The 37th annual Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals saw new and returning winners, the end of two rather long droughts – both at this track and in class – resulting in a Winners Circle that stressed family.
Twenty years after his most recent (!) victory at Sonoma Raceway, Doug Kalitta ended his 2025 victory drought and brought home the win for Kalitta Motorsports, bookending Shawn Langdon’s win last weekend in Seattle and giving this team a sweep of NHRA’s two-race Western Swing. With this win, his sixth at the wine country track north of San Francisco, Doug Kalitta now is the most successful Top Fuel racer at a track where he always enjoys racing.
Qualifying second with his Friday evening burst at 3.661 seconds for 332.84 mph, Kalitta swept by Ron August Jr. and Josh Hart to reach the semifinals, where he had a bye round, due to the 10 dragster competitors on-site. Matched against reigning Top Fuel champion Antron Brown in the final round, Kalitta had the better of his opponent, 3.752/334.57 to Brown’s traction-challenged 4.067/229.74.
While Kalitta has had good results in qualifying and in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge through this regular season, “It’s been a while since we made it to the finals, so I’m glad we managed to get this win,” he said..”Sonoma is actually the first place where I won, so it’s cool to pull it off again today. Going rounds and getting a win will help with confidence; we’re in for the fight and looking forward to it. I just can’t say enough about Alan Johnson and my whole team here.”
Shawn Langdon continues to lead the standings after Tony Stewart lost in the first round bout, with Justin Ashley, Doug Kalitta, Antron Brown, Brittany Force, Clay Millican, absent Steve Torrence, Josh Hart and injured Shawn Reed completing the top 10 dragsters.
Another drought ended when the Stanfield family raced in the Pro Stock final round, with Greg Stanfield beating son Aaron to earn his first class victory since the 2011 World Finals. While he’s had success in Factory X, Greg Stanfield’s return to Pro Stock had been somewhat pedestrian until this Sunday. His Elite Motorsports team has had a tough season thus far and Stanfield’s victory is the first for this squad since the second 2024 Las Vegas race in November. Stanfield, the No. 3 qualifier, marched past Elite’s Stephen Bell, KB Titan Racing’s Matt Latino (still subbing for his dad Eric) and six-time champ Greg Anderson to do battle with son Aaron, who arrived at the finals after beating Cory Reed, Cody Coughlin and points leader Dallas Glenn.
Earning his sixth Pro Stock win in 28 final round appearances, Stanfield admitted, “I’m in shock right now. I can’t believe that just happened and I’m just trying to soak it in,” he said. “Obviously this is something we’ve both dreamed about, to be able to race Aaron in the finals. It’s incredible – and then to win! I’m blessed and honored to be able to have this opportunity to race with him. I can’t describe it. To have Aaron in the finals with me makes it even better – a lot of credit goes to him because he tunes my engine!”
Post-race, Stanfield acknowledged how important the victory is for the Elite squad. “It was huge for Elite to come out on top here. Elite has been working double overtime to try to get our cars faster, and we’re showing that in qualifying. We just needed to have it show on race day,” he said. “I’m ecstatic right now. I don’t know how I’m sitting here with this trophy, but they picked me to win this.”
Despite his semifinal result, Dallas Glenn continues to lead the standings over KB Titan teammates Greg Anderson, Matt Hartford, Cory Reed and Eric Latino. Elite’s Aaron Stanfield is sixth, followed by Greg Stanfield, Jeg Coughlin Jr., KB Titan’s Cody Coughlin and Deric Kramer.
The John Force Racing family experienced both the highest of highs and a few lows, as Brittany Force re-set the world record for Top Fuel during Friday night’s late qualifying session. Blasting down the very cool 1,000-foot track at 3.645 seconds for a world record of 343.16 miles per hour, her speed at the 660-foot mark was an amazing 304.94 mph. That all went to naught on Sunday as Force, the No. 1 qualifier with that Friday night blast, fell to Kalitta Motorsport’s Shawn Langdon in the first round.
Austin Prock and his Chevrolet SS Funny Car came to the JFR rescue as he earned his fifth victory of the season against Jim Head Racing’s Spencer Hyde in a Chevy vs Ford final round. While qualifying fifth in the full field of 16 (plus two), Prock raced past Cruz Pedregon’s Dodge Charger SRT in Prock’s first 340mph run of the season, then took on the Dodge of Paul Lee, finally defeating No. 1 qualifier Matt Hagan, who won last week at Seattle, also in a Dodge to meet Hyde, who earned the semifinal win when Prock’s teammate, Jack Beckman crossed the centerline in a smokefest and was disqualified.
The reigning titleholder, Prock took the lead at the tree and never relinquished it, defeating rookie Hyde, who earned his second final round appearance of the season by beating Alexis DeJoria’s Dodge, Ron Capps’ Toyota GR Supra and Beckman. “This is huge with the crowd here all weekend long,” Prock said. “It was outstanding, and I never realized how many fans I had here in Sonoma County. We struggled in qualifying (and struggled in Seattle last weekend), so we had a lot of work to do. We went to work and we had four different setups that we were trying throughout the weekend. We came across something that showed a little potential. You really only have to focus on leaving the starting line, and then keeping it in the groove. So this was a good test for me today.”
Austin Prock continues to rack up those all-important points towards the regular season title, leading Matt Hagan 1020 to 819, a 201-point gap. Jack Beckman lies four points behind the Tony Stewart Racing driver, followed by Ron Capps, Paul Lee, J.R. Todd’s Toyota GR Supra, Daniel Wilkerson, Spencer Hyde and Bob Tasca III in Fords, while Alexis DeJoria’s Dodge completes the top ten..
The Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals were successful for Pro Stock Motorcycle’s Vance and Hines Motorsports as well, as Richard Gadson earned his second victory of the season after taking his first career No. 1 qualifier on Friday night on his Suzuki Hayabusa3. A foul in the finals of the GETTRX Pro Stock All-Star Motorcycle Callout on Saturday afternoon gave that victory – for the second straight year – to Matt Smith’s Buell, but Smith was gone by Sunday’s semifinals, giving up the win to teammate John Hall, who met Gadson in the final round. The duo had a fierce battle down the quarter-mile; Gadson prevailed at 6.756199.97 to Hall’s 6.807/196.04.
“This is all about getting right back after it, following that red light. I probably couldn’t think of a better way to do it than how this day turned out,” Gadson remarked in the Winners Circle. “Normally, when something like that happens, you’ve got to sit on it for a week or however long until the next race. Luckily for me, I got to go back out the next day and try it again. Today, revenge was on my mind. We all find our motivators from different things, and that’s the kind of guy I am.”
Gaige Herrera continues to lead Pro Stock Motorcycle’s top 10, followed by Gadson, Matt Smith, John Hall, Angie Smith on their Buells, Chase Van Sant’s WAR Suzuki, Jianna Evaristo’s Buell, Chris Bostick’s and Steve Johnson’s Suzukis, with Marc Ingwersen’s Buell in tenth place.
NHRA, after a busy June and July, takes a few weeks off before heading for Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota, site of the 43rd Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals August 14-17 and the penultimate regular season race of the 20-contest 2025 season.
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