After the 15th annual NAPA Auto Parts NHRA Midwest Nationals, held at World Wide Technology Raceway, some things are becoming apparent as half of NHRA’s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Countdown to the Championship six-race playoffs are complete. The most evident is that the Top Fuel championship runs through 2013 class champion Shawn Langdon and his crew chief, Brian Husen. Racing a car owned by The Bounty Hunter, Connie Kalitta, Langdon and Husen have put together four straight victories in this class, something unseen since Steve Torrence won every Countdown race in 2018.
This situation would be demoralizing for any other type of motorsport, but drag racing is different. There are remaining opportunities for others to halt Langdon and Husen’s progress. The question is, can they?
The most likely combatant is, as expected, Langdon’s Kalitta Motorsports teammate and the reigning titleholder, Doug Kalitta. But with a 116-point deficit and only three opportunities to play catch-up, Kalitta looks to earn another No. 2 on the side of his dragster next year. Tony Stewart, who went to the quarterfinals after beating John Force Racing’s (JFR) Josh Hart in the first round before losing to Will Smith, is 225 points behind the Californian. And 12th-place Tony Schumacher is 382 points back!
One bright spot in Sunday’s eliminations was the ascendance of Will Smith, who is competing in SCAG Racing pink colors this month. Maybe he should have been using pink as his talisman all year? Smith is currently in fifth place, thanks to his first ever Top Fuel final round appearance on Sunday, when he used wins over rookie Maddi Gordon, Stewart and a motivated Shawn Reed to race Langdon in the finals, where his 4.024/269.03 was nowhere equal to Langdon’s 3.732/335.90. To race Smith, Langdon beat Tony Schumacher, Leah Pruett and Smith’s teammate Justin Ashley.
After earning his eighth 2026 win in NHRA’s 75th diamond season and his 30th Top Fuel Wally winner’s trophy, Langdon rued the number of times he’s finished second since earning his first title 13 years ago – Kalitta’s been a bridesmaid in this class five times – Langdon talked about the competitive nature of this class: “We’ve been so close; we had the equipment; we had the personnel; we had the team to compete for championships, but it just didn’t work in our favor,” he said. “This year, we’ve kept focusing on the details, kept focusing on the little points (in qualifying, the regular season’s Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge and the points for best of round).
“Obviously we’re doing all this for Connie Kalitta,” who owns his car. “He gives us everything we need to live our dreams, have some fun, race a racecar and go 346 miles an hour. To be able to put on performances like this is just a testament to the guys, their hard work, their perfection putting the car together, giving Brian an opportunity to put a great tune-up in the car and giving me an opportunity to keep the thing straight and go as fast as I can. Each run,” the No. 1 qualifier reminded, “just builds more confidence. I feel like I’m living a dream right now, but it’s a reality and it’s great to be part of it.”
Looking at Funny Car Friday qualifying, no way would anyone expect to see reigning titleholder Austin Prock in the Sunday Winners Circle. That’s where he ended up, though, coming alive through Saturday’s two sessions and in the four rounds of eliminations on Sunday. Driving Tasca Racing’s Ford Mustang Dark Horse and tuned by his father, Jimmy and brother Thomas, the Prock family and Tasca family are finally seeing their year-long efforts come to fruition. Prock entered the Midwest Nationals in sixth place; with wins over three-time champ Ron Capps (Toyota GR Supra), Kalitta Motorsports’ J.R. Todd (Supra) and JFR’s Jack Beckman , the No. 1 qualifier in his Chevrolet SS, Prock took on Beckman’s teammate, Jordan Vandergriff and his Chevy, the latter having defeated Cruz Pedregon (Dodge SRT Hellcat), his fouling teammate Alexis DeJoria and four-time champ, reigning points leader Matt Hagan’s Dodge SRT//Hellcat.
That classic final round battle of Ford vs Chevy saw Prock emerge on top, but it was close: 3.909/332.84 to 3.926/325.37. Those results kept Vandergriff in second place and moved Prock to third place in the standings, keeping Prock in the championship conversation for a third straight season. With his second victory of the 20-race 75th anniversary campaign, “This was a big win: for the points, for our family, for our team. This is the time to get hot,” Prock declared. “After everything we’ve been through this year, all the hours we haven’t slept and seven days a week working at this, it really pays off when you get a win. We’re hot right now, and we’ve been hot fore the last 12 races. We just haven’t been able to finish the job.
“We had to run through a lot of hitters today,” Prock said after beating Vandergriff. “Each round was like a final round. Everybody we beat was in front of us in the Countdown; it was an epic way to cap it off,” he said of the race weekend. “You don’t have days like this very often. When you run through four hitters like that, that’s like winning two races in one! We’re just over 100 points out of the lead (-106). We’re in striking distance now, going into Dallas, and I’m really excited for these next three races.”
The Pro Stock Elite Motorsports vs KB Titan Racing competition is changing a bit. While KB Titan pretty much dominated the regular season that closed after the 72nd Cornwell Quality Tools U.S. Nationals Labor Day weekend, Elite’s change for its entire team, moving to Jerry Haas chassis has been important in the large team’s campaign for another title in the doorslammer class. Veteran Greg Stanfield has been using Haas chassis since the season began at Gainesville in early March; his teammates all use Haas chassis now and the results show the Elite brain trust’s tuneups like the swap and its drivers find the chassis an excellent tool.
