The 35th Northwest NHRA Nationals, held at Pacific Raceways this past weekend had some firsts, some repeats and hopefully, the last big engine explosion for a while.
Winners were four-time Top Fuel champ Steve Torrence, taking a second consecutive win at this track between Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, Austin Prock, who became only the fourth NHRA racer to win in both Top Fuel (his first National event win) and Funny Car at Pacific Raceways in his Chevrolet Camaro SS, five-time class champ Jeg Coughlin Jr. earning his 68th Pro Stock win and third win of the 2024 Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series season and, finally, Chase Van Sant and WAR Racing ended Gaige Herrera’s Pro Stock Motorcycle victory sprint, using the tree that’s been biting Van Sant all season to post a better reaction time, elapsed time and speed in Sunday’s final round to secure his first National event win.
There was another big engine explosion on Sunday. This time it happened to three-time champ, team owner/driver Ron Capps, the No. 2 qualifier racing against Gary Densham’s Mustang in his Toyota GR Supra. After both drivers began to lose traction, Capps’ engine exploded, sending half of his Toyota body into the air as the chassis banged both the right wall and slammed cross-track, nosing into the left wall before stopping.
Capps exited the car without physical injury, but the team owner was suitably distressed to see the condition of his race car. “First and foremost,” Capps said after his wild ride, “I’m so glad that Guido (crew chief Dean Antonelli) and our team work so hard on the safety aspect. I know John Force is watching, and he’s a big reason for a lot of the safety things we have on the car,” Capps related. “It beat my head around pretty good but I’m fine. I’m just bummed, as a team owner, to have ruined a good Toyota GR Supra body.”
Being on the road for both Seattle and Sonoma races, the latter occurring this coming weekend, Capps will have to pull his spare Supra body out of the truck. “The backup car that we have up in the trailer is a car that won a lot of races the last couple of years. Guido and the guys are very well prepared. We’re already ready to run,” he declared.
In taking the Top Fuel win over Kalitta Motorsports’ Shawn Langdon on Sunday, Steve Torrence and his CAPCO Contractors rail ended a 20-race win drought, his longest in nine years of continuous competition. Torrence’s 55th career win vaulted the four-time champ to third in the points standings as he appeared to regain the starting-line form that brought him so much success in the past. Earning No. 1 at this track, where he had his most recent, 54th victory, Torrence took one bye round, beat Ron Smith and reigning champion Doug Kalitta before his meeting with Langdon. Both of them struggled, but Torrence had sufficient power to cross the stripe first for his third Seattle-area victory.
“I think we left pretty close to each other, and I could hear him right there with me. Then I heard him start to go away, but when you’re trying to hold it straight and you’re waiting on that light on the wall to come on, it took me forever to finally see it,” Torrence admitted. “We’ve been trying to win one of these things for a long time. Our car definitely has shown a lot of promise to go out there and throw down when it needs to go fast. We’ve had a difficult time managing the power, so I think this weekend was exemplary of what we can do and what we need to do,” he said.
Kalitta Motorsports has been the cream of the Top Fuel crop this year and Langdon, who had struggles in qualifying and was 13th best, came alive on race day. He went to the finals for the third time in 2024 and 43rd time overall, taking wins against this weekend’s Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge winner Justin Ashley, Josh Hart and Clay Millican to continue second in the points chase, with only three more races before the close of the regular season. Despite his third round departure, Doug Kalitta retains a comfortable, 120-point lead over his teammate while Langdon has 39 points on Torrence.
Prock earned his fourth Funny Car win of the season at Pacific Raceways, site of his first Top Fuel victory in 2019, a weekend when team owner/driver John Force, the 16-time class champion also won. With a short field in Funny Car this weekend, Prock was able to grab the No. 1 position, win the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge on Saturday afternoon and secure the win late Sunday. “[Force] told me before I got here, he said, ‘hold down the fort for me,’ and we did just that,” Prock said with his big smile.
