently or all at once with a rocker arm shaped pedal that could be modulated off the line and down the track it was an effective system to a degree but both prome and Keta had disappointing seasons on the national level prome after winning the Winter Nationals and the US Nationals in 1965 won a single National event level race the ahra Summer Nationals at Union Grove Wisconsin Keta didn't score on the national stage at all but he did continue to be a match racing draw and Maven packing in the crowds and tracks across the country and preaching the Ford camer gospel to all the enthralled fans 1967 rolled around in Keta had a brand new longer wheel-based Loi car effectively two full seasons of Learning and Development with the camer the factory had begun making aluminum cylinder heads for the beastly engine to save significant weight and gone was the B&M torque drive and back in was a clutch the one issue Connie ketta had working against him at this moment was time it had been three years since his last truly huge win at the March Meet and while Ford was unwavering with their support and his match racing exploits were successful he run it up set top time and top speed at a load of races as well but as he'd likely say the Keta name needed a little kick in the ass to be considered back on top winners get the headlines winners get the bookings winners get the respect the other stuff is nice but winning races was front of mine for the bounty hunters he rolled through the gates of beine Dragway in late January of 1967 for the ah winter nationals now there were three major winter National style races really four and we'll get into that in a minute 1967 the ahra Winter Nationals a week later the NH winter nationals and then after a weekend off the NASCAR winner Championship drags and the NASCAR Eastern winner Championship drags yes I said NASCAR there's going to be a whole video on this subject coming soon but in short form back in 1960 NASCAR and the NH got together to put on the very first winter nationals which was held in Florida in conjunction with Daytona speed weeks the race came off well but the relationship between Wally parks and Bill France wasn't so great after the event the NH does not recognize this as the first running of the Winter Nationals calling the 1961 running in Pomona the first and NASCAR continued with those events on their own for a few years before they decided that they wanted in on the drag racing Pi hence the formation of the NASCAR drag racing division they sanctioned a ton of tracks many on the east coast and beyond that they introduced a here Toof four never considered format for the sport of drag racing the circuit see before NASCAR Doven drag racing had been a sport predicated on a few large events that were independent of each other and loads of smaller events that were basically local shows to be an NH or ahra Champion you went to the final race of the year and won and you were the champion this was not to be the case with the NASCAR sanction using their proven model of a prepared circuit with both event payouts and a points Gathering series with a year- end payout fund an entirely New Concept into the sport was born the stock car guys made a living this way and many drag racers were drawn to this concept as well for obvious reasons but there were concerns as the January 1967 issue of popular hot riding shared in a story called what Nascar is doing for drag racing they wrote quote that's why it was good news to most drag racing fans when NASCAR officials announced a couple of years ago that they were starting a new drag racing division to try and develop the drag racing sport somewhat along the lines of their previous work in stock car racing the NASCAR people said they felt drag racing had tremendous unta potential as a spectator sport that could be developed by careful experience promotion but some other thoughtful drag racing fans had their doubts about the NASCAR move they foresaw professionalism coming into drag racing in a big way with the attendant money hungry promoters circus-like promotion and dollar oriented competition they could see the amateur performance fan who built drag racing being squeezed out and possibly even the eventual death of the sport since many observers feel that drag racing will always be essentially an amateur sport that doesn't lend itself to allout professionalism moving forward in the story quote actually NASCAR's plan for drag racing promotion is not much different than the operation of their grand national stock car racing circuit the principle is to have a circuit of tracks in a certain area of the country within a few hundred miles of each other with each track having one or two or three specific weekend dates during the season thus there would be no two tracks offering events on the same day the racers can travel around to the various tracks and hit a big money event every weekend with no conflicting dates the big money will all be in one place on one day the track promoters aim the bulk of their advertising and promotion to these major event dates up to three or four each a season and then run their normal program on the off weekends special championship event dates are offered four or five times during the season to give promoters and contestants a little something extra to get their teeth into contestants are compensated in two ways there's the regular Pur of the event in question split up in the usual way for top eliminators and the winner of Eliminator brackets then the drivers also win points at each event a certain percentage of each purse goes into a special Point fund that is awarded to the point winner in each division at the end of the season this is the way they do it in the Grand National division everybody has a chance at some money through The Eliminator bracket runoffs right now NASCAR drag racing officials have found it profitable to run