After two rounds of eliminations, only one KB Titan Racing competitor was still in the hunt and that was reigning champ Dallas Glenn, who beat teammate (and six-time titleholder) Greg Anderson in the quarters. Following the semifinals, if your last time wasn’t Stanfield, you were on the sidelines, as the final round of Pro Stock featured points leader Greg against son Aaron Stanfield. They race on the same team, but that doesn’t mean a thing on the tree. Or does it?
Neither Stanfield earned No. 1 on Saturday; that went to teammate Troy Coughlin Jr.; Greg Stanfield earned the No. 2 seed while Aaron was No. 4. To reach the final round, Greg Stanfield eliminated Mason McGaha, teammate Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Glenn; Aaron Stanfield beat a fouling Deric Kramer and Matt Hartford from KB Titan, then took out No. 1 Coughlin Jr. to battle his dad. It was a close-enough race between them, as Aaron earned the holeshot win – .018 to .028 RT – with his lap of 6.556/209.20 over Greg’s 6.547/209.85 for Elite’s sweep of these first three Countdown races (Troy Coughlin Jr. at Michigan and Greg Stanfield in North Carolina).
“It’s hard to get to the final round alone, and to be able to share it with my dad is pretty special,” Aaron said after beating his father at the tree. “He’s taught me absolutely everything I know in a race car. I told him I was fixing to show him what he taught me!” When they lined up, there were questions about whether they’d race fairly. “There were questions about if I laid down in the first round last weekend when he won. I think there are a lot of people who need to tip their hat right there. That final round shows what my dad and I are all about. We’re gong to race as hard as we can possibly race. A thousandth at the stripe (.0012) – it doesn’t get any better than that!” Aaron moved to seventh in the standings and is 171 points behind Greg as the tour takes a weekend off before heading to Dallas.
When the Countdown began at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park, Matt Smith Racing (MSR) and its four-Buell squad was pretty much taking charge of Pro Stock Motorcycle. While Jianna Evaristo has had to sit out these events, she’s had both Michael Ray and Joey Gladstone super-subbing for her and racking up the round wins. John Hall won at Michigan, but then reigning titleholder, Richard Gadson of Vance & Hines Motorsports took his Suzuki Hayabusa3 to the Winners Circle at Rockingham. One win for each manufacturer… could this continue? Well, by the time the two-wheel class found itself racing for the trophy, it was an all V&H affair, with Gadson battling his teammate, two-time champ Gaige Herrera. This duo have been locked in battle, having won five times against the other in prior events; each has won three times against his teammate in final rounds. This time it was Herrera to the stripe first, with Gadson taking the lead on the tree (.023 to .035) but Herrera chasing him down by the 60-foot mark and surging ahead to win 6.710/200.98 to Gadson’s 6.763/200.08.
Where were the Buell’s and the remaining Suzuki motorcycles? Gadson eliminated fellow Suzuki rider Chase Van Sant, six-time class champ Matt Smith and MSR’s John Hall, while Herrera took care of Malcolm Phillips’ Buell, ran unopposed (6.703/201.01) in the quarters and defeated the Buell of Ryan Oehler to take on his teammate. By that time, straight-up races had eliminated everyone else; there was no replay of all the fouls that hampered this class in the first two Countdown contests.
Herrera and World Wide Technology Raceway definitely have an affinity; it’s his fourth straight win at this track and he broke the track record while achieving the No. 1 seed in qualifying: taking 6.644 seconds to run the quarter-mile before eliminations began. Herrera’s Sunday victory made him the third winner in three races as he closes in on his teammate, the reigning titleholder, trailing by just 32 points. “The Countdown, the last six races is when it all matters,” Herrera confirmed. “Getting this win her in St. Louis means a lot. St. Louis holds a special place for me,” he revealed, “I don’t know what it is with this place, but it’s always been good to me. I wish we had all the races here!
“Racing Richard in the final puts a lot of pressure on me – he’s the man on the tree. He’s very consistent and it was awesome to race him in the final. This whole weekend,” Herrera mused, “I just reminded myself: ‘I’m living the dream. I’m having fun and that’s what it’s all about.’ This is a big deal for me. We gained a little bit on my teammate. He still has the points lead, but it’s going to be a dogfight!”
In the JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series, Stevie “Fast” Jackson got the win when Stan Shelton left early and fouled out. That means the Pro Mod title fight goes to the final event in Las Vegas the end of this month, with Justin Bond ahead of Michael Stavrinos by 17 points, Derek Manhole, JR Gray and Billy Banaka all within 100 points of the leader. Jackson earned his first win of the 2026 season and 14th of his career.
While NHRA’s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series has the weekend off, some of its stars will be traveling directly to the Dallas area for Texas Motorplex’s Stampede of Speed, the 10-day celebration of both straight-line racing and Texas’ culture that surrounds the Texas NHRA FallNationals, scheduled for October 14-18.
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