THE CHAMPIONS ISSUE
PHOTOS : JOE McHUGH
Texas Automatic Outlaw Pro Mod Association
Bob Gulitti
There ’ s a reason “ rain ” is a four-letter word and that ’ s because when it happens at the drag strip , it leads to a lot of other four-letter words . Oklahoman Bob Guilitti didn ’ t let a couple rainouts stop him from winning races and a title , though . The Texas Automatic Outlaw Pro Mod Association champion earned three victories in 2016 and is planning bigger and better things for 2017 .
After winning the first two races of the season in dominant fashion , Mother Nature stepped in . With a three-month gap between races due to weather issues , Gulitti returned to the track to cap off his title .
“ When we did finally get to race again ,” he said , “ we lost in the first or second round and then we lost the last race . So we won three of the four races that were contested . There were supposed to be six or seven , but two or three of them just got completely canceled due to weather and couldn ’ t be rescheduled due to conflicts .”
The racing bug hit Gulitti at an early age and like many folks , it started with trips to the local track every Sunday .
“ I was infected with this disease at an early age by my dad ,” he said . “ As far back as I can remember , we were going to the race track every Sunday . I thought that ’ s what everybody did on Sundays , so I never knew any different growing up . It was a lifelong dream as a kid , for both my brother and I , to race immediately as soon as we got our driver ’ s licenses . And we did !”
Once behind the wheel , Gulitti went from a 14-second car to putting down a 6.25-second ET at 224 mph in the beautiful 2011 Camaro he ’ s racing now that was recently front- and backhalved by fellow Oklahoma native Jeff Pierce .
This year , Gulitti is looking for another TAO title , success in the PDRA , and a possible NHRA Sportsman championship .
“ This coming race season , we ’ re going to go after the NHRA championship for Top Sportsman and we ’ re going to try to become the first back-to-back champion for Texas Automatic Outlaws ,” he said . “ We ’ re going to run a mix of eighth-mile and quarter-mile . The TAO is an eighth-mile series and NHRA is all quarter-mile . We ’ re going to dabble in the PDRA when they come close . They ’ ll be here in Tulsa later in the year , so we ’ ll run that race and anything that ’ s close to home and is a big race , we ’ re going to try to hit .
“ If we start off well in NHRA competition and get some good points , then we ’ ll chase that series across the country .” - BRANDON W . MUDD DI
NHRA TOP DRAGSTER JEFF STRICKLAND // NHRA TOP SPORTSMAN MIKE WILLIAMS // NHRA NOSTALGIA TOP FUEL TONY BARTONE
January 2017 DragIllustrated . com | Drag Illustrated | 79