NHRA’s 36th annual DENSO Sonoma Nationals provided what most everyone that follows the Mission Foods Drag Racing Series expected: high speeds, low ETs and plenty of surprises. Teams that had been surging, like Kalitta Motorsports, had an off day during Sunday’s eliminations; both points leader Doug Kalitta and his Top Fuel teammate Shawn Langdon were out after the first round. Funny Car Kalitta entry, J.R. Todd took his Toyota GR Supra to the second round before losing to eventual runner-up Ron Capps’ Toyota GR Supra.
The winners on Sunday were Antron Brown in Top Fuel, gaining his third victory in 12 races held to date in a 20-contest schedule, Bob Tasca III taking his Ford Mustang to the Winner’s Circle over Capps, Aaron Stanfield’s Elite Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro victorious for a third win in the last four races over true newcomer Cory Reed of KB Titan Racing, while six-time Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Matt Smith ended a long victory drought (since Reading last September) by beating teammate John Hall, both of them riding Buell motorcycles. Smith capped an exemplary weekend with his Wally on Sunday afternoon.
The weather in Sonoma was picture-perfect for straight-line racing, as predicted. Temps were in the mid-to-high 70s all three days and evening temps dipped to the 50-degree marks. With perfect weather for making horsepower on Friday night, Tasca flirted with the 240-mph mark, yet had to settle for a pass at 3.839 seconds at 338.43mph. The Rhode Island racer had passed the 240-mph mark in Bradenton during the non-points-paying PRO Superstar Shootout in February and thought this race might have been a great opportunity to set an official mark. He settled for the No. 1 qualifier after four rounds of time trials were complete.
Saturday provided plenty of fireworks with the latest Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge augmented by GETTRX’ Pro Stock Motorcycle All-Star Callout. In the latter event, Smith was class of an eight-motorcycle field as he vanquished teammate Jianna Evaristo in the finals to grab that $25,000 prize. In the Mission events, Shawn Langdon won an ugly Top Fuel race over teammate and points leader Doug Kalitta. Funny Car points leader Austin Prock of John Force Racing took home his fifth consecutive Mission trophy (sixth overall) as his Chevrolet Camaro SS defeated Blake Alexander’s Jim Head Racing Ford Mustang. Elite Motorsports’ Troy Coughlin Jr. earned his first Mission nod in defeating his uncle Jeg Coughlin Jr. on a holeshot run.
Sunday changed the game, with eliminations beginning at 10:30am as the fog burned off. The No. 1 qualifiers were Top Fuel’s Kalitta (his fifth No. 1 of the 12-race season), Tasca III in Funny Car, five-time Pro Stock champ and KB Titan Racing team leader Greg Anderson, and Matt Smith, the six-time Pro Stock Motorcycle champion and newly crowned GTTRX Pro Stock Motorcycle Callout winner. Kalitta fell in the first round to journeyman Ron August, after losing traction on this track. August had a bye round but lost to Tony Stewart in the semifinals. Eventual winner Antron Brown took out Shawn Reed, four-time champ Steve Torrence and Brittany Force to meet Stewart in the rookie driver’s first final round. In the finals, it was a close, 10-foot margin-of-victory race as Brown used a 3.746/329.67 to defeat Stewart’s 3.774/321.73.
“To get three wins this season is a true testament to our team, because this class is the toughest it’s ever, ever been,” Brown said as he tied Kalitta for the most success at this Sonoma Raceway track; each driver has won here five times. “What really gave us confidence this weekend is on Q4, when the track got hot like it was today and no one else made it down the track, we went out and ran that 3.71 and got those brownie points by running low of the round. That really helped us out a lot and we just never stopped. I’ve always had a great deal of respect for Tony Stewart,” Brown admitted. “He’s one of my heroes in NASCAR and INDYCAR. He’s going to be in the winner’s circle soon, trust me!”
Tasca III’s Mustang was the class of his field for most of the weekend, with only Prock’s Mission win breaking up his momentum for, oh, a few hours. Earning his third 2024 Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series winner’s trophy and his second Sonoma win over the past three years, Tasca III added a weekend best run of 338.77 in his first round against Jim Dunn Racing’s Buddy Hull in the legendary crew chief’s Dodge Charger; he drove past Seattle finalist Paul Lee’s Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat in the second round, and then met up with and beat Prock in the semifinal round. Tasca III earned the semifinal nod with a .022 reaction time that got him a holeshot victory, 3.931/336.15 to Prock’s 3.901333.99. In the finals, Tasca earned his 18th national event victory against a slowing Capps, using his backup car after Seattle’s violent engine explosion.
