Langdon, Prock, Anderson, A. Smith are Maryland Victors
No one can dispute the success of NHRA’s inaugural visit to Maryland International Raceway in Mechanicsville, MD. There the NHRA’s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series and Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series put on a three-day show for huge crowds who witnessed surprising races throughout the first annual Potomac NHRA Nationals presented by JEGS.
Probably the biggest revelation was the complete turnaround of Tasca Racing which, with two-time Funny Car champion Austin Prock behind the wheel hadn’t made it past the semifinals until this seventh race in a 20-contest 75th anniversary season for NHRA. In fact, before this week, Prock had only won two rounds, at Route 66 Raceway, but he and his Jimmy- and Thomas Prock-led crew found the sweet spot on a very fast racetrack and earned their first diamond Wally winner’s trophy in dominant fashion.
Our memories are deep here: we recall that team departed Gainesville when they failed to make the field, leaving before eliminations began on Sunday. We recall the qualifying trials, the sad trips down the track as the Prock family searched for their sweet spot. It appeared they’d found a cure in Maryland, as Prock’s Ford Mustang was the cream of the crop, earning the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge crown on Saturday and then doubling up on Sunday.
Prock didn’t even make it to the top half of the field, qualifying 11th and having to face four-time champ Matt Hagan in Tony Stewart Racing’s Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat first thing Sunday morning. The situation required a cool head and Prock kept his end of that bargain, upsetting Hagan, taking a second-round bout against Spencer Hyde’s similar Mustang, beating three-time champ Ron Capps’ Toyota GR Supra and, finally, defeating former John Force Racing teammate Jack Beckman in the finals, 3.95/324.20 to 3.971/323/50. Every lap Prock ran on Sunday was a sub-four-second run; his opponents, Beckman excepted, couldn’t do the same.
“To be seven races in and win the Mission Challenge this weekend, and win the diamond Wally, I think it says a lot about this race team and what we’re capable of. I’m just very proud of this whole Ford Racing team. It was a great weekend, but this is just the beginning of the new era of the Prock Rocket,” Austin Prock declared after claiming his second trophy of the weekend.
“As a competitor you’re just kind of beat down, and then the race car started coning alive again, and I felt like I was behind the race car at times, where the race car was performing better than I was. After Joliet, I was really, really hard on myself after the semifinals. I didn’t leave good enough to even put us in contention. I wanted to come in here this weekend and prove to myself that I’ve still got it, and I feel like I did that.” Prock’s loss in the Chicago semifinals placed him in Saturday’s Challenge and allowed him and his team to announce their return.
Despite his semifinal departure, Ron Capps leads the standings, relegating Kalitta Motorsports’ J.R. Todd to second (-16) in his Toyota GR Supra followed by double-victor Chad Geeen’s Mustang, Hagan, Jordan Vandergriff in John Force Racing’s Chevrolet SS, his teammates Alexis DeJoria and Jack Beckman, Spencer Hyde’s Mustang, Prock and Daniel Wilkerson. A slim 276 points separate first through tenth, after Prock rejoined the group after languishing beyond reach of the top ten for six contests.
Another great story was the redemption of Angie Smith, who lost in Joliet to husband Matt when she had a run-defying issue with her transmission. Since the Matt Smith Racing (MSR) four-Buell Pro Stock Motorcycle team depends on Matt Smith’s tune-ups to access speed, the fact that their team leader was relegated to hospital before Friday’s opening stanza with gallstone issues, the squad needed to step up for their captain. Smith contacted Chip Ellis to sub for him and tune-ups were delivered by computer for Angie Smith, Ellis, John Hall and Jianna Evaristo to help get them down the track.
It all worked to perfection and, by Sunday, Matt Smith was out of confinement and back at the track, albeit being careful. He did acknowledge the death of Kyle Busch forced him to take physicians’ advice and take care of his issue; he hopes that knowledge will help others as he deals with his physical issues. Angie Smith’s pink Buell, as always wearing the colors of Denso, was the class of the field, as it had been in Joliet, but this time she romped through all four eliminations and earned the 200th NHRA victory for a woman. She received the trophy from none other than Shirley Muldowney, making her first victory in nearly four seasons even more satisfying.
“It means everything [to get the 200th women’s victory in NHRA competition]. From Erica to Shirley to Angelle, to all of those ladies who have paved the way for me to come out here and get to call some of them my really good friends, and that’s what means so much to me. We have such a close relationship and I will always be the 200th! I’m glad I can represent the women of NHRA,” Smith said. On Friday morning at 7am, it was possible that there would be zero MSR Buells on the grounds, but by 10am Matt Smith had figured out a way to make it all work, even as he was away from the track.
“Matt said, ‘We’re running all four bikes, I believe in you and you can do it.’ So that’s what we did. It was tough and it was not easy, but it’s one of those things when your team believes in you and your husband believes in you. Matt is a remarkable person,” she reminded, “for him to just navigate running four motorcycles, lining four people up. It was a challenge and, as a team, we had to step up to the plate. I was very thankful that Matt made it back before the first round. He didn’t want to be at the hospital; he anted to be there with us.”
