The 70th annual Toyota NHRA U.S. Nationals, held over the Labor Day weekend actually spanned five glorious days of straight-line madness. From the Lucas Oil Sportsman Series to legends gatherings, cacklefests, special race events to the featured competition of the professional Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series, it had something for every fan on the enormous grounds.
Truth be told, it all went by too quickly and, thankfully, wasn’t terribly weather-affected. There were some massive thunderstorms in the area Friday night into Saturday morning, but they held off until after the first pro qualifying session. The sole issue with weather was the oppressive heat in Indianapolis. Friday was actually the hottest day of the year, topping out at 99, according to weather.com. That heat lingered through Saturday’s second and third qualifying sessions, along with the finals of all four classes’ Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge contests that pitted semifinalists from Brainerd against one another a second time.
Saturday’s final race of the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge saw Justin Ashley take his fourth victory in the class and earn the regular-season Challenge championship by beating 2023 European Top Fuel titleholder Ida Zetterstrom in the finals, after he beat Josh Hart and she took out Shawn Langdon. In the Funny Car challenge, Chad Green defeated Brainerd victor Blake Alexander in the first round, both racing Ford Mustangs, while J.R. Todd’s Toyota GR Supra took out Matt Hagan’s Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. The final round between Todd and Green went to the Kalitta Motorsports racer by nearly two seconds!
The Pro Stock Challenge races pitted Mason McGaha against Fernando Cuadra Jr., with McGaha’s Camaro beating the similar car of Cuadra, while points leader Dallas Glenn took out eventual 70th Toyota NHRA U.S. Nationals victor Aaron Stanfield in the first round, both in Camaro racecars. In the final, McGaha sealed his fate by fouling on the tree, giving the race win to Glenn. In Pro Stock Motorcycle, the race pitted the Buells of John Hall against Hector Arana Jr. Arana Jr. fouled at the tree in the first round, while the second couple, from the same Matt Smith Racing team, saw Matt Smith beat Jianna Evaristo, making it an all-MSR final round, where Hall read the lights but Smith didn’t, marking the second foul in this Challenge contest.
Sunday’s Pep Boys Funny Car All-Star Callout was another do-not-miss specialty race, held under somewhat cooler conditions as temps went from 99 to 96 to 85 by Sunday. The Callout was won by Paul Lee and his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. Lee, who just recently went to his first Funny Car final round, was class of that eight-car field, denying first-year Flopper racer Austin Prock the ability to win everything that was offered over the weekend. But Prock, ineligible for the Callout, did take the No. 1 qualifier and the points-and-a-half on offer (for every competitor) and squeeze even more points into his No. 1 seed for the Countdown.
Lee earned this once-a-year award by besting Bob Tasca III in the final round – of three – where Tasca’s Ford Mustang entry was the top seed and initially chose Cruz Pedregon’s Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, while Lee had to race (and win against) Ron Capps, last year’s winner. Reigning four-time class champ Matt Hagan’s Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat defeated Alexis DeJoria’s Toyota GR Supra, while J.R. Todd’s Toyota GR Supra took out Chad Green’s Mustang in the first round. In the second round, Tasca defeated Todd, while Lee beat Hagan in a tight race. In the tire-smoking final round, Lee was quicker in his Charger than Tasca III’s Mustang to the 1,000-foot mark. Just remember, a few years ago, Paul Lee had a “widow maker” heart attack, but here he is, making hay in NHRA Funny Car racing. Perhaps it’s the cure for all ailments?
There are only six races remaining in this 73rd season of NHRA drag racing and it’ll be a sprint from the start of the Countdown to the Championship at Maple Grove Raceway outside Reading, where the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals will be held for a 39th time the weekend of September 12-15. That initial event, of six, starts a three-races-in-three-weeks sprint that goes from Reading to Charlotte to St. Louis in subsequent weekends. With only 24 rounds left in play, it’s essential for the Countdown-eligible racers in each class to be on their game from the first to the final trip through each water box.
Countdown-eligible drivers do get a bit of breathing room between St. Louis (World Wide Technology Raceway) and Texas Motorplex, before the penultimate race on The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, together with a short pause between that race and the In-N-Out Burger Pomona Finals at the track of the same name.
