Brady Kalivoda
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BME Driver, Brady Kalivoda |
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Talk to Brady Kalivoda, driver of the Bill Miller Engineering Top Fuel Dragster, and you'd think he'd been born with a race car steering wheel in his hand and nitromethane
in his blood.
Actually, that's not just PR spin. Brady has drag racing genes. His Dad, former NHRA national record holder, Dick Kalivoda, was a veteran modified roadster and Top Fuel driver in the 1960s. Dick's first ride, the Kalivoda and Hamlin B/MR, is in the permanent collection at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona, California. Dick's final ride, before he hung up his fire suit for good at the end of the 1970 season, was a three-year hitch driving the famed "Joker" Top Fuel car. |
While Dick had quit racing by
the time Brady was born in 1973, he stayed close to the sport. Brady
went to the races with his Dad for the first time when he was four
and after that, he went often. As the son of a former driver, he
watched Top Fuel greats of the 70s and 80sÐGarlits, Muldowney, Beck, Kalitta and othersÐwith an understanding and interest rare among even the most die-hard young race fans.
After high school, in 1992 at age 19, he got a Super Comp license at Frank Hawley's Drag Racing School. By 1994, he was going to Central Washington University and piloting a front-motor, A/Fuel Dragster owned by his Dad, a friend, John Tusa, and himself. Brady won the first Northwest Nostalgia Top Eliminator event he entered in that car then went on to several more wins during the next three seasons. |
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Seattle's hottest drag racing star ready to rock in the BME Top Fueler |
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Brady's Dad, Dick Kalivoda, raced this B/Modified Roadster in the 1960s. In it's day, it was one of the northwest's quickest B/MRs and is now in the NHRA Museum. |
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In 1997, after graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting, Brady went to work for professional drag racing teams, hiring-in as a clutch specialist with Tom Hoover's Funny Car operation. In 1998, he joined Jim Head's Top Fuel team as an engine assembler and bottom-end specialist. The Head deal lasted two seasons and worked out well enough that, in '99, Brady got a chance to test-drive Head's Checker/Schuck's/Kragen Fueler.
2000 found Brady Kalivoda assembling engines for Don Schumacher Racing on Tony Schumacher's U.S. Army Top Fueler.
Brady helped the Tony Schumacher team stay near the top in points
that year and win four races including the U.S. Nationals. |
In '01, Kalivoda landed another Top Fuel test, this time in Virgil Hartman's Fram Filters car, which allowed him to finish his NHRA license upgrade to Top Fuel. Brady took T/F number 53, the same number his Dad raced with a generation before.
In front of a hometown crowd at Seattle's Northwest Nationals in '01, Brady debuted in a Top Fuel Dragster. He qualified 13th and went out in the first round, victim of a more experienced Mike Dunn, but it was a milestone for the 28-year old's budding career as a nitro class pro. Brady ran eight NHRA National Events that year. His best performance was 4.67 at 316 mph. In 2002, once again at Seattle's Northwest Nationals, driving the Freddie's Club Casino of Renton car, he qualified and had a first round win over Nevada's Ken Zeal who, strangely enough, was at the wheel of the BME Dragster.
Twice, Brady took his skills overseas as an American representative at the NitrOlympics, an FIA-sanctioned drag race in Hockenheim, Germany. Running against Top Fuelers from the U.K., Norway and Germany, driving for Germany's Rico Anthes, one of the top blown-fuel racers in Europe; Kalivoda went to the semis, bringing home "the bronze" in 2002 and going out in the first round in the '03 event.
Brady Kalivoda met Bill Miller in 1997 while on the stump at races, trying to land a job as a nitro class crew member. Miller filed that meeting away in his mind for future reference. Miller again "met" Brady when Ken Zeal lost to him in the first round at Seattle in '02. Brady, as a possible driver for the BME car, came up in a late-2003 conversation Bill Miller had with his friend, Mike Kloeber, Peter Lehman's crew chief on the 104+ Octane Boost dragster. "I called Mike," Miller says, "to get his input on who I ought to get for a driver. Mike said, without hesitation, 'You gotta get Brady. Think about it Bill,' he told me, 'How many second-generation guys are bad drivers?' I thought about that for a minute. All the second-generation drivers which came to mind
- Dixon, Kalitta, Schumacher, and so on - are great drivers.