Every lap that Angie Smith ran on Sunday was over 200mph and, in fact most full-season riders eclipsed that mark at least once over the weekend. Angie Smith’s final round against the Buell of Ryan Oehler was tight: 6.683/201.52 defeated the Illinois rider’s 6.741/201.91. Those four laps elevated Angie Smith to second in class behind Vance & Hines Motorsports’ reigning champion Richard Gadson and his Suzuki Hayabusa3, with Matt Smith third, followed by Gaige Herrera (who didn’t make it out of the first round on Sunday), MSR’s John Hall, Clayton Howey’s Suzuki, Oehler, Chase Van Sant’s Suzuki, Evaristo and Brayden Davis’ Buell.
In Top Fuel, Kalitta Motorsports continues its repaving of the field, with its claim on the top two spots in the dragster class. The finals in this category saw Shawn Langdon, the 2013 titleholder take teammate Doug Kalitta in another tight battle: 3.762/334.90 to the reigning two-time champ’s 3.766/334.24. Kalitta is tuned by the legendary Alan Johnson; Langdon’s crew chief is Brian Husen, who used to be Johnson’s second. That they continue to battle voraciously shows the health of this team.
Langdon was the No. 1 qualifier on a crowd-sellout Saturday, his third time taking the top spot and he refined that on Sunday by earning his third consecutive victory of the season, now leading Kalitta by 76 points. With a short field, Langdon was unopposed in the first round of play, but still earned a 3.718/338 on his own. In the quarters, he beat Justin Ashley, who lost traction going down the 1,000-foot dragstrip. He took Billy Torrence in the semifinals to go against his teammate in one of the closest battles NHRA has seen in 2026, winning by about an inch.
“That was a little too close for comfort,” Langdon admitted, “but when you race Doug Kalitta and (crew chief) Alan Johnson, you better be on your A game. Man, our Kalitta Air Careers team has been so good lately. They’ve given me a better race car than I deserve, but three in a row is bad ass – give it the hat trick! I’m very fortunate to be able to race Connie Kalitta’s car and race against Doug. It’s been a tough week for a lot of us in the racing industry with (the death of) Kyle Busch; we’re definitely thinking about the Busch family. Hopefully they know we love and support them.”
Behind the Kalitta Motorsorts duo, Tony Stewart Racing’s Leah Pruett holds third place in points, followed by her husband Tony Stewart for Elite Motorsports, John Force Racing’s Josh Hart, Maddi Gordon from Ron Capps Motorsports, Ashley, Torrence, Antron Brown and Clay Millican. There’s a massive 428-point gap from first to tenth place.
While qualifying in Maryland for Pro Stock competitors showed signs of life for the Elite Motorsports team, by the time the field was winnowed for the final time, it was an all-KB Titan Racing bout between six-time champ Greg Anderson and reigning titleholder Dallas Glenn. Anderson won his 114th race by defeating first Brandon Miller’s Dodge Dart, teammate Deric Kramer and Elite’s Greg Stanfield, while Glenn galloped past Shane Tucker, Elite’s Aaron Stanfield and Troy Coughlin Jr. to take on his teammate and most successful racer in this class. While Anderson didn’t have the reaction time, (.084 to Glenn’s .027), once the younger driver experienced big tire shake after the tree, it was all over. Anderson hit 6.472 at 212.46 to take his second diamond trophy of this 75th anniversary season.
In a recurring theme, Anderson invoked Kyle Busch: “When Kyle was asked why winning never got old for him, he said, ‘Because you never know when it’s going to be the last one,’ and it’s true,” Anderson stated. “We don’t know what tomorrow brings. You’re not guaranteed anything, so you have to appreciate it, appreciate that you got into the record books, that you made great runs in your racecar, that you got to race in front of a great crowd. You have to appreciate it, because you just never know.”
Not only did Anderson gain the cherished diamond trophy, he took the track record for elapsed time, 6.464-sec in the quarterfinals. “This is great,” he crowed, “and I don’t know how many other people in the class have history here, if any.” Anderson raced at the Maryland International Raceway dragstrip before it became an NHRA-sanctioned track. “I’m the only one who can remember the last time I was here – and that was 25 years ago.” Owing to his history at the track, “It made me feel good about being here, like I understood the place and knew that I could do well here. It means a lot to me to be the first winner at the Potomac Nationals.”
Despite the win, Anderson lags his teammate Glenn by a scant 19 points, while Elite’s Greg Stanfield is third, KB Titan’s Matt Hartford holds fourth place, six-time champ Erica Enders of Elite is fifth, followed by her teammate Aaron Stanfield, KN Titan’s Matt Latino, Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Troy Coughlin Jr. of Elite Motorsports and KB Titan Racing’s Eric Latino. There’s a wide gap of 339 points from first through tenth places in this highly competitive class.
It’s back to familiar territory for NHRA’s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series in just a few days, when the NHRA New England Nationals presented by bproauto take place at New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire. Top Fuel, Funny Car and Pro Stock are on the docket for the eighth race of this special, 75th anniversary season.