“It’s so hard to win these things, and that’s a testament to my crew, to Todd Okuhara and Aaron Brooks,” said Tasca. “They pulled it back and still ran 337 mph [in the final round]. I was a bit surprised i the final… it was pulling great and then it knocked the tires off. You have no idea how that feels!” As he looked out the side window, expecting to see Capps roll by, Tasca was relieved to be on his own. “I thought if we could get the car to run like it ran in Q4 we could beat him, and I said that to Todd. I said, ‘Let’s run as quick as we can and if he beats us, I’ll be the first to congratulate him.’”
It’s been a magical season for Aaron Stanfield, who had a tough 2023 and was always wondering if it was his driving holding his Pro Stock Camaro from the Winner’s Circle. Winning for the third time in four races, Stanfield earned his Wally trophy this weekend by racing past Pro Stock newcomer Cory Reed. Reed, making only his second class start and defeated KB Titan’s Deric Kramer, Eric Latino and Elite’s Jerry Tucker to reach Sunday’s finals. Stanfield defeated Mason McGaha, teammate and six-time champ Erica Enders and Anderson to race the final round.
In earning the sixth win for Elite Motorsports and being responsible for half that amount, Stanfield noted, “This is a great win, but I want to shout out to Cory Reed for going to the final in his second race. This week we lost a good friend, “Tim “The iceman” Kelly to cancer. I wanted to get it done for him. I know Cory is fresh to the class so I would have been surprised if he played any games, so I just did my normal routine. I think I’m driving better this year, and I’d love to continue that.”
He is driving better and the results show. “We didn’t have a great ladder, since all the hitters seemed to be on one side. I had to race Erica – and we’re teammates – but we still want to beat each other. Then there was Greg and you’ve got to be on your game anytime you race him.” Reed, of course, raced Pro Stock Motorcycle until recently. He returned to that class in September of 2023, following his 2021 two-bike accident at zMAX Dragway, but made the switch to Pro Stock cars just last week at Seattle.
In Pro Stock Motorcycle (PSM), it was almost fitting that Matt Smith Racing, partnered with race sponsor DENSO, was the class of the field. at Sonoma. On Sunday, Matt Smith completed one of his most successful race meetings, getting his first Wally trophy of the 2024 season, after winning Saturday’s GTTRX Pro Stock Motorcycle All-Star Callout. It was apparent that if you weren’t racing over 200mph in this class at Sonoma Raceway, you were going to be back on your trailer quicker than you wanted. A short field meant byes for some riders, including M. Smith, who is now a two-time victor at this track.
He ended his winless drought on Sunday by taking down Eiji Kawakami’s Chris Bostick Racing Suzuki, Seattle first-time winner Chase Van Sant’s WAR Racing Suzuki and then went up against his teammate John Hall, whose season has been oh-so-close-but-no-cigar thus far in the going. In picking up his 39th career victory with a run of 6.700 at 203.77 on his Buell (although Hall was the quicker leaver with a .034 reaction time), Smith chased him down by the 60-foot mark and that was that! Hall’s run was a 6.746/200.26 as he competed in his second final round of the season.
“This is very big,” Smith admitted. “This is a DENSO event, which is our sponsor, and we won everything there is to win. We put a lot into getting our bikes ready for this weekend,” he said. “We’re gaining ground on the rest of the field and that takes a team effort. It’s all in the 60-foot area – our class is so dependent on that.” He realized the Suzuki runners, particularly reigning champ Gaige Herrera of Vance & Hines, had stepped up their game. “I learned to leave low and take power out to get the bike to leave the starting line. I’m 51, and I’m getting older, but I can still do this. To me, the magic number is seven,” Smith declared. “If I get the seventh title this year, I promise I’ll get off the bike and put some young kid on it who can do the job.” Now there’s a threat!
Now that the Western Swing is complete, NHRA’s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series takes a short hiatus before returning to action August 15-18 with the 42nd annual Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals, held at Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota.
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