When NHRA’s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series’ regular season ended following the 71st Cornwell Quality Tools U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, the first-ever regular season champions were Tony Stewart (Tony Stewart Racing) in Top Fuel, reigning titleholder Austin Prock in his John Force Racing Chevrolet SS Funny Car, Pro Stock’s Dallas Glenn and reigning two-time Pro Stock Motorcycle champ Gaige Herrera on his Vance and Hines Motorsports Suzuki Hayabusa3.
Things have changed a little bit since the drag racers departed Indy for Reading, Charlotte and St. Louis on three consecutive weekends of racing. With Doug Kalitta earning his fifth dragster race at World Wide Technology Raceway this past weekend in the NAPA Auto Parts NHRA Midwest Nationals, he’s firmly ensconced in the points lead. Despite his second round loss to teammate Jack Beckman (who went to the finals), Austin Prock retains a 20-point lead on Tony Stewart Racing’s Matt Hagan, who was victorious at St. Louis. Dallas Glenn, too, has kept his points leader status alive despite teammate Greg Anderson’s St. Louis victory. St. Louis victor and birthday boy Gaige Herrera ceded the points lead to teammate Richard Gadson at Charlotte.
The winners who celebrated in the shadows of St. Louis’ Gateway Arch were Kalitta, Hagan, Anderson and Herrera. Yet every single one of them is looking over their shoulders at nine other drivers who have three more opportunities to upset the points leaders’ apple carts.
With his victory – following a pair of finals appearances – Kalitta is in the catbird seat in Top Fuel as he leads Justin Ashley by 86 points, with teammate Shawn Langdon, Stewart, Clay Millican, Brittany Force, Antron Brown, Steve Torrence, Shawn Reed and Josh Hart in pursuit. Kalitta has a 292-point advantage over Hart in 10th place, after defeating Will Smith, Steve Torrence, Justin Ashley and Ida Zetterstrom to earn his 58th career Top Fuel victory.
Zetterstrom, in her first final round appearance produced a ,000-sec reaction time in her first-round bout against Stewart, who produced a no-slouch RT of .026-sec. The 2023 FIA European Top Fuel champion, who qualified 14th for this race, then defeated Kyle Wurtzel and Antron Brown to battle Kalitta, NHRA’s Top Fuel champion the same year Zetterstrom achieved her title.
Kalitta, giving props to his Kalitta Motorsports team led by Alan Johnson revealed, “Each of the rounds today, my car was just on a rail. That’s really what it took. Conditions were pretty slick out there… it was a big points day and getting by Justin, that was a huge round. We’re definitely trying to get as many points as we can to try and stay ahead of these guys and keep doing what we’re doing.” As she pursues funding for a 2026 campaign in NHRA’s celebratory 75th anniversary season, Zetterstrom thanked Joe and PJ Maynard for the last-minute addition of this race. “I feel like we’ve shown that when our car is running the way it should, we can be a contender out here and run with anyone. That’s a big, fat exclamation point to anyone that doubts us!”
Funny Car is shaping up to be a John Force Racing vs Tony Stewart Racing cage fight, with Austin Prock and Matt Hagan going head to head once two of the remaining three races are held. Picking up his second race win of the 2025 season after earning the Seattle Flopper Wally, Hagan earned his 54th career Funny Car victory in St. Louis and closed in on Prock. In the final round, Hagan faced Beckman, who currently holds third-place points and used a .040-second RT to close the gap to 20 points behind Prock, who lost to Beckman in the second round. With four rounds in the 3,90-sec range over 1,000 feet, Hagan stepped up his quest for a fifth career Funny Car championship.
Realizing that the entire Funny Car class is chasing Prock, who has won eight races this year, Hagan realizes he needs to keep up the pressure in his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. While he was looking forward to shaving his mustache this week, “It looks like we have to keep it now with the win. We had to be ready if they messed up,” he said of Prock’s team. “My lights came around and that gave me confidence going into the next couple rounds. We’re back in this hunt for the championship,” he crowed.
