Race weekends absolutely blow through like a tornado when you’re on-site and working, leaving little time to do much of anything in terms of catching up with what’s gone on outside of the major “who won what” story. As this weekend’s NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series competition at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park was the Big Go, the 71st Cornwell Quality Tools U.S. Nationals, we needed nearly a full week to get all the competition and the outside experiences completed.
This year’s races had all the drama one could handle, from both the winner and runner-up in the Sox & Martin race being DQ’d for technical violations after the event was completed to regular season winners and losers, intra-race special events like the Mission #2 Fast2Tasty Challenge race and the final standings in that regular-season competition, to the PlayNHRA Funny Car All-Star Callout to the finals of the actual race, it was hard to see and understand everything going on.
Jason Line won the Sox & Martin Challenge title over four-time winner Jimmy Daniels, but both were DQ’d and forced to cede their positions after competition was completed. It was an emotional victory for the three-time Pro Stock champ, who returned to his Lucas Oil Sportsman roots after leaving the class. Both Lines’ and Daniels’ cars were DQ’d, Line with a carburetor venturi issue and Daniels’ car had a reported external cylinder head modification. The pair of DQs left the race with no winner!
And speaking of Lucas Oil, there was a Friday afternoon heart-felt tribute to the late Forrest Lucas by many of the racers he championed during a special tribute on the return road. Along with Glen Cromwell, NHRA president, Pro Stock Motorcycle’s Steve Johnson, Funny Car’s Daniel Wilkerson, Top Fuel’s Antron Brown, Shawn Reed, Gerda Joon (who tunes husband Lex Joon’s dragster), Pro Stock Motorcycle’s Matt and Angie Smith all lined up to show their respect for one of drag racing’s biggest supporters.
The final race of the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge competition that began at the second regular season event (in Phoenix) of this 20-race season and ended at the U.S. Nationals saw Doug Kalitta, J.R. Todd, Greg Anderson and Richard Gadson win the 13th and final race of that race-within-each-regular-season race.
The event’s championships went to Kalitta in Top Fuel (he and Kalitta Motorsports teammate Shawn Langdon won 10 of the thirteen specialty events, with Kalitta’s five wins giving him the edge even before last weekend’s race), Tony Stewart Racing’s Matt Hagan won the championship of this event in Funny Car, earning 16 bonus points for the Countdown to the Championship that begins in Reading next weekend. Pro Stock’s Greg Anderson, the reigning titleholder, won his second straight Challenge race and earned the season title, while Richard Gadson brought home a win in the race while his Vance and Hines Motorsports teammate Gaige Herrera won the season title, both on their Suzuki Hayabusa3 motorcycles.
When it was time to choose opponents for the PlayNHRA Funny Car All-Star Callout, John Force Racing’s Austin Prock, the No. 1 seed in his Chevrolet SS, called out Cruz Pedregon’s Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat as his first-round opponent. Teammate Jack Beckman chose Bob Tasca III (Ford Mustang), Ron Capps (Toyota GR Supra) selected Ford Mustang driver Daniel Wilkerson, leaving Matt Hagan and J.R. Todd as the final opponents. On Sunday, it would be Prock getting a big payday with the eventual Sunday win after three rounds of play.
There was another specialty race this weekend: the second-ever Baby Walker Nationals for children of NHRA’s outstanding racers. With Harper Torrence, daughter of four-time Top Fuel champ Steve Torrence, Noah Alexander, son of two-class nitro standout Blake Alexander, Tripp Coughlin, son of Pro Stock racer Troy Coughlin Jr., Dominic Stewart, son of Tony Stewart and Leah Pruett and, finally, Maverick Hull, Jim Dunn Racing’s Buddy Hull’s son.
Fortunately for these five, while cones were set up to keep them in line as they used walkers to make it from the starting line to a finish line filled with toys and other prizes, there were no penalties for knocking down cones, which every kid managed to do. Hull was the winner, despite going from his appointed starting slot to one side of the “track” then the other. Hull made it to the finish line first. As expected, there were four sets of disappointed parents.
In the Prock family, racing is the family business. Grandfather Tom Prock was a driver, father Jimmy has been making cars go fast and win races through his tuning and crew chief duties since 1991 and now, Austin Prock is a winning racer in the Funny Car domain, while brother Thomas assists dad Jimmy at the controls of the car. They are, of course members of the John Force Racing family, joined in competition by Top Fuel’s fastest racer Brittany Force, who clocked a lap at 343.51 (3.690) in the first round of eliminations this past weekend, re-setting her top speed once again after earning the No. 1 seed in her class..
Austin Prock won everything except the No. 1 seed for this year’s Cornwell Quality Tools U.S. Nationals – that honor went to his teammate Jack Beckman, who was quickest in the sole night session on Friday. Prock took home the Mission #2Fast2Tasty season title even though Kalitta Motorsports’ J.R. Todd won Indy’s final race, the PlayNHRA Funny Car Callout, won the regular season championship and won his sponsor’s title race, earning $330,000 in the process. That’ll buy plenty of good red wine and barbecue fixins.
There are always different driver/team combinations for the U.S. Nationals and with some drivers still recovering from earlier injuries, new , combos were formed. Blake Alexander returned to Chad Green Racing in that Funny Car team’s Dodge Charger, a ride he shares with Green’s son Hunter. He promptly defeated his team owner in the first round and sent to the semifinals after beating three-time champ Ron Capps, only to fall to eventual winner Austin Prock.
Buddy Hull continues to recover from injuries suffered at Sonoma in July, allowing Alex Laughlin to race Jim Dunn’s Charger at Indy, along with his own Congruity Pro Mod Drag Racing Series Camaro. Laughlin was out in the first round of Pro Mod battles, allowing him to concentrate on Dunn’s car, where he was unable to make the field.
While Brittany Force got much of the attention for her big numbers in Top Fuel, other women were notably quick and fast on all four days of competition. Julie Nataas made her second Funny Car appearance of the 2025 season with Del Worsham’s Toyota GR Supra and qualified for the show on Monday in the 15th slot. That placed her in competition against Austin Prock and, while she wasn’t able to make it to the second round, she did make a credible, 4.099-second run on the 1,000-foot track.
Jasmine Salinas, forced to sit out most of the regular season without proper funding, returned to Top Fuel racing with Joe Barlam turning the knobs after Rob Flynn left the team to work with Tony Schumacher at Rick Ware Racing. Salinas qualified 14th, knocked off Chicagoan T.J. Zizzo (the No. 3 seed), showing little rust. She dismissed last year’s U.S. Nationals winner Clay Millican in the second round but fell to race runner-up Tony Stewart in the semifinals with a tire-smoking dance down the track. She might, just might be back for either Las Vegas or Pomona if funding becomes available.
Dystany Spurlock made her second Pro Stock Motorcycle appearance of the season with Arana Racing. The North Carolina resident qualified 14th, which set up a meeting between the 33-year-old rider and Brayden Davis, in his fo in the race’s final round, was the victor against Spurlock in their first-round meeting, but her riding capabilities were noted by everyone in the pits, all hoping she manages to find a way to get back into Pro Stock Motorcycle competition.
Shortly after the racing was completed, Shawn Reed announced that he would be checking out his car and making sure he was capable of competing once the 40th Reading Nationals presented by Nitro Fish commence Sept. 10-12. Omnipresent at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park throughout the U.S. Nationals as he supported replacement driver Jordan Vandergriff, Reed is feeling better after incurring multiple fractured ribs and the required amputation of his left index finger after his hometown, Seattle crash.
Reed intends to race at this weekend’s IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series contest in Hebron, OH. He’s looking for the right comfort level in the 12,000-horsepower dragster he drives. “Ever since the dust settled from my account, I’ve been champing at the bit to get back behind the wheel. It was hard standing not he sidelines watching someone else drive my car at these last two races,” he admitted. With the 55 stitches and the pin his thumb removed, “I have officially been given the all-clear by my doctors. But before I fully commit to racing in Reading, I want to make sure I am truly good to go!”
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