Like all NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series races, the 12th annual NHRA Midwest Nationals, held at World Wide Technology Raceway (WWTR) outside St. Louis, Missouri had its share of highs, lows and stranger than strange incidents.
The highs, of course, were a third 2023 win by Clay Millican in Top Fuel, Matt Hagan’s fifth victory of the season in Funny Car, Greg Anderson’s 103rd career Pro Stock victory and second consecutive, and the eighth win of the season for Gaige Herrera in Pro Stock Motorcycle.
Alas, there was also a Saturday qualifying incident that had most everyone on the grounds in shock. Angie Smith, who entered the race fifth in points and 133 behind Herrera, lost control of her Buell after the finish line and was separated from it, tumbling down the track and breaking bones in both feet as well as sustaining road-rash injuries.
NHRA, as is customary, took Angie Smith’s motorcycle to examine it, yet refused to return the bike – even post-race, which is not normal for the sanctioning body. They told Matt Smith he could have the Buell after Pomona, the final race of the season in mid-November. This is not normal. There was another incident on Sunday with a Pro Mod burnout crash for championship contender Dymtry Samorukov, where the driver impacted the opposite wall to his lane. His car was promptly returned to his team on Sunday night.
The Midwest Nationals were the third race in a row for the Camping World Countdown to the Championship contenders in a six-race playoff series from Reading to Pomona. With races at Reading, Charlotte and St. Louis three weeks in a row, the championships in all four Camping World classes are a bit easier to comprehend, although the results in this third race shook up some of the standings.
Saturday’s qualifying results might have had prognosticators expecting to see the top qualifiers engaged in hoisting trophies at the close of Sunday’s final eliminations, but that was the case for only one of them: Top Fuel’s No. 1 qualifier, Doug Kalitta was gone in the quarterfinals after being buzzed by Leah Pruett; Bob Tasca III’s bid for a second straight win was doused by eventual winner Hagan in the semifinals and Erica Enders lost her bid for victory in the semifinals, losing to Anderson as he took back-to-back victories in Pro Stock. Only Herrera, No. 1 in Pro Stock Motorcycle, survived to earn his eighth win of the year.
For Millican, the victory – the first time this veteran has earned three Wally winner’s trophies in a year – was “huge,” he said. With the hot and dry conditions that prevailed throughout the race meeting, “Jim O (crew chief Jim Oberhofer) just showed again that when it’s hot out, look out. We got away with a couple but we outperformed the cars we raced and I am so proud,” Millican exulted. In taking the sixth win of his NHRA career, Millican defeated Pruett in the final round with a pass of 3.758 seconds at 331.94 to her 3.775/327.66. He beat an up-in-smoke John Force Racing’s Austin Prock, Mike Salinas on a hole shot, and eight-time champion Tony Schumacher of JCM Racing to reach Sunday’s final round.
As a result of Millican’s victory, Justin Ashley’s second round loss to Steve Torrence who then fell to Pruett, the standings are changed… again. Doug Kalitta retains the top spot by 47 points over Pruett, Torrence is third, Ashley fourth, Antron Brown retains fifth place, followed by Mike Salinas, Brittany Force, Millican, Schumacher and Prock. There’s 186 points between first and tenth.
Hagan’s Funny Car season has been feast and famine. He and Tony Stewart Racing crew chief Dickie Venables have been hot one week and cold the next; this was one of those hot weeks, and we’re not just talking about the weather. Earning his 48th career Flopper victory and vaulting to 13 points off the points lead, Hagan and Venables overcame tricky track conditions and those hot temps after losing by inches in the two previous races. Hagan and his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat qualified fifth for eliminations, sprinting past Alexis DeJoria’s DC Motorsports Toyota GR Supra, 16-time champ John Force and his Chevrolet Camaro SS, and Ford Mustang driver, No. 1 qualifier Tasca to meet a familiar nemesis in the final round: Ron Capps.
Hagan’s Dodge hit 3.991 seconds at 324.90 to beat reigning champ Capps’ Toyota GR Supra at 4.025/306.88 in the final round. “We wanted to be aggressive going into these last four events,” Hagan revealed. “Dickie and I had a long talk about our plan to run for the championship and he said, ‘I need you to be great on the starting line,’ and I said to him, ‘I need you to be more aggressive with the race car.’ We are working hand in hand and it worked well today.” Of course he was hoping teammate Pruett would win for a TSR Nitro double-up, but that wasn’t to be.
After beating Capps, who was in his third final round at WWTR, Hagan scuttled a tie for the duo that existed before the race meeting began. Tasca is atop the standings with Robert Hight’s John Force Racing Chevy Camaro SS six points back after losing to Tasca in the second round. Hagan’s victory has him alone in third place, a scant 13 points behind Tasca. Capps holds fourth place with Chad Green’s Mustang fifth. J.R. Todd in Kalitta Motorsports’ Toyota GR Supra is sixth, followed by Tim Wilkerson’s Mustang, Alexis DeJoria’s Supra, John Force and Alex Laughlin in Jim Dunn’s Funny Car.
