The great thing about straight-line racing is that, even if a racer qualifies with the top seed, they could easily be gone after a single round of play. Success isn’t easy and isn’t readily available. Sure, some racers go on a tear and dominate their class, but they could be in the lower half of a seed after being dominant and have a hard time recovering.
Some of that is due to being human, of course. We don’t compete for anything but victory, but when winning initially comes easily to a racer, it’s easy to forget how hard it really can be.
One NHRA Top Fuel racer who’s found that out is Josh Hart, 41, who rumbled into his first victory in his first Mission Foods Drag Racing Series event, the 2021 Amalie Motor Oil Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida, which has become NHRA’s season starter over the past half-decade. Hart won his first pro race in the dragster class – at this home track – and coupled that with a second victory later in his first season of pro racing at zMAX Dragway in Charlotte, NC.
Since that time, Indiana-born Hart’s greatest success has been finishing seventh in points in 2022 and winning the Pep Boys All-Star Top Fuel Callout, again in Gainesville, finishing tenth in the points tally in 2023. He’s been in NHRA’s playoffs, the Countdown to the Championship for each year he’s competed, but winning another Wally winner’s trophy has been tough. Hart currently holds ninth-place points. This weekend, as with many on the tour, Hart is pulling double duty, racing his dragster and his Factory Stock Showdown Dodge Challenger Drag Pak this weekend at Norwalk, OH.
Some never win even a single race in their careers. Paul Lee, who recovered from a “widow maker” heart attack in 2017 to win his first Funny Car race at age 67 earlier this 2025 season in Phoenix, is another who’s been knocking on that door to success his entire life. After wandering through the nitro ranks for several years, racing with Jim Dunn, Del Worsham and Gary Densham, all of whom elevated Lee’s behind-the-wheel acumen, he had to sit out several years to recover from his massive heart attack, one that doctors said completely closed his left anterior descending artery.
Lee contemplated retirement, but like any real racer, discovered there is no cure. He started his own team and hired outstanding crew, including racer/tuner Jonnie Lindberg and technical wizard John Medlen to be co-crew chiefs. It’s paid off for the New Jersey native, who currently holds third place in the points, 99 behind reigning titleholder Austin Prock of John Force Racing. Lee is campaigning a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat while Prock and his JFR teammate Jack Beckman, currently second, race Chevrolet SS floppers.
Then, there’s the saga of Jasmine Salinas and her Scrappers dragster. She’s been parked for the better part of the season with the intent of “coming back later in the year,” she said. But with the departure of crew chief Rob Flynn for the No. 15 Rick Ware Racing (RWR) team with eight-time Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher at the wheel, those plans are definitely in flux. As are Schumacher’s, with The Sarge’s return slated for “later in the year.”
Rookie Funny Car driver Spencer Hyde, who hails from Ontario, Canada is using this race, one fairly close to his home country, to salute an important member of his family, his great uncle Jack, cousin to his grandfather who took on that type of role in Spencer’s youth. Jack Hyde, now 83, raced “Jack and the Green Stock,” a green stocker with the name that played off the fairy tale, Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack Hyde raced the green stocker for a number of years, pulled out of competition for a while but definitely made an impression on Spencer Hyde as the younger man grew up loving the sport of straight line racing.
The original Jack and the Green Stock, which ran from 1966 into the 1970 racing season, was lost to the family, but its replacement had a bigger engine that allowed by Jack, and later Spencer to drive it in nostalgia classes. Spencer began crewing on the car and, close to a decade ago, Jack Hyde gave him the opportunity to drive it. “In 2022, my dad (Peter) and I decided, for Jack’s 80th birthday, we’re going to wrap my Pro Mod car just like his Jack in the Green Stock. We did it just for fun and didn’t tell him,” Spencer Hyde recalled. “I had it all wrapped and I had him show up to the shop. We had his Jack and the Green Stock car beside the Pro Mod. When we lifted the garage door to show him, he was blown away. We took it to the (local) Stratford Spectacular where we did a side-by-side pass together and everybody loved it.”
That wrap didn’t come off the Pro Mod car, which won the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod. Now Spencer Hyde is honoring Jack Hyde once more, as his Jim Head Racing Ford Mustang carries the same colors this weekend. As Norwalk is closest to his home and he’s raced at the track in the past – plus, this is car owner Jim Head’s home track – Hyde is really looking forward to making his way into the Funny Car top 10. “I thought it’d be cool to wrap the Funny Car with Jack and the Green Stock and surprise Jack again,” Hyde explained. “He is coming to the race and we are going to surprise him in the pits on Friday. It means a lot to me to be ale to honor him and keep that family tradition going.”
This weekend the NHRA holds its 10th race of a 20-event campaign, at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, OH. This facility, which is located amidst fields and adjacent to some industrial facilities, is another event that so many in the NHRA look forward to attending, racing and writing/photographing. Much of that is due to the Bader family that owns the Norwalk, OH track. Like so many family-owned facilities, the Baders are welcoming to participants and fans, offer plenty of local food choices – their vaunted ice cream can’t be missed – and have kept up their facility as well or better than many corporate-owned racetracks.
To hold the midway point in Ohio, at a facility like this is what NHRA is all about. Family, friendship and competition. The welcoming nature of the track and its owners regularly convince part-timers to come out of the woodwork to compete at their facility. Perhaps that’s why there are 17 Top Fuel dragsters on the entry list, an astounding 21 Funny Cars intending to be at the facility, 19 Pro Stock combatants in the class’ return to competition, but, unfortunately, only 14 Pro Stock Motorcycle entries.
Engaging fans at an event like the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals isn’t difficult, especially with access NHRA offers ticket holders. They’ll have additional access in NHRA’s vendor midway with the focus on health, as Paul Smith Racing’s Joe Morrison Right2Breathe® project teams with Cleveland Clinic, the Allergy & Asthma Network, and BluZone Health adjacent to the Kroger Health display. The group will offer lung health screenings and education to the more-than-50,000 fans on-site. Norwalk marks the second appearance for Morrison and his project; they were at the Charlotte Four-Wide Nationals earlier this year.
In addition to the four Mission Foods Drag Racing Series classes on the docket this weekend, there are 13 other classes vying for Wally winner’s trophies: Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car, Competition Eliminator, Super Stock, Stock Eliminator, Super Comp, Super Gas, Super Street, Top Sportsman, Mountain Motor Pro Stock, Top Dragster, Factory Stock Showdown and Factory X. This action-packed weekend includes the rivalry-driven GETTRX NHRA All-Star Pro Stock Callout and, of course, the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge for all four Mission Foods classes.
The final June weekend of NHRA competition offers a powerful and exciting schedule, one where Friday’s initial double sessions of pro qualifying starts at 5PM and goes until about 9:30PM. Saturday is an action-packed day with both the GTTRX All-Star Pro Stock Callout and Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge could easily yield different winners than the racers who garner No. 1 seeds for Sunday’s elimination rounds, which begin at 11am ET.
There is the challenge of outrunning the weather this weekend, as Friday is intended to have thunderstorms and they could continue through Saturday, to totally mess up everyone’s best intentions. Sunday forecasts are promising clear weather. We’re definitely holding our collective breath about that. Humidity could be off the charts as well. Fans watching from home have the opportunity to access eliminations on FOX over-the-air network at 2pm ET on Sunday.