It’s tough to get full participation when the NHRA’s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series includes two West Coast races side by side. A third event might entice more participation from Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle teams, but with the 36th annual Muckleshoot Casino Resort NHRA Northwest Nationals, there were too many “bye” eliminations and not enough side-by-side competition.
Even, so the action at Pacific Raceways was hard, very fast and, unfortunately unforgiving for at least one competitor. Once the dust cleared, winners in Sunday’s eliminations were Shawn Langdon’s Kalitta Motorsports dragster in Top Fuel, the Tony Stewart Racing Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat of four-time Funny Car champion Matt Hagan, locally born KB Titan Racing’s Dallas Glenn in Pro Stock and Gaige Herrera’s Vance and Hines Motorsports Suzuki Hayabusa3.
To get to their Wally winner’s trophies, these four drivers had to get past some very substantial competitors, including the timers that record each pass. And in Top Fuel, it was a festival of fast, faster and fastest all three days of racing. While Kalitta Motorsports’ Doug Kalitta managed, once again to win the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge on Saturday, the 2023 dragster class titleholder still hasn’t managed to complete the deal on Sunday.
That fell to his teammate, Langdon, who recorded his 400th round win in Sunday’s quarterfinals en route to his 20th Top Fuel victory (he also has a pair of wins in Funny Car) and third of the 2025 racing season. Langdon beat Cameron Ferre in the first round and then took out Tony Stewart as he notched No. 400; with too few cars, Langdon used a superb semifinal single to gain lane choice over Brittany Force as the duo battled for the race win. In beating Force with his 3.662337.09 run, Langdon took over the points lead from Stewart, even as Force re-set the national record in the semifinal round – beating Doug Kalitta – at 3l.659 seconds for an eye-opening speed of 341.85 mph.
Kalitta joined that 340-mph club on Sunday in the first round of play, hitting 341.34 with an ET of 3.628 on his No. 1 qualifier bye round. That was after he earned his sith No. 1 qualifier of these 11 races and the 64th time in his illustrious career. There are now two members of this Top Fuel club, with Brittany Force the sole other racer in class to top 340mph. Her teammate Austin Prock initiated the 341-plus club as he won the Funny Car title in Pomona last November.
The third round of Top Fuel qualifying – there were three sessions for the two nitro classes on Saturday that included the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge – reminded everyone that there’s danger on any dragstrip. Hometown racer Shawn Reed, in his second full season of Top Fuel competition, had an extremely big crash
from the right lane as he competed with Doug Kalitta to earn the No. 1 slot. While Kalitta lost traction early, Reed was on a great run when he had an issue with the right rear Goodyear tire. Past the finish line, he made a hard left turn, crossed the center line and crashed into the left wall. His dragster slid down the wall, crossed the track and finally stopped.
Reed went to hospital after exiting the car and was diagnosed with two fractured ribs. The Washington State native sustained injuries to his left hand, resulting in the loss of his left index finger and requiring a pin in his left thumb. “Obviously,” Reed said after his surgery was complete on Sunday morning, “you never want a race weekend to go like that, but I’m already on the mend,” he said. “I’m going to be back out there as soon as I can. I don’t have a target return date as of yet, and it may require a little adjusting, but it’d take a lot more than one missing digit to keep me down.”
Langdon has 12 points on Tony Stewart, followed by Justin Ashley, Doug Kalitta, Brittany Force, Antron Brown, Clay Millican, Steve Torrence, Josh Hart and Shawn Reed completing the Top Fuel top 10.
John Force Racing’s Austin Prock Chevrolet SS owned Saturday at Pacific Raceways but not Sunday’s eliminations, won by Hagan’s Dodge over his former teammate Ron Capps’ Toyota GR Supra. Prock set the No. 1 qualifying time and won the mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge, but was out of the competition after two rounds on Sunday, falling to the Jim Head Mustang of Canadian Spencer Hyde when Prock’s Chevrolet SS lost traction. Hagan has been pretty inconsistent this year as he transitions to Mike Knudsen and Phil Shuler’s tune, after achieving all four of his championships in this class with Dickie Venables (now tuning J.R. Todd).
Hagan earned his 53rd career NHRA Funny Car race win with his final round against Capps, turning laps in the 3.80s against Buddy Hull’s Jim Dunn Dodge, Jack Beckman’s John Force Racing Chevy and the Dodge of Alexis DeJoria. In the final round, his 3.904 squeezed past Capps’ 3.919 to give Hagan his first race win since October of last year in Dallas, moving the Virginian to third in the standings. “It has been a while since my last win, last year at Dallas,” Hagan admitted, “and I’m very happy for the whole team, especially Mike Knudsen, who took over as crew chief this year. We were on a learning curve with Mike as a new crew chief after many years working under Dickie Venables. We feel success will continue with Mike, working with Phil Shuler and Alex Conaway (car chief).”