"I'm really glad to have him," Miller continued. "He's already got his license and has run some races. He can work on the car. At different times in the last six years or so, Brady has done just about every job on a Top Fuel crew. He's built motors. He's set-up the clutch...that's a major benefit for us because he'll be able to give good feedback right away. The cars are so technical that the importance of a driver, like Brady, who understands what's going on behind him is huge. "If you had to describe the ideal, young person to represent drag racing, you'd be hard-pressed to find a someone better than Brady Kalivoda. He's a good-looking, clean-cut, respectful kid with a wonderful personality and a great outlook on life. Plus, there's not too many guys who've worked harder to find a ride. I'm confident," Miller concludes, "we got the right person in the BME Top Fuel car."
Brady is ecstatic about his selection as BME's new driver. "Bill has long run one of the cleanest, tightest ships in drag racing." Kalivoda explains. "By that, I mean his stuff is always immaculate, from the parts on the car to the cleanliness of the BME pit area at the races. He always has top-notch equipment and presents his team very well. By far, this will be most well-prepared, safest, and quickest Top Fuel dragster I've had the opportunity to drive."
Brady Kalivoda and the BME Race Team are involved in a key, drag-racing-related, off-track activity. Brady works with the NHRA and the United States Army on the Youth and Education Services (YES) program. Created in 1989 to connect education and drag racing, YES is a partnership of NHRA and the Army. The themes promoted by YES are: the need for continued education, the relevance of establishing clear, attainable goals, awareness of career options and the value of Army training. YES develops track site and classroom programs which reach thousands of students annually with a variety of services and offerings which help young people achieve career goals. Brady Kalivoda's usual role with YES is at National Events where he joins Tony Schumacher, driver of the U.S. Army Top Fuel car, other professional drivers and Army personnel in giving seminars to groups of high- or middle-school students. In these seminars, Brady talks about his education, how he picked his career, being a part of the BME Race Team, what it's like to drive a Top Fuel Dragster then takes questions from the kids. |
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Brady's background as a nitro class crew member as a valuable asset to the BME Team. Here he assists engine builder Ed Litke with some cylinder head service. |
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Traditionally, the driver's job on the BME Team (besides driving, of course) is to mix and test the nitromethane fuel used in the car. Here Brady is testing a sample of nitro. |
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With a new car, an important piece of development work is making
a gauge "stick" with which to "stick the fuel tank" after each
run. Top Fuels have no gas gauge, you see. Here, Bill and Brady
make their fuel gauge. One great thing about this operation is
Team Owner and Driver work well together. |
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In 2004, Brady Kalivoda and Bill Miller will run 15 NHRA Events with the BME Top Fuel Dragster. Kalivoda says his goal is, "...to not only qualify for all of the National Events we attend, but to qualify well--in the top half of the field--and be in the position to turn on some win lights come race day."
At the first National Event of '04, the Winternationals at Pomona, California, Brady worked towards that goal. He Qualified 14th then, in the first round of eliminations, came up against Clay Millican in the 104+ Octane Boost Top Fueler. He beat Millican off the line by almost a hundredth and half, but couldn't hold him off at the finish line, going 4.661-sec./311.92-mph. to Millican's quicker, 4.545/316.60.
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"I don't think there's a person on this team who's not happy about how we performed this weekend," an animated Brady Kalivoda beamed after Pomona. "We made a great showing and, perhaps more importantly, the new Don Long chassis showed us a lot of promise. The entire team did great, I feel comfortable in the car, and Bill's excited to take this thing to the next level."
Even though it was a first round loss, Brady and the BME Team are obviously quite happy with their first time out and are looking forward to their next event at Las Vegas on April 4th along with certain better performances later in the season. |
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Brady Kalivoda talks to students at the first YES seminar of 2004 at the Winternationals. |
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Brady, ready to go in
the staging lanes at Pomona, prior to the new BME Fuelers first National Event pass. |
Kalivoda hammers the BME T/F in Sunday's first round of elimations at the postponed Winternationals. |
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