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