Greg Anderson didn’t have a very productive “regular” season in his KB Titan Chevy Camaro; the five-time Pro Stock champion looked plenty human leading up to the playoffs, but his late-season surge continued at the Midwest Nationals when he took his second straight victory in the door slammer category – Chevrolet’s 379th win since it entered the class in 1970. After qualifying fourth, Anderson rolled by a stumbling rookie Jerry Tucker, beat KB Titan squamate Deric Kramer, halted Enders’ bid to become the winningest female in NHRA history in the semifinals and beat her Elite Motorsports teammate Aaron Stanfield in the finals, putting up a lap of 6.552 seconds at 209.92 to Stanfield’s 6.567209.14 lap in the quarter-mile.
After he “muffed the burnout,” Anderson admitted making the error and moved past that point. “This car is good enough and it’s going to go across that starting line just fine,” he said to himself. “And so it did; it was just fine. We got another Wally and it’s been a helluva two weeks.” As he thanked his entire team for the victory, Anderson said, “We’re out-racing everybody right now We might not be out-running them, but we’re out-racing them. We’re back in this fight and it’s going to be one hell of a run,” over the next three races.
No. 1 Midwest Nationals qualifier Enders earned the points lead by 25 points over Anderson with her semifinal result, with Matt Hartford’s first-round departure pushing him back to third, Dallas Glenn holding fourth place points and Stanfield in fifth, 73 points behind his teammate Enders. Troy Coughlin Jr. is sixth, followed by Kramer, Kyle Koretsky, Camrie Caruso and Bo Butner, the latter earning a semifinal result and now having to make up 179 points in the next three races. The near-100-degree temps caused plenty of “upsets” in Pro Stock, with Fernando Cuadra Jr’s Elite Ford Mustang taking out Glenn, Chris McGaha defeating Hartford, son Mason McGaha beating Coughlin Jr., all in the first round.
It was a picture-perfect weekend for Gaige Herrera, who has had quite a few of those exemplary races in 2023, eight of them to be precise. He earned the No. 1 qualifier on Friday and held it through Saturday’s brace of qualifying sessions, then proceeded to put on another Suzuki Hayabusa3 master class in Sunday’s eliminations, where he defeated Joey Gladstone on a Matt Smith Racing Buell, took a bye win in the quarters, shut down rookie Chase Van Sant’s White Alligator Racing Suzuki in the semifinals and stopped teammate Eddie Krawiec from earning a much-desired 50th victory in the two-wheeled class, with q 6.728-sec pass at 201.79 mph to Krawiec’s 6.761/201.52..
Herrera qualified first for a record 11th time this weekend and reset the track’s elapsed time record on Friday night with his 6.716-second pass at 201.79 mph. He did better in the first round of eliminations with a 6.701-sec pass down the quarter-mile against Gladstone. “I had a great motorcycle all through qualifying and eliminations,” Herrera confirmed. “It was the one to beat,” as it has been throughout this season. “Having an all-Vance & Hines final is awesome. I went into it with lane choice, but we decided to flip a coin in the pits and Eddie won, so he took the better of the two lanes.” Still, Herrera outran Krawiec. “It gives me a lot of momentum and I’m excited to go to Dallas with a bigger lead.”
The points battle isn’t much of one in Pro Stock Motorcycle but there are three races left to run and, as we’ve seen in the past, strange things can happen in this class. Herrera has 99 points on Matt Smith, who fell to Krawiec in the semifinal round, while Hector Arana Jr. and his Buell are third, Krawiec is fourth and rookie Chase Van Sant’s Suzuki holds fifth-place points, 208 back! The balance of the Pro Stock Motorcycle Countdown to the Championship field include injured Angie Smith in sixth, Jianna Evaristo’s and Steve Johnson’s Suzuki motorcycles, Marc Ingwersen’s Buell in ninth after he was beaten by Evaristo in the first round and Kelly Clontz on her Suzuki in tenth, 313 points in arrears.
In the FlexJet Factory Stock Showdown class, Mark Pawuk took his No. 1 qualified Dodge to the Winner’s Circle, while Jordan Lazic earned the win in a Camaro – on debut – in the FuelTech Pro Mod contest. Former Pro Stock standout Allen Johnson earned his first Factory X victory in Geoff Turk’s Dodge Challenger.
The Camping World Drag Racing Series has a much-needed weekend off before encamping at Texas Motorplex, where the week-long Stampede of Speed events take place before the Texas NHRA FallNationals. It’s been a hot summer and fall thus far in the Lone Star state and, no doubt, it’ll be hot, if not weather-wise, at least with regard to competition in less than two weeks.
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