two separate racing series a fuel dragster circuit for allout Dragsters and a grand stock circuit for the stocker and funny cars their promoters found that these two groups of cars tend to draw different groups of fans so there was no point in trying to combine all the cars in one big series of events by splitting the Dragsters from the stock cars each type has its own circuit dates schedule and there's more money to split up this splitting of the circuits has been a key factor in the NASCAR plan the idea is to specialize the show as much as possible in other words offer the fan a narrow range of cars he will be satisfied with this not only permits the promoter to key is advertising more precisely but it means there will be that many fewer cars to split up the money each contestant gets more and it makes a lot of sense once again moving ahead in the story now of the concerns about professionalism quote so that's how the NASCAR formula works the next question is whether this trend toward professionalism is going to help or hurt the drag racing sport in general you can generally get heated arguments in either way certainly the main argument in favor of it is nothing more than the high cost of modern drag racing this is getting to be an expensive game practically any kind of competitive car will cost a minimum of $4,000 to build up originally Plus at least $2,000 a season to maintain that doesn't include any travel expenses which are going to add up and if you get around it all even to the strips in your own part of the country hundreds of teams spend over $10,000 a year for car and travel combined not too many young fellows or even groups of fellows can afford to invest that kind of money in a sport many times it's possible to find a commercial sponsor but that will bear part or all the cost but there aren't enough of those to go around there are always thousands of fellows who spend virtually their last spare dime on the drag racing hobby obviously any system that's going to return some money to the contestants in the form of prize and point money should be welcome another point in favor of the professionalism angle is that it probably is the only way drag racing could ever be built into a popular national sport like stockart racing has been think about it for a second to really promote the sport you have to appeal to the mass audiences and you've got to have big names lot lots of color and smart local track promoters who have a chance to make big big money on their investment you can't do this by catering to the amateur contestant who pays this $2 entry fee at the pit gate the program has got to have big nationally known names in cars that really go and to pull the big names requires a big fat purse and the big fat purse requires a big audience not three or 4,000 which is good for a drag event but 50,000 people like you put in any big sporting contest to pull a crowd like this you have to have Snappy show big names and sharp advertising and promotion and this means more money and so on in a vicious circle and a circle that doesn't seem to leave any room for the little guy their final conclusion is this so we don't think NASCAR is going to kill drag racing with big-time professionalism if some is said neither are we sure that the sharp NASCAR officials and track promoters can ever build up drag racing to the nationally popular spectator sport that stock car racing has become in the last few years we don't know for sure that drag racing has the potential for that kind of color and excitement but we do feel sure for this if anybody is ever going to make drag racing into the popular national sport NASCAR will probably be the group to do it the NH has been doing a wonderful job for years and has made their Nationals event over Labor Day weekend at Indianapolis one of the big Auto sporting events of the year but the NH has never stressed the professional side of drag racing and this is where the real money and big-time popularity is end quote so so now that you know all that we can proceed we go back to Connie Keta pulling into beline Dragway in 1967 fresh dragster fresh camera or two in the tow vehicle and he's ready to go he pulled into one of the most bizarre poorly run and wildly odd ah events of all time it was as if the track itself didn't know the race was going to happen don't believe me believe the guys that were there especially the guys that reported on it and the June 1967 issue of high performance cars listen to this title a Chinese fire drill quote beine drag strip lies in the Salt River Indian Territory somewhere east of Phoenix Arizona and west of Albuquerque New Mexico for 362 days each year practically no one mentions the place those who have been there are trying to forget and the fortunate ones who have not hear nothing because the only communication with the outside world is via smoke signals and as we all know communicating with smoke signals is now a lost art even to the Indians unfortunately the quiet emanating from beine is shattered for a 3-day period each year when the American Hot Rod Association moves in to hold its winter National meet this year it all started January 27th and ended about Sundown January 29th and not a moment too soon this meet was a masterpiece of confusion a fyis Diller act would have been pure sanity by comparison the confusion started early Friday morning when entrance were lined up for more than a mile along the highway waiting to be strained through the gate the straining procedure was so slow you had to shave again to be presentable for lunch that is if you brought your own as a result the pit area looked like a huge junkyard which had been stirred with a short stick at one time it was impossible to drive either in or out so someone suggested sending a scout over the fence for help since he obviously would have needed provisions and none of the concessions were open the