The 28-year-old’s sole “failure” was his inability to beat Del Worsham’s 2015 track record of 3.832 seconds. He did come close with a 3.838-second qualifying run. Prock’s consistency on Sunday was exceptional: 3.838, 3.880, 3.884 and 3.875, the latter a run of 334.57 mph on the 1,000-foot racetrack. With this victory, Prock increased his points lead to 256 over tied Bob Tasca III and Matt Hagan, with J.. Todd fourth (-278) and John Force fifth. Prock raced first-time finalist Paul Lee and his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat; Lee had a better light but that progress evaporated into tire smoke as Prock drove straight down the groove.
Jeg Coughlin Jr.’s victory at the same track where his nephew Troy Coughlin Jr. won his first Pro Stock race – and the most recent class competition held until this weekend (2022) – was the fifth consecutive win for the Elite Motorsports group, the largest current team in NHRA drag racing. The streak began with Jeg Coughlin Jr.’s second 2024 win at Bristol Dragway before Troy Coughlin Jr. went to Epping, N.H.’s Winner Circle. Aaron Stanfield won both Richmond and Norwalk races – and took home this weekend’s Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge victory – and now Jeg Coughlin Jr. has landed the fifth straight win for this team.
“It feels fantastic,” Coughlin Jr. related in the Winner’s Circle. “It’s just kind of a corny statement, but the Elite team, as a whole, has obviously done very well. We’ve won all but three of the events [held] this year, which is a real testament to our stamina and our abilities. We’ve been struggling with some consistency,” he admitted, “and we really feel like we’ve turned the corner in multiple ways in the last two or three weeks, not because we’ve won the events, but because the cars have become more efficient, they’re accelerating better and printing better time slips.”
To get to the final round at Pacific Raceways, Jeg Coughlin Jr. defeated teammate Jerry Tucker, KB Titan’s Eric Latino and six-time champ, teammate Erica Enders. He was matched up in the finals against Dallas Glenn, who has been the lead driver for KB Titan Racing this year, along with his teammate Greg Anderson (whom Glenn beat in the first round). In the finals, Coughlin Jr. left with a superb .010-sec reaction time and never trailed Glenn, earning a 0.0217-second margin of victory over Glenn in their first final-round meeting.
Chase Van Sant and his WAR Suzuki have been knocking on the Winner’s Circle door for much of this 2024 season but has met his match with the Christmas tree lights that ignite each round. This weekend he remedied his difficulties with the tree when it mattered, in the finals against the formidable Herrera’s Vance & Hines Suzuki Hayabusa3, against whom he’s raced at other venues before coming to NHRA’s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series.
There were plenty of unforced errors in this class during the first round with Van Sant’s opponent, Brandon Litten crossing the centerline, while Mission #2Fast2Tasty Saturday winner Herrera watched as Eiji Kawakami’s Suzuki fouled at the light. In the quarterfinals, Van Sant defeated Matt Smith Racing’s John Hall’s Buell, while Herrera beat Jianna Evaristo, also on Smith’s team and riding a Buell. Herrera was unopposed in the semifinals, while Matt Smith encountered difficulties that didn’t allow him to complete the run, handing the final round match-up to Herrera and Van Sant.
Van Sant’s .017-sec reaction time (to Herrera’s .025) allowed the 2023 NHRA Rookie of the Year to post a winning run of 6.720 seconds at 201.31 on the quarter-mile racetrack, while Herrera posted 6.754 at 200.80. Anyone remember when 200mph on a Pro Stock Motorcycle entry was an anomaly? No more, it appears, especially when conditions are as good as they were in the late afternoon finals. The last word in Pro Stock Motorcycle belongs to the reigning champ, Herrera: “Huge congrats to my boy Chase Van Sant. You deserved that win!! So proud of you, man!! I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to end my incredible streak!! The young guns taking over Pro Stock Motorcycle!!”
Most everyone in the NHRA community is headed forthwith to Sonoma so they can enjoy the wineries and excellent restaurants before getting back to business with the DENSO Sonoma NHRA Nationals. Of course one of the great parts of the upcoming Sonoma weekend is the ice cream tribute to fallen racer Eric Medlen.
By Anne Proffit