The 25th NHRA 4-Wide Nevada Nationals on The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway were hot. The weather was hot, the track had prep issues and it was tough for crew chiefs in the Mission Foods Drag Racing Series to get it right. Three days of difficult competition ensued, with not only heat but high winds, particularly on Saturday, making for challenges drivers and teams couldn’t always overcome.
By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, there were no repeat winners of the initial of three 4-wide competitions during this 20-race season. Tony Stewart earned his first Wally winner’s trophy after a year and a quarter racing Top Fuel, defeating four-time reigning champion Antron Brown, Justin Ashley – celebrating his 100th Top Fuel race – and Jasmine Salinas. The 2024 NHRA Rookie of the Year, three-time NASCAR champion and INDYCAR titleholder, Stewart and crew chiefs Neal Strausbaugh and Mike Domagala found the right combination to take a .0182-second victory over Brown, with Ashley third and Salinas fourth.
Stewart’s lap on the 1,000-foot track of 3.870-seconds, was unlike his first two Sunday rounds when he recorded holeshot wins. Coming after a runner-up result in the third contest of the season in Pomona two weeks ago, Stewart’s win keeps his remarkable record of victories in every type of motorized competition he’s ever attempted at 100 percent. While he hasn’t been in this sport very long, running a single season of Top Alcohol Dragster before taking over the reins of his dragster so that wife Leah could produce their son Dominic – who was in the Winner’s Circle with his parents – Stewart understands the significance of his win:
“I haven’t been around the NHRA series for long, but I realized it takes a lot to win one of these Top Fuel races. Everything in my career, I never had to wait over a year to win a race,” Stewart admitted. “We always figured it out pretty quickly and we won. I had two hole shot wins in the first two rounds today, and my worst reaction time was in the final, but the TSR crew (Tony Stewart Racing) gave me a great car in the final. Neal Strausbaugh and Mike Domagala (co-crew chief) and the whole crew won that final round for us today.
“We needed this win,” he continued. “It’s been so stressful for everyone since Leah nearly won the World Top Fuel Championship in 2023 when it came down to the final round of the whole season. Two year ago, I won my first NHRA national event in Top Alcohol Dragster here in Las Vegas, and now I win my first Top Fuel national event at The Strip. It’s pretty damn cool. I think we made racing history today with the win. I’m not sure if there has ever been a driver to win a NASCAR Cup race, an INDYCAR race, the USAC Triple Crown championship and an NHRA pro event. To do it with our team and our family was very emotional. When Leah brought Dom up on stage in victory lane, my heart stopped. This is a feeling I have never had in my life before,” Stewart said.
Austin Prock won Funny Car this weekend, his first victory of the 2025 season. His John Force Racing team, one that looked omnipotent throughout his 2024 championship season, has struggled this year to get the car working to their satisfaction. With the track issues that stemmed from preparation for a previous event, crew chief (and dad) Jimmy Prock was having difficulty getting the car to act as expected, particularly in Friday’s intense heat and Saturday’s high winds and heat. The champ thought his victory on Sunday was ugly, but he’ll take it.
“This Prock Rocket ain’t perfect yet,” he said. “But it’s heading in the right direction and that’s what we need to be proud about right now.” Prock’s father and brother Thomas got the car working better on Saturday after a tough pair of Friday qualifying sessions and he earned the No. 2 spot in a field where three cars did not take eliminations. In the final round, Prock and his Chevrolet Camaro SS – from the third lane – outraced No. 1 qualifier Paul Lee’s Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, the Tony Stewart Racing Charger of Matt Hagan and first-time final round racer Dave Richards in his Ford Mustang. With this win, Prock has now won a 4-Wide NHRA race in both Top Fuel (2023) and Funny Car, both times racing with John Force Racing.
During his magic 2024 season, Prock broke John Force’s single season qualifying record when he started first on `15 occasions in a 20-race season. “I just love having John Force out at the racetrack. It just gasses you up every time. He told me he was proud of me this week and that means a lot,” Prock stated.
Pro Stock honors went to Dallas Glenn, who outran Matt Hartford and his boss Greg Anderson in the final round on Sunday. It was an all-KB Titan Racing final round, with rookie Matt Latino, runner-up Matt Hartford joining winner Glenn and Anderson in the quad run. And, as expected, it was a tight race because all four combatants were using similar equipment and setups, giving Glenn a tiny .0082-second margin of victory at the quarter-mile to earn his 15th Wally winner’s trophy and third in a 4-wide contest. Glenn’s lap of 6.649 at 206.83 was a holeshot in the final, giving both Glenn and Anderson a pair of victories for this season.
“I’m really thrilled,” he said. “Today was a very interesting day. I almost completely blew it in the first round. I was staging, and when I fired the car up my nose started to bleed, so I was dealing with that inside the car. That was an issue,” he stressed. “I don’t know what I was looking at, but I didn’t see lane two stage and just didn’t go on the two-step until right before the tree came down. I was way late, just dead lane and got lucky enough with the horsepower to get the win. I still made a decent run going into second round and then the clutch pedal felt weird on y foot when I went on to the two-step and kind of overcompensated there.
“Then,” Glenn admitted, “I go into the final round and made sure that I held it down, and probably held it down a little too hard. Greg was on his way to earning his next one until the luck streak ended for him, but, you know, it’s a good day. The car is working great, I didn’t do too bad – but, you know, at the end you’ve only got to do good enough,” to get his holeshot win.
Some big names were gone after rounds one and two, including Kalitta Motorsports’ Shawn Langdon and RWR’s Clay Millican in Top Fuel’s first round, while 2023 champ and 2024 Las Vegas winner Doug Kalitta exited in the semifinal round, along with Steve Torrence. Spencer Hyde, who took Jim Head’s Ford Mustang to victory in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Funny Car competition, went as far as the second round, Last year’s Flopper victor, Bob Tasca III broke on his first-round burnout, while Ron Capps’ Toyota GR Supra was done after round one, as was Jack Beckman’s Chevy Camaro. Six-time Pro Stock champ Erica Enders continued to have a tough season, failing to qualify for eliminations; she was joined on the sidelines by Troy Coughlin Jr. and Greg Stanfield, while the sole member of Elite Motorsports to make it past the first round was Cristian Cuadra and his Ford Mustang.
As teams prep for the second 4-wide race at zMAX Dragway in Charlotte, N.C. in two weeks, the points have changed a bit. In Top Fuel, Shawn Langdon leads Tony Stewart, Antron Brown, Doug Kalitta, Jasmine Salinas, Brittany Force, Clay Millican, Justin Ashley and a tie between Josh Hart and Steve Torrence. Paul Lee’s Charger leads Funny Car, followed by Jack Beckman, Austin Prock, Matt Hagan, Chad Green’s and Daniel Wilkerson’s Mustangs, Ron Capps, Cruz Pedregon’s Charger, Tasca and J.R. Todd’s Supra. Anderson and Glenn continue to lead Pro Stock, with Matt Hartford third, followed by Cory Reed, Deric Kramer, Mason McGaha, Jeg Coughlin Jr., Eric Latino, Aaron Stanfield and Matt Latino.