idea was scrubbed during the morning a huge trailer was towed in it was was identified as the Press trailer and displayed a sign for bidding anyone not of the press to enter there was nothing inside but a man named Ray AG who said he had something to do with beine he promised Furniture coffee and donuts very soon the furniture eventually came and with it one type writer a ream of paper and a water cooler now we would not die of thirst maybe starvation but not thirst that was comforting The Story Goes On to detail how jacked up the event was but it does talk about Connie Keta winning Top Fuel now it gives no specifics because the guys from the magazine claim they were never provided round by round results never provided an entry list or never provided any sort of other information other than what they could capture with their own eyes the good news is popular hot roding covered this event in its April 1967 issue and they were far more reserved in their comments about the event now that said they have virtually no results from racing either because for the same problems the high performance cars guys talked about none were provided there's no round by- round recap in either magazine or anything other than the fact that Connie set low ET at 744 and captured the win now thankfully the dutiful and more journalistically minded drag news was there to cover the event for starters 60 Top Fuel cars showed up for a 32c car field and Connie qualified number one he won the first round over the powers and Riley dragster when they left early in red lit he clicked his car off and coasted across the Finish Line next up Chris caramina got the business from Connie Keta 744 a 203 did the job and was low ET of the race a 752 took care of the crow and Blair dragster then in the semi-finals remember this was a 32c car field he beat the legendary John Mulligan 761 to a 762 and that brought Connie Keta and his Bounty Hunter dragster to the final to face off against the Howard's cam Rattler which had Bob Downey driving at this time period a 763 at 196 mph took care of Downey's low 8sec pass with relative V he had done the job conquered the field and reminded the world why they called him the Bounty Hunter after all this was the beginning of one of the greatest runs in Top Fuel history after catching his breath and then making the drive from Arizona to Southern California Keta arrived at the Pomona Fairplex as the Talk of the Town once again the Bounty Hunter was the man to beat or was he the 744 low was not all that great for cars of this era and big names like garlets didn't show up at the ahra meet some questions permeated the Top Fuel pits regarding just how tough a Time Keta had had at beine he was well equipped to answer them all he didn't just win this race he absolutely owned it all as both a driver and a tuner the field of 32 qualified cars at the nhr Winter Nationals represented the best the world had to offer it was so tough that Don garet failed to qualify Art Malone didn't make the show oh and to add one more element to this program in the seven-year history of the Winter Nationals nothing powered by a Ford had ever won Top Eliminator Top Fuel or whichever way you want to name the top dog class of any particular year 29-year-old Connie Keta was a beast five times in a row we go back to the 1967 April issue of popular hot roding magazine more than 85,000 Spectators witnessed nh's Winter Nationals at Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona California nearly 600 entries challenged for their share the $ 36,9 se5 in prize money in merchandise Awards Ford was the king of the meat first time in NH 7-year winter nationals history after Connie Keta 29 of Mount Clemens Michigan using a Ford 427 cubic inch sock engine set the field of 32 Fuel dragster qualifiers behind him for Keta none of the races were easy ones in his first round he raced Chuck Griffith of California and won with an ET of 728 then his competition was Mike snively driving the defending Champion car the Hawaiian without a doubt the best race and biggest upset of the meet and defeated him with a 724 Keta paired with Adams and we of Garden Grove California and beat them with a 722 Pete Robinson of Atlanta Georgia was next to fall with his Ford power dragster after Keta cut another 723 elapse time the final run however set the grand touch to the meet Ford and Chrysler engines powered the finalist racing Keta was the creats and Greer machine of Tulsa Oklahoma with Jean Coleman driving both cars had been running within thousands of a second of each other not only did Ford take this win they also took low E of the meat as Keta turned a record 717 and tied Leroy Goldstein for the driver of the Crower Blair dragster for top speed at 29.5 milph high performance cars the magazine that had dead panned the ahras at beine talked glowingly about the the NHRA race which was held just a week later the Winter Nationals this year produced all that was promised and more stealing the Limelight was a fast and Fantastic Field of doublea fuel dragsters the qualifying sessions alone were better than most meets Championship or otherwise to be a competitor for just the big run a 751 elapse time was still too slow climaxing the longest hunt of all was the performance of the Bounty Hunter after 3 years Connie Keta bagged a big one finally with his Ford single overhead cam engine a review of kaleta's times and speeds indicate that he really breeed to a Top Fuel championship title but he certainly didn't stroke his rail his first four runs clocked in at 728 724 722 and 723 in the final race against Jee Coleman Keta cut a blistering 717 end quote now this made it two in a row and before heading east for Florida to chase not one but two NASCAR sanction races Connie Keta had some business to conduct in California after winning these two races pocket stuff full of cash a guaranteed windfall