After his KB Titan Racing teammate Dallas Glenn won the first two Countdown to the Championship playoff races in Reading and Charlotte, six-time champion Greg Anderson knew he had to step up his game to stay in striking distance. After defeating Mason McGaha in the first round as the seventh seed, Anderson beat Glenn in the quarterfinals in a straight-up fight, then took out Matt Latino to earn a spot against squad-mate Matt Hartford in the finals. Hartford beat Cristian Cuadra, Erica Enders and Jeg Coughlin Jr. to meet Anderson after removing three Elite Motorsports teammates.
Now lagging Glenn by a scant 25 points, Anderson knows that “Timing is everything, and it all just comes down to what you do when in drag racing. A lot of big rounds – second round with Dallas Glenn should have never happened, but you have to play the cards you’re dealt,” he said. “It was either going to be a horrible day for me or a horrible day for Dallas, but still a great day for KB Titan. I’m proud of this race team. It’s an honor to work for them, drive for them, manage this team and be part of it.” While his car wasn’t up to his standards in qualifying, Anderson said his team “figured it out and I made four very high-quality runs today.”
With his final round result, Hartford is now in third place behind his two teammates, followed by Elite Motorsports’ Aaron Stanfield, KB Titan’s Cory Reed, Elite’s Erica Enders, first-time No. 1 qualifier in St Louis, Eric Latino and Cody Coughlin of KB Titan, with Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Troy Coughlin Jr. rounding out the top 10; there’s a gap of 312 points from first to tenth.
This Countdown to the Championship hasn’t been terribly kind to Gaige Herrera, the two-time consecutive Pro Stock Motorcycle champion. Herrera fell in the second round of the first Countdown race in Reading and lost in the first quad at Charlotte, but on his 29th birthday, Herrera finished a Herrera-like weekend with victory in the final found against a fouling Brayden Davis, racing a similar Suzuki Hayabusa3 under the Vance and Hines Motorsports umbrella. To reach that final round, No. 1 seed Herrera defeated Jianna Evaristo and Angie Smith, both racing Buells for Matt Smith Racing, to meet Davis, who earned his second final round appearance by defeating Chris Bostick, Chase Van Sant and Richard Gadson, all riding Suzuki motorcycles.
“This means a lot,” Herrera said. “Moving from fourth to second in points, that’s awesome, but I’m still the hunter or a chaser – I have to chase my teammate (Gadson). Brayden did me a little favor there in the semis,” when he beat Gadson, “and then Matt [Smith] did me a big favor,” when he lost to Buell riding Marc Ingwersen in the first round. “That’s like the best birthday present ever, him going out early. That makes it interesting! Getting three wins in a row here in St. Louis, it means a lot to me… I wish all the Countdown races were here, honestly,” Herrera declared. “But it was an awesome day, and to get to win on your birthday, there’s just nothing like it.”
The Pro Stock Motorcycle battle continues with Gadson leading Herrera, while Matt Smith, John Hall and Angie Smith, all from Matt Smith Racing (MSR), line up third through fifth, followed by Brayden Davis, MSR’s Jianna Evaristo, Chase Van Sant, Steve Johnson and Chris Bostick fill out the top 10 on their Suzuki motorcycles. There’s a gap of 263 points from Gadson to Bostick.
In other news from St. Louis and World Wide Technology Raceway, this event marked the second consecutive Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown world championship for Mark Pawuk, who held off a pair of Mustang Cobra Jet race cars driven by Jason and Taylor Dietsch to bring his Dodge Challenger Drag Pak to the top of the order; he had the championship in hand at the conclusion of qualifying.
In NHRA’s Congruity Pro Mod Series, there was a first-time winner in St. Louis, as Derek Menholt defeated former world champion Mike Castellana in the final round. The win pulled Menholt into a tie for second in points with Mike Stavrinos, as both trail Billy Banaka by 11 points, heading into the final race of the year, which is held October 30-November 2, as part of NHRA’s Nevada Nationals on The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series returns for the fourth Countdown to the Championship race October 8-12, with the 40th annual Texas NHRA FallNationals at Texas Motorplex outside Dallas.
Leave a Reply