What Can We Learn from the 65th Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals?
A tale of winners and losers at the 65th annual Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals was only part of the story. And there were many stories in Pomona that don’t get told with a simple explanation of who won and who lost on the track.
Even before competitors began rolling down the quarter-mile and 1,000-foot racetrack, there was excitement in the air. For starters, last Friday was Funny Car veteran Jim Dunn’s 91st birthday. If you don’t think that the regular induction of nitromethane lengthens life on this planet, take a look at Dunn, at Don Garlits, at 103-year-old Ed Iskenderian, who was at the track this weekend. Engine maven Ed Pink is still going strong in his ‘90s; so is The Greek, Chris Karamesines, who was seen at last year’s Route 66 NHRA Nationals outside Chicago (and will likely be there again this May).
Although Dunn’s Dodge Charger Funny Car with driver Buddy Hull didn’t make the field on Sunday, Hull’s quartet of qualifying runs in the 75th anniversary MoonEyes flopper were exciting for fans and definitely dragged them over to the MoonEyes displays when the track was cold. Dunn’s been in the drag racing community for 75 years. Just like MoonEyes.
Another surprise non-qualifier? Bob Tasca III couldn’t get his Ford Mustang to work properly all weekend; not running in the 3-second range meant an early departure from this competition and Tasca’s best wasn’t in the “3s”. Although he’s got some very good crew power backing him, with Aaron Brooks and Todd Okuhara, Tasca doesn’t take well to failure (hey, who does?) and there could be changes in that team’s pits.
Clay Millican’s success is due, in great part to his talent as a driver. You don’t win championships in IHRA by being a complacent competitor and, while Millican is known for his broad smile – even in the face of adversity – he’s a stellar competitor on the track. With Jim Oberhofer and Nicky Boninfante – both castoffs from other teams – turning his wrenches, Millican’s Rick Ware Racing (RWR) team has been more consistent. Both last year and into this season it’s apparent this team is firing on all eight cylinders most of the time.
One has to wonder about Justin Ashley, whose capabilities at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip have been stellar until recently. The New Yorker won three in a row at this historic California track, but he appeared to be hunting and pecking for direction from late last season into this one. Mike Green knows how to tune a dragster; Ashley knows how to drive a dragster. Their inability to mesh, starting during the Countdown to the Championship last year and into this year is a big question mark. This weekend Ashley fell to Josh Hart in the first round of two drivers who both needed to win. It was the Floridian on top – for at least the first round.
OTOH, Jasmine Salinas. While we’d expected dad Mike to be her teammate in every 2025 race he’s elected to put his businesses – and his health – first while Jasmine has decided she needs to go rounds. While she qualified 11th and was pitted against four-time champ Steve Torrence in late-morning Sunday’s first round, it was Salinas who came out on top when Torrence fouled at the start line with a red light. Sure she only made that one round, defeated by Millican in the quarterfinals, but Jasmine Salinas is definitely a racer to watch.
Tony Stewart, the former USAC, INDYCAR, NASCAR champion and resident in just about every Hall of Fame in this sport, has now gone to three final rounds in less than 1-1/2 years in NHRA’s Top Fuel division. Granted, he’s got plenty of racing experience and cut his straight-line teeth in McPhillips’ Top Alcohol Dragster two years ago, but this kind of mastery of a totally different type of racing could likely be accomplished only by someone of Stewart’s caliber. Last weekend, during eliminations he took out three Top Fuel champions: Antron Brown (4 titles) and single-year champions (and Kalitta Motorsports teammates) Doug Kalitta and Shawn Langdon.
In his runner-up performance to winner Clay Millican, Stewart struck his tires at the 200-foot mark, allowing his opponent to drive past, even as Millican’s 11,000-horsepower engine exploded at the 1,000-foot mark. “The day I get upset with losing is the day I retire from racing,” Stewart admitted. “But the team is upset because they want to win! These Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) crew guys have done an awesome job and have been very consistent. Especially this weekend, having three runs on Friday and four today, these guys busted their butts. There were no mistakes. We just want to take this car to Victory Lane very badly,” he said.
Much was expected when Dickie Venables departed Tony Stewart Racing for Kalitta Motorsports. But these changes take time to be effective. Remember, when Alan Johnson joined the Ypsilanti, Michigan-based squad, it took time for Johnson and Doug Kalitta’s team to square away and start winning. They climaxed that success in the 2023 season finale, when Kalitta finally earned his first championship after a quarter-century of trying. Hopefully it won’t take a full season for Venables and Jon Oberhofer to find the right settings for J.R. Todd to be successful again, but the teething pains are there. And they’re visible.
Spencer Hyde’s Pro Mod success helped him get a ride with Jim Head, a man who does more with less than just about anyone out there. Head is smart and knows how to prep a car. Still, Jim Head’s not sure that Spencer Hyde’s Pro Mod success can translate to his nitro Funny Car. They’re very different, he told me. Hyde and Head’s Ford Mustang went to the semifinals this past weekend in only his third Funny Car start. He beat three-time champ Ron Capps’ Toyota GR Supra and Cruz Pedregon’s Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat before being dismissed by eventual runner-up Daniel Wilkerson’s Mustang. Last year Head ran Blake Alexander, always a threat in any nitro class. Will Hyde turn out to be that kind of over-achiever?
Paul Lee’s Cinderella story, wining his first race in 13 years on the same day that crew chief John Medlen lost son Eric nearly 20 years ago, kept the team buoyed through much of the race weekend at Pomona. With Medlen and Jonnie Lindberg (who used to drive Jim Head’s flopper) turning the knobs, the survivor of a widow maker heart attack continues to race well in this tough category. He couldn’t follow up with a second straight victory, but anyone in the pits that doubts Lee won’t visit the Winner’s Circle soon has another thing coming. And Medlen, who retired after Capps earned his third championship and first as a team owner, has finally learned that there is no cure for racing. It didn’t take long, either!
Alexis DeJoria’s segue from driving a Toyota GR Supra with DC Motorsports to helming a Dodge Charger on JCM Racing’s all-female-driving team looks seamless. DeJoria has looked strong in the first three races of the year and, once she and Mike Neff get their views in sync, they should be knocking on victory’s door. Ida Zetterstrom, DeJoria’s part-time teammate, just needs some funding to hit the trail full-time. She’s got at least 10 races planned; it sure would be sweet to see this all-woman team in every race’s pits.
Joining Tasca III in the DNQ file were local racer Jason Rupert (who had Rahn Tobler on hand to help) and Hull in Funny Car, while Chris McGaha, Kenny Delco and Joey Grose failed to start Sunday’s eliminations in Pro Stock.
The top of the door-slammer’s ladder was filled with KB Titan Racing entrants, while Elite Motorsports appears to be treading water at the start of this season. Before we go much farther, though, take a look at Elite