coming in the match racing world of guaranteed money Connie needed to buy something an airplane yes the global massive Air Freight Company now known as Keta air began because a drag racer won a pair of Top Fuel races a friend was making money with a small plane flying parts around for Ford and Ted albrand just so happened to have a Cessna 310 for sale yes that Ted hel brand the legendary Wheel manufacturer Connie bot his plane was able to start flying and it was his plan for the future when and if the drag racing craze either slowed down or passed him by he now owns more jumbo Freight Jets privately than any other human on earth and employs thousands of people globally all because of a camer and an intrinsic knowledge of how to make it sing on Nitro but I digress Connie flew his new Cessna from California to Florida while his right-hand man Tom Marsh took the car and Tow vehicle across the country on the highways and mostly byways of 1967 the first stop was the third annual NASCAR Eastern Winter Nationals at Palm Beach International Raceway in West Palm Beach Florida this event held February 18th and 19th was part of a two- race week for Keta because as soon as racing was done in the 19th he'd need to get to Delan Florida for the Delan drag festival and winter championships which should to be held from the 18th all the way through the 25th now the days leading up to the 24th and 25th would be for stalkers and low Class Cars to compete all week and the big thundering fuelers would be the main attraction to close those last two days and the night before the Dayton of 500 that would be the culmination of speed weeks on the Super Speedway for the third race in a row the Bounty Hunter was Unstoppable not only that like the nhr Winter Nationals this wasn't just another win but a record-breaking performance and just like Pomona the record was set in the final round in the first round Joe jono driving the brief encounter drag who he was Partners in with Kenny Winward went red Connie shut it off and coasted to a win saving his equipment the next round it was Chuck kurzawa and the probe dragster getting the business Keta slapped him down with a 728 2117 mph and finally the last man in the ring of combat was Chris carus and yes this was an AAR Eliminator Karen msas tuned his car up for what he knew would be a knockdown drag out fight but Keta ran a Nas car Top Fuel record 724 at 22.041 but in a very strange twist it was not considered a sweep of winter nationals events the Dand event was viewed as the more significant of the two so if there was to be a Triple Crown to be won it would have to be the fourth race in a row and that one was not too far a trip down the highway now this race in Dand Florida was going to put Connie to the test in ways none of the others had so far in 1967 the majority of the competition he beat up on in West Palm came to D land with the idea of getting one back on him but little did they know they'd all be facing one weird monster collectively the cold Friday evening was comfortable Florida weather and many expected more of the same on Saturday but then a free cold front blew in dropping temperatures during evening eliminations to 26° not Celsius 26° fah the only full reporting I could find of this race came from the May 1967 issue of popular hot riding magazine and this is what they had to say the incomparable Connie Keta riding at the front of unprecedented success accomplished reare history in the second edition of the NASCAR winner drag championships at Delan Florida Keta captured the third Jewel and drag Racing's Triple Crown he thus became the first man in the annals of the fastest sport in the world to win the Grand Slam four triumphs over Chuck Cawa and Chris car enus for Top Fuel Eliminator in the frosting chill of Delan followed tremendous victories earlier at the Championships of the ahra in Phoenix in the NH winternationals in Pomona California the mount Clems Michigan driers suddenly a Marvel after N9 years of campaigning and the nation's fastest strips did it in high style as well Connie celebrated his 29th birthday on Friday February 24th before the big Detroit Showdown that Saturday evening where Saturday's finale saw ket's famed Bounty Hunter The Undefeated Fords single overhead cam power dragster in a first run against Chris carinas and a Chrysler powered rail Connie put the golden Greek from Chicago down with an ET of 729 at 205 mph his next competition NASCAR's 1966 fuel points champion Joe jacono of Chester Pennsylvania and he was jolted by kaleta's blistering run of 744 Keta came to the line looking Chuck Cawa in the eye Cawa from Detroit piloting the probe as the huge Hollywood CLE lights just after the Christmas tree painted in one4 mile of twin strips of brilliant white silver light Keta screamed off the line and route to an identical 744 the completion of the first triple crown or Grand Slam in drag racing history Keta had ended a rather fantastic sweep of midwinters drag titles the single accomplishment escaping Keta was the top speed of this meet which was achieved by caraus with a strong 28.5 4 mph con 729 however was good enough for the meat's best elapse time if Keta was more than hot however the weather was equally cold temperature Saturday night sank to a new low of 26° coating palmals with frost frigid Florida was hit by a high and biting North Wind which rattled through the Cabbage Palms bordering D land airport the scene of the action the stands nevertheless overflowed with wintry night many in the crowd huddled in blankets building bonfires to fight off the chill it was Eastern football weather National NASCAR drag racing director and coordinator Eddie wittenberger declared the meat a rich success despite the elements an estimated 25,000 attended the week-long drag Festival which is held in conjunction with the speed weeks at Daytona Beach 20 m east quote this has got