While Hagan would have preferred an earlier victory, “Everyone was learning and this win feels great. I think, with a final round at Norwalk and a win at Seattle, that we are definitely coming into our own. We are very happy to put Dodge in the winner’s circle too. I have been with Dodge for some 18 years now, and all my NHRA wins have come in a Dodge Funny Car. Getting career win No. 53 is very special. It takes time to build that confidence in a new crew chief and a new team overall – but we have it now!”
Prock continues to lead Funy Car, with 140 points in hand over teammate Jack Beckman. Hagan is third, 26 points behind Beckman, while Capps, Paul Lee, J.R. Todd, Daniel Wilkerson, Alexis DeJoia, Cruz Pedregon and Chad Green complete the top 10 in the Flopper class.
In 2024, Jeg Coughlin Jr. won the Northwest Nationals; he nearly backed up that victory on Sunday with his Elite Motorsports Camaro, but was flummoxed by locally-raised Dallas Glenn and fouled at the final round starting line. This victory gave Glenn his first win in Pro Stock at his home track from the No. 1 qualifying slot, taking his 17th win overall and fourth in 2025. While Glenn’s achievements on Sunday were outstanding, the fact that he re-set the track’s elapsed time record three times in Saturday qualifying and then re-set it once again in Sunday’s first round at 6.446/212.43, made his victory even more gratifying.
“The burnout was right where I wanted it, nice and smooth,” Glenn related in his winner’s interview. “I staged nice and shallow; I felt light on the pedal. I felt like everything was going to go good, and then, when I let go, immediately, I think it was about the time I realized it was shaking my brain process that it saw a red light over there! I was going to be pushing it and pulling it until it went in,” he said. “It’s definitely really special. I’ve got all my family here, all my sponsors here. I just had a phenomenal race car. I feel like this is the best car I’ve ever had. We’ve worked really hard this season and we’re continuing to work hard. We’re definitely not taking our foot off the gas at all!”
Glenn, who won Saturday’s Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge, beat Kenny Delco, Matt Latino (subbing for dad Eric) and Elite’s Greg Stanfield to reach the final round against Coughlin, who dispensed with teammate Erica Enders, KB Titan’s Cory Reed and Cody Coughlin to reach his first final round of the season – and 121st of his career! With this win, Glenn assumed the points lead over reigning titleholder and teammate Greg Anderson (957 to 921), followed by Matt Hartford, Cory Reed, Eric Latino, Aaron Stanfield, Jeg Coughlin Jr., Deric Kramer, Cody Coughlin and Greg Stanfield.
Norwalk winner John Hall looked like he was headed to his second 2025 win after earning the No. 1 in Pro Stock Motorcycle qualifying with his Matt Smith Racing Buell, as well as taking the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge trophy, but the Connecticut racer fouled in the first round against Chris Bostick’s WAR Suzuki and had to sit out the balance of competition. Because the motorcycle class had only eight entries, it contested three, rather than four rounds. With Hall, Angie Smith and Jianna Evaristo gone after the first round, only six-time champ Matt Smith remained to challenge the Vance and Hines Motorsports Suzuki Hayabusa duo of reigning two-time titleholder Gaige Herrera and Richard Gadson.
In the final round, after Gadson defeated Bostick (who broke after his burnout) and Herrera took out Matt Smith, the current titleholder defeated his teammate in a fast final, 6.690/201.55 to Gadson’s 6.743/200.32. Herrera recoded his fourth race win of the year and 25th of his 43-race career, the quickest any competitor has reached 25 victories in NHRA history. Herrera ran in the 6.70s throughout the race weekend, but the team, led by Andrew Hines produced the first Pro Stock Motorcycle 6.60-second run at Pacific Raceways after Herrera’s stout reaction time of .010 at the tree.
“I never would imagine getting to 25 (wins) this quick,” Herrera mused. “I’m living the dream. I’m very blessed as far as that. To get to 25 wins, it still feels like my first,” he admitted. “Every time I get a win, it’s just one of those things. You never lose the excitement. You always drive and push yourself to get the Waly, because everyone wants to get the Wally. It’s been a lot to take in in a short time for me personally, and I can’t do it without the whole band, the Vance & Hines team and my crew chief Andrew [Hines]. It was nice to have an all-Vance ^& Hines final, plus I got redemption from last year here. I had the 11 consecutive race wins and then Chase (Van Sant, of the WAR Racing Suzuki squad) eat us in the final, so I had a goal coming here to get the win.”
Herrera takes a 138-point lead over Gadson, while Matt Smith, Angie Smith, John Hall, Chase Van Sant, Jianna Evaristo, Chris Bostick, Steve Johnson and Marc Ingwersen complete the Pro Stock Motorcycle top 10.
There were a multitude of fast times and speeds set at this race, with cooler temps and overcast skies helping to get the times down and the miles per hour up. That kind of quickness could easily continue this coming week, as all four classes alight to wine country in Sonoma, CA for the 37th annual Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals presented by PowerEdge at Sonoma Raceway.
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