So it all comes down to 24 laps, six races, four classes and four champions. NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship, in which the combatants duel for the championship in Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle, features each of last year’s champions: Doug Kalitta in Top Fuel, Funny Car’s Matt Hagan, Pro Stock standout Erica Enders and Gaige Herrera, who took over the domain of Pro Stock Motorcycle last year and ran away with the title in his first full season of competition.
After what was an interminable wait to gain a first title, Kalitta and his Kalitta Motorsports team are dreaming of a second straight world title. While the Michigan driver got hot in the playoffs last year, he starts this year’s six-race sprint in an unlikely position; while he leads the championship chase after the 70th annual Toyota NHRA U.S. Nationals, he failed to qualify for that points-and-a-half contest – for the first time in 14 years! That double-fault left Kalitta with a 15-point lead over last year’s “regular season winner”, Justin Ashley, whose 14 bonus points for winning the class’ Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge helped tighten the gap. Kalitta’s teammate Shawn Langdon is third, four-time champ and Indy runner-up Steve Torrence is fourth, while three-race 2024 winner Antron Brown holds fifth place. Clay Millican, winner of the U.S. Nationals last weekend is in sixth place, followed by rookie Tony Stewart, eight-time champ Tony Schumacher, two-time champ Brittany Force and Billy Torrence. Josh Hart and Shawn Reed complete the eligible dragster drivers.
In Funny Car, Austin Prock has dominated that category with his John Force Racing Chevrolet Camaro SS, now that team leader John Force is on the sidelines. Force held second place before being taken out of combat in Virginia. Prock owns a 39-point advantage on Ford Mustang racer Bob Tasca III, followed by reigning four-time titleholder Matt Hagan’s Tony Stewart Racing Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, Kalitta Motorsports’ J.R. Todd’s Toyota GR Supra and three-time champ Ron Capps’ Toyota GR Supra, 71 points behind Prock.
Because NHRA rules state a driver who can’t compete may assign his car to another driver for a max of eight races, John Force’s second place in points fell to sixth by the time Jack Beckman took over the seat in his Camaro, followed by Jim Head Racing’s Blake Alexander in seventh with the team’s Mustang, Daniel Wilkerson and Chad Green, all with Ford Mustangs and Alexis DeJoria in tenth, driving her Toyota GR Supra.
There are a total of 13 Pro Stock drivers eligible for the title, all of them chasing KB Titan Racing’s Dallas Glenn, who owned the regular season. Elite Motorsports’ Aaron Stanfield got very hot as the heat ramped up in Indy, winning both this class’ race and Factory X, the first time a driver’s won two separate classes in a single day in NHRA’s 73-year history. Five-time champ Greg Anderson is third for KB Titan, while reigning six-time champ Erica Enders is fourth for Elite, followed by her teammates Jeg Coughlin Jr., Troy Coughlin Jr., Jerry Tucker and Cristian Cuadra, the latter using a Ford Mustang body. KB’s Eric Latino is ninth, Mason McGaha holds tenth-place points, followed by KB’s Deric Kramer, Matt Hartford and McGaha’s dad Chris, who’s 144 points behind Glenn.
Once again, everyone in Pro Stock Motorcycle chases the Suzuki Hayabusa3 from Vance & Hines Motorsports rider Gaige Herrera for this title, as they did in 2023. Only ten riders made the Countdown cut and Herrera holds a 20-point advantage on six-time champ Matt Smith and his Buell. Herrera’s first-year teammate Richard Gadson is third on his Suzuki, followed by Smith’s teammate John Hall in fourth with his Buell. First-time winner and last year’s series-wide Rookie of the Year Chase Van Sant is fifth (-63), with the balance of the top 10 being Matt Smith Racing’s Angie Smith and Jianna Evaristo on their Buell motorcycles, Hector Arana Jr.’s Buell, Steve Johnson’s and Chris Bostick’s Suzuki bikes. Bostick is 113 points behind Herrera as the tour heads for Pennsylvania.
There was so much to see in Indy over five days of racing, and nothing in the immediate future will be calmer for the drivers, riders and their teams as they head into the tough six playoff races. While it’s always smarter to race the track, it’ll be tough for everyone in every class to be content to simply take care of their own business. The stakes are just too high.
Leave a Reply