to be the best birthday present of fellow could want Keta said afterwards the car is still undefeated and seems to be getting better why all we did was change the valve covers and take it off the trailer the cold slowed us down a little but not as much as the sand there was a lot of dirt on the track and a couple times I had trouble straightening it up to get through the lights one time I got clear off the asphalt it's a fine strip fast surface but the sand can really worry you I came up the return Road one time and saw as much dust as I did smoke as somebody burned through it was tricky but fun Keta who became captain of his own ship a small private plane only two weeks before the NASCAR knockdown evidently found the Florida sand much to his liking as he did the California and Arizona Sunshine the fact that he achieved the first Triple Crown in The Reef span of of one measured month compounded Keta success Connie spent the following day a sparkling cold Sabbath flying Ford officials high in the Azure Florida Sky a few hours before the Daytona of 500 a high-powered witness to a Saturday success with Lyn Townsen president of Chrysler Coletta's Bounty Hunter consummated a four meat undefeated streak at Dand and found him at his West Palm Dragway putting down his old adversary Caren m in the final round with a time of 724 and a speed of 220 mph this Ed his 219 mph NH winter National Speed where his 717 was the best ever recorded at a major meet and quote so Connie had done it the greatest win streak in the history of top fuel drag racing to that point in history was culminated by him flying Ford Executives around the next morning in his newly bought airplane how incredibly awesome is that taking the winners honors at the opening race or races of every major national drag racing sanctioning body busting the record books along the way and doing so by defeating people like Chuck Cawa and Chris carinus multiple times in a row what's truly interesting is that the West Palm win was far more reported on than the Delan Victory which was only covered in popular hot rotting in their 1967 May issue just kind of wild the man won a Triple Crown by claiming victory at four races and I'm sure that made sense to somebody back then there was an interview with Keta in the May 1967 issue of Hot Rod Magazine called ketos scope it's an awesome look into the life of a guy who at 29 years old had the World by the tail and a plan for his future in it he talks about wanting to fly wanting to start a business and wanting to continue to develop his top fuel drag racing career it was recorded or taken down by Jim McFarland just days after he won the NH winter nationals when he was already riding a massive high of success the one thing the interview shows us about Connie Keta in 1967 is that the same man is at the drag strip yet today he had Vision then he had drive to succeed and none of that went away Connie would compete with the camera for one more season 1968 wouldn't prove his fruitful as 1967 and making headlines but he was still a man who commanded the utmost attention and respect from both his fans and fellow competitors as the already small supply of camera engines and parts and Ford's coffers dwindled the company had another idea Ford had a new engine on the way the Boss 429 would be the power plant of the Factor's desire for Connie Keta and the dedic Ford contingent unfortunately it was a disaster as good as the camera was at being adapted to fuel racing the Boss 429 hated every inch of it and Keta despite all his mightiest efforts could never really make it work as a loyal supporter of a company that had done right by him for years in his career he tried like the Dickens but the engine he still calls the porcupine 429 was simply not cut out for the service of top fuel drag racing his days of Ford power may have ended but his days at the drag strip were still still in their earlier stages for more than half a century after the hon days of his most brutalizing and Relentless success in 1967 Connie Keta is still at the drag strip more weekends than not he oversees one of the most successful NH professional racing teams of all time his nephew Doug is a renowned top fuel racer and garnered one of the sports most dramatic championships in the history of top fuel in 2023 Doug won a winner take all final round at the last race of the season a move his uncle was there to see in person the whole ofair was deliberated and executed in the true ground pounding Keta fashion from a street racer that started out with a Gasser to a guy who privately holds many hundreds of millions of dollars in assets employs thousands and still Burns nitromethane the same ceaseless desire to win that carried him to unprecedented Heights in 1967 carries him forward today and it sure is one hell of a thing to behold con ket's start to 1967 was absolutely unfathomable to most top fuel Racers of the era it still stands as one of the more amazing accomplishments of the sport at a time when more than four to five dozen cars would attempt to qualify for those style of events it truly is a moment in time that should never be forgotten I'm Brian loones thanks again for watching like And subscribe for more historical hot rod drag racing and Gearhead content

Channel: Brian Lohnes

Views: 11,156

Keywords: nhra, ahra, nascar, nascar drag division, top fuel history, drag racing history, 427 cammer, ford 427, ford cammer, ford 427 cammer, connie kalitta, kalitta motorsports, 1967, 1966, 1965, March Meet, Winter Nationals, Winternationals, nitromethane, the bounty hunter, Kalitta bounty hunter, Kalitta Air, Kalitta Air history, hot rod history, hot rodding, dragster history, supercharged ford cammer, top fuel cammer, Bee Line dragway, Palm Beach International Raceway, ford racing

Id: rauHcclct_k

Length: 35min 49sec (2149 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 13 2024