NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

The field is set and the first-round matchups have been decided for Saturday’s Right Trailers Top Fuel All-Star Callout at the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals. The top three qualifiers for the yearlong program got to call out their fellow racers for the opening frame, and there were a few surprises and a lot of laughs and good-natured ribbing.

Reigning Top Fuel world champ Doug Kalitta also was the top seed and got the first pick of the remaining seven drivers and went for a rematch of last year’s first round in picking Clay Millican.

“We haven't really had an opportunity to see how everybody's going to run in the heat, so we're kind of guessing a little bit today,” Kalitta admitted.

“I figured out what Doug did,” Milican responded. “He looked at the list, 'Who's the oldest guy out there besides me?' And it was me. So that's what happened. The two-time champ is the baddest dude. Ain't no two ways about it. It'll be a fun race. Anytime these two cars race, it's a battle, but I'm looking forward to it.”

Kalitta’s teammate, Shawn Langdon, had the next pick and went with the field’s other Shawn, Shawn Reed. Langdon come in off a testing where he made the quickest and fastest unofficial passes under ideal conditions that are not present this weekend.

“Brian [Husen, crew chief] and the boys did a lot of homework in the off season to try to make the car a little bit quicker and faster, and had a pretty good test session,” he said. “So now it's just a matter of doing it when it counts. Testing. was sweatshirt weather; now it's sauna weather, so we're going to have to make the proper adjustments.”

“It's a different day, it's a different week,” Reed acknowledged of the hot and humid conditions. “We’re not, you know, we're not scared of anybody. I didn't think I'd make it past Doug's callout, but I knew I wasn't going to make it past Langdon. So I'm looking forward to it. My team's looking forward to it.”

Antron Brown was up next and admitted he wasn’t sure which of the remaining drivers to pick. Emcee Brian Lohnes suggested Justin Ashley, but Brown wasn’t having any of that.

“That’s my brother, that’s like my teammate. I'm not gonna race my brother first one out, I tell you what … I'm gonna go with.Josh Hart.”

Hart, who cracked 340 mph twice in testing, is ready for the challenge.

“I mean, ultimately you have to race all of them, right?” he said. “You’ve got to not worry about the name in the other lane, but my slowest full pass is testing so far has been faster than my career best. I know what my weaknesses are, so I just need to focus and we'll see how we how we do on raceday.”

That left Tony Stewart to race Justin Ashley.

“We had a 3.71 pass at 340 mph this week, so that felt really good,” said Stewart. “Mike Green and Joe Barlam have done an awesome job. Richard Freeman has spent a lot of money in the off-season, so hopefully we can go out and produce for him and get him some of his money back.”

Ashley, the class’ top starting-line artist, got the respect due him as no one called him out when they had the chance. He’ll be going up against his former tuner, Mike Green, in round one, but downplayed the drama.

“I think that all the time, energy and effort that I would put into caring about that, i's more important that I put that into our team. We have a tough, tough field of Top Fuel cars; all of the people that got picked already, are really difficult. There's not a good choice. Tony's a great driver. They have an awesome team, but it's up to us to focus on ourselves.”

All three rounds take place on Saturday in Gainesville, with the opening-round selections set for Friday, March 6 in the Top Eliminator Club. The first round takes place at 12:15 p.m., with the semifinals slated for 2:15 p.m. and the final round at 3:30 p.m.