Last weekend’s 37th annual Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals didn’t start until late Friday afternoon, but the action began even before the Mission Foods Drag Racing Series cars and motorcycles came to the water box.
Recently, four-time Funny Car champ Matt Hagan decided to grow a mustache. Perhaps that’s why he got the edge at Seattle Raceways for his first winner’s trophy of the 2025 season? The answer to that question is unknown but Hagan decided team owner Tony Stewart needed a ‘stache of his own and brought a glued fake piece of hair to the Sonoma Raceway media center to try and pin the hair on his team owner, Tony Stewart,
The two-time 2025 Top Fuel winner wasn’t having any of it. He kept on the fake hair for about a minute, just enough time for an intrepid photographer – or 10 – to get a photo before he ripped it off. Said mustache, or a reasonable facsimile was seen in the area adjacent to the dragstrip after this playtime, and several folks picked it up and tried it on for size. Stewart was not one of them.
For the first time this season, Stewart was out in the first round of competition, losing to Josh Hart when Smoke lost traction early in the run and had to click off. Hart would fall to eventual winner Doug Kalitta in the second round but it was a positive effort with improved performance for the Floridian, who qualified sixth for this race. In Seattle a week ago, it was Stewart who prevailed over Hart in the first round. Stewart retains second place in the points chase, just 48 points behind Kalitta Motorsports’ Shawn Langdon.
Even before the Tony Stewart Racing press conference, NHRA invited drag racing legend Don “The Snake” Prudhomme upstairs to discuss whatever was on his mind and answer questions from the media. In one instance, Snake tore into crew chiefs who are always trying to get the better of the track and their competitors. Getting down the track – even a 1,000-foot track – hasn’t been a normal occurrence this year.
Crew chiefs and drivers have been trying to chase low times and high speeds since the first drag race occurred. Occasionally there are mishaps and Snake seems to think there are more tire-smoking runs than in his heyday. He was particularly incensed at the lack of full-track runs at recent races, so many of which have resulted in half-track passes, lots of smoke and, at Sonoma Raceway, plenty of fire.
There were two Funny Car incidents that took a lot of time to clean up; a third if you count Sunday eliminations (even though it didn’t take exceptionally long to clean up that third kaboom). On Friday, Daniel Wilkerson was on a good pass when his engine exploded and he smacked the wall. Unable to see due to tethers containing his Ford Mustang’s body, D Wilk nonetheless made his way down the track without crossing the centerline and being disqualified. He climbed out of his car and immediately began examining it. Before he took over dad Tim’s driving seat, Daniel Wilkerson crew-chiefed Chad Green to his first NHRA Funny Car victory in the 2023 season finale.
On Saturday afternoon, Jim Dunn Racing’s second-year driver Buddy Hull had his own body explosion, – for the second consecutive race – which took the Dodge Charger driver out of Sunday eliminations and made it difficult – like Wilkerson – to contain his car body and see out the windshield. On Sunday, Wilkerson had a second explosion that ended his day. Questions remain as to whether this type of explosion is due to crew chief error, driving particulars or something else? One thing for sure, the tethers that contain the car and stop it from going into spectator areas need to be addressed, as they can create vision issues for drivers.
Some think the tethers should be longer at the head of the car body; others think they should go into the trash bin. While some tracks’ spectator areas are far enough away from the drag strips, there are others where spectator areas are right on top of competition. While we all know body parts can fly off a car and that racing is dangerous. Anything can happen during qualifying or eliminations, competitors are weighing the value or lengthening the front tether or removing it altogether so that the body doesn’t hinder a competitor’s vision.
Back to Snake – he was asked if Maddi Gordon’s 2026 Top Fuel welcome to Ron Capps Motorsports was good for the sport? Snake mentored Ron Capps when he was trying to gain access to a driver’s seat; Capps is doing the same for Gordon and that was the question posed to Prudhomme. He doesn’t think so. Snake comes from another era, where drag racing was more rough-and-tumble and where family participation was less of a thing.
He came up during a very different era and it was one where a woman, particularly one who didn’t have nitro experience, would not have the opportunity Maddi Gordon’s about to have. Snake might have lost some partnerships over such a plan, where today Maddi will likely have more support from the business community. Times have changed, albeit not as much as folks might think. Back when Snake was driving, the sole relevant female driver was Shirley Muldowney, for whom he had a great deal of respect. But would he have hired her to drive for him? Nope.
Snake’s honest opinion – without any filters – wasn’t much of a surprise. He is old school, after all. But the landscape at NHRA has changed immensely over the years. While his comments don’t sound like he’s against Gordon’s opportunity to drive a nitro dragster, the 100th female to win an NHRA race wasn’t in Sonoma to rebut his comments. And it’s not inaccurate to suggest she might do that.
After all, despite Prudhomme’s silence, women have become NHRA champions and Maddi Gordon could join them: Shirley Muldowney has three Top Fuel titles, Angelle Sampey earned three championships on a Pro Stock Motorcycle fielded by Don Schumacher Racing, Erica Enders now owns six Pro Stock championships, Brittany Force has a pair of Top Fuel titles and this past weekend set the fastest speed in Top Fuel history – for any gender – of 3.645 seconds at an astounding 343.16 miles per hour. Her speed at the eighth-mile was 304.94 mph!
On the track, it was good to see Spencer Hyde continue to impress in Jim Head’s Ford Mustang Funny Car. He went to his second final round of the season in Sonoma and gave Austin Prock a good run for the Wally, running 3.956/323.35 to the winner’s 3.904/333.82. To get there, Hyde dispensed with Alexis DeJoria (Dodge Charger), three-time champ Ron Capps’ Toyota GR Supra and the John Force Racing Chevrolet SS of Jack Beckman, who fouled out when he crossed the centerline. Hyde has been consistently quick all season, despite not running a Funny Car until this year. Head wasn’t terribly optimistic about Hyde’s chances this season when racing started; he is now.
Chad and Hunter Green raced as a team this weekend, with Hunter Green’s Dodge Charger running Pronto colors. That sponsorship has usually worked for Blake Alexander, who was on-site but not driving. He did say that Pronto remains a partner of his, but it wasn’t his race weekend, even though Pronto had paid for the body wrap. Both Chad and Hunter Green had good outings in their respective cars, with father Chad running his best speed thus far in his Ford Mustang Funny Car during the first round of eliminations, at 334.65. Chad lost in the first round to Capps and Hunter Green made it to the second round after beating J.R. Todd’s Toyota, where he fell to Jack Beckman.
Beckman raced Jason Rupert in the first round at Sonoma and earned his 500th round win in the process. Rupert, who races on the West Coast exclusively, had been having steering issues with his Ford Mustang Funny Car, but his team was able to fix the problem and, while waiting for track cleanup after Buddy Hull’s big boomer Saturday afternoon, Rupert wanted to show Beckman the changes that had been wrought. This was during qualifying, so there was no reason not to share. This enabled a photographer (unnamed 😈) to get a photo of the two looking inside Rupert’s cockpit…
There was no Mission#2Fast2Tasty Challenge for Pro Stock Motorcycle, which had its own GETTRX Pro Stock Motorcycle All-Star Callout on Saturday, won by Matt Smith for the second year in a row. Last year he beat teammate Jianna Evaristo; this year Richard Gadson, who won the race on Sunday, fouled out at the starting line. Gadson, the No. 1 qualifier for the first time in his two-year Pro Stock Motorcycle career, went on to win the race on Sunday and take his second Wally trophy of the year. In the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge, Brittany Force, Ron Capps and Dallas Glenn were the winners.
There was background talk late in the race weekend about ending this portion of NHRA’s Western Swing and not returning to Sonoma Raceway after 37 events. If crowd size were a determining factor, there would be no such discussion, as fans packed the Wine Country venue all three days and were loudly enthusiastic in their appreciation of NHRA’s straight-line racing. They arrived early; they left late and, as usual, drifted through the pits to listen and smell all nitro warmups all three days. To lose Sonoma as a venue would be a bad move for NHRA; hopefully whatever issues exist between the sanctioning body and the racetrack can be resolved.
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