Brown, Prock, Stanfield, Arana Jr. are Reading victors
NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship for its four Mission Foods Drag Racing Series classes can be a straightforward path to a title or a cacophony of roadblocks for competitors in Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle.
Suffice to say, the reigning titleholders from 2023 didn’t make it to the Winner’s Circle and the sole No. 1 seed to last all four rounds of eliminations at this past weekend’s 39th annual Pep Boys NHRA Nationals, held at Maple Grove Raceway outside Reading, PA wasn’t really unexpected.
Doug Kalitta, whose long wait to claim his first Top Fuel title came at the final pass of the final round of the final race last November? Gone in the first round when he was beaten by Dan Mercier. Four-time, reigning Funny Car champ Matt Hagan of Tony Stewart Racing? His Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat couldn’t overcome J.R. Todd’s hole shot in Kalitta Motorsports’ Toyota GR Supra. Dallas Glenn’s Chevrolet Camaro went as far as the semifinals where Elite Motorsports’ Aaron Stanfield put the KB Titan Racing star back on the trailer and Gaige Herrera’s semifinal foul while riding his Vance & Hines Suzuki Hayabusa3 against Hector Arana Jr.’s Buell stopped Herrera from earning a win at the sole track where he hasn’t yet visited the Winner’s Circle.
All of those machinations opened doors for other racers of merit to claim winners’ medals and caps in the first of six playoff contests in this year’s Countdown. Antron Brown, a four-time victor this season, earned the Top Fuel nod with his defeat of Kalitta Motorsports’ Shawn Langdon. No. 1 seed Austin Prock earned his sixth win of the year (from the No. 1 qualifying spot) against teammate Jack Beckman, both driving John Force Racing Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Cars. Stanfield beat Elite teammate and six-time reigning titleholder Erica Enders in a tight, straight-up fight, while Hector Arana Jr. raced Richard Gadson to the quarter-mile lights in a close fight, Buell vs Suzuki Hayabusa3.
Brown’s romp to the Top Fuel title, as he tries for a fourth dragster championship, came as this nitro class’ points tally grows tight enough to squeeze. With his victory at his “home”, the former two-wheel standout is a single point behind now-leader Justin Ashley, with Langdon six points back and former points leader Kalitta now in fourth place, 33 points behind the New Yorker. Four-time Top Fuel champ Steve Torrence is fifth, leaving competition in the second round after beating Brittany Force. He, too, was beaten by Dan Mercier.
Clay Millican is sixth, lagging by 79 points after being beaten in the 2nd round by Ashley; rookie Tony Stewart holds seventh place (-94), Tony Schumacher is eighth, followed by Brittany Force, Billy Torrence, Josh Hart and Shawn Reed, the latter two gone after Round 1. Brown made the finals by dispensing with Jasmine Salinas, Tony Schumacher and Mercier. Langdon defeated Ida Zetterstrom, Stewart and Ashley.
“This was a huge boost and we’re just making up the ground,” Brown emphasized. “You’ve got to start off strong. Going into raceday, we knew we were going to have something, but the track got a little bit tricker than we thought it was. It was medieval out there!” While they struggled at mid-race, Brian Corradi, Mark Oswald and the entire AB Motorsports team held on to earn the win. Just before Brown and Langdon’s classically tight battle, Angelle Sampey earned her first Top Alcohol Dragster career victory in her initial year racing a car. “This is unbelievable, probably because in 1996 at this very racetrack, is where I won my very first race,” the three-time Pro Stock Motorcycle champ revealed.
To little surprise, Austin Prock continued his jaw-dropping initial season of Funny Car racing, substituting for Robert Hight – who won this race last year and in 2022. Prock was the No. 1 qualifier for the 11th time in this year’s 15 races held to date, and he marched past Mike Smith, Chad Green and Bob Tasca III to reach the finals against Beckman, who is filling in for injured John Force. He earned his second straight contest, 10th career victory in either Top Fuel or Funny Car and padded his points haul over semifinalist Tasca to 86 points with five races remaining in the season.
Recording his sixth 2024 win, “It feels amazing. It’s great to rack up some points and build a bit of a gap over second place again,” after losing his 300-point advantage once the Countdown began.”To win [the championship] we just have to do what we’ve been doing all year long. We have to execute exactly how we have all season long. We’re racing ‘lights out’ right now and I feel like we’re consistently making the best runs we’re capable of making.” It didn’t hurt that Sunday was his grandfather Tom Prock’s birthday.
Beckman, who had been out of the cockpit, working as an elevator repairman for the past three-plus seasons, is looking like he never left. In his first return race as Force’s sub, he went to the quarterfinals; at Indy he made the semifinals and in Reading he was a finalist. Force held second-place points when he crashed at Richmond in June and Beckman knows, “If we want to win the championship, Austin is the target. We can’t spot him [points] every race and expect to win it, but they did everything right this weekend.” In the 54th John Force Racing (JFR) intra-squad final round and second this year – Force beat Prock in New England the first weekend of June – JFR earned a three-peat at Maple Grove, as Robert Hight won this race the past two years.
Prock has the largest lead in the Mission Foods series, 86 over the Ford Mustang of Tasca, with John Force/Jack Beckman 99 points back, J.R. Todd’s Toyota GR Supra fourth and lagging by 127 points, while Hagan has 137 points to make up. Ron Capps’ Toyota GR Supra is sixth (-142), followed by the similar car of Alexis DeJoria (-168), Blake Alexander, Chad Green and Daniel Wilkerson in eighth through tenth in their Ford Mustangs. Cruz Pedregon’s Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, Buddy Hull’s Jim Dunn Racing Dodge and Dave Richards’ Ford Mustang complete the playoff-eligible, the latter 249 points behind Prock.
Flying high after his first-ever double-up at Indy, where Aaron Stanfield won in Pro Stock and Factory X, the Elite Motorsports stalwart is definitely peaking when it matters. While KB Titan Racing’s Dallas Glenn owned much of the “regular” season, Stanfield’s results over the past few races show he’s filled with momentum. Dominating race day, he earned his fifth victory in the last seven events and took over the points tally by nine over Glenn. Stanfield’s runner-up in Sunday’s final round, Erica Enders is third, 35 behind while five-time champ Greg Anderson of KB Titan holds fourth place, 46 points in arrears.
That quartet are the sole Pro Stock competitors within shouting range of one another, as the balance of the Countdown-eligible group has at least 50 points to make up: Elite’s Jeg Coughlin Jr. (114), Troy Coughlin Jr. (-131), Cristian Cuadra (-137) and Jerry Tucker (143) are fifth through eighth, while KB Titan’s Eric Latino is ninth, Mason McGaha holds tenth place (-172), Matt Hartford, Deric Kramer and Chris McGaha complete the Countdown eligible. The latter is 187 points behind Stanfield.
If there’s anything Aaron Stanfield recognizes, is that “momentum is real. Things have been rolling our way and we’ve been getting those round wins when we need them to go our way,” he explained. “We did our job today, Erica and I and all our guys. We put both of our JHG, Melling cars in the final round here, and that was the goal. I know the equipment I’m in, and I know how hungry my guys are to win. We definitely have a shot; we just need to keep this momentum that we’ve got rolling!”
For many recent races, Hector Arana Jr. has been in the red-light district, anticipating the start-line Christmas Tree. That didn’t happen in Reading this past Sunday as the second-generation two-wheeler earned his first win of the year and 19th of his career. Was it easy? Of course not, but Matt Smith Racing’s (MSR) Jianna Evaristo made it easier by committing a red-light foul on her Buell in the first round. Arana Jr. beat MSR’s Angie Smith (Buell) in the second round in a close contest, while Herrera red-lit to Arana Jr. in the semifinals, placing Arana Jr. against Vance & Hines’ Richard Gadson in the final round. Both riders were looking for their first win of the year, and it was Arana Jr. who had the goods.
The victory for Arana Jr., riding a first-gen Buell (lighter weight than either Gen 2 Buell bikes and any Suzuki) bumped the rider to fourth in the standings, although Gaige Herrera’s V&H Suzuki Hayabusa3 holds 17 points on Matt Smith’s Buell in the official standings. His runner-up result places Richard Gadson’s V&H Suzuki Hayabusa3 in third, 19 behind. Arana’s gap is 60 points, while Chase Van Sant’s WAR Suzuki is fifth, 96 points behind and shadowed by Matt Smith Racing’s John Hall (-99) and Angie Smith (-102). Steve Johnson’s quarterfinal result has him eighth (-135) and tied with Evaristo, while Chris Bostick, on a WAR Suzuki is the final eligible rider, 165 points behind Herrera.
The objective is always to be in the Countdown so that one can surge when it’s important. “We tried a bunch of things this year leading up to the Countdown,” Arana Jr. explained, “and now it’s time to turn it on. We collected everything, got it together and here we are in the Winner’s Circle, holding up a Wally (trophy). I couldn’t imagine a better day!” While quite a few of his competitors ended up on the losing side of the “tree”, Arana Jr. was “able to stay green and here we are! We have some more power to make to fight with them, but I came in here with confidence. I said it all weekend, ‘You have to have a good, consistent bike in order to win the race,’ and that’s what we did.”
No rest for the wicked in NHRA’s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, as they travel from Pennsylvania to Charlotte, North Carolina for the second of three races in a row. The 16th annual NHRA Carolina Nationals are set for September 20-22 on zMAX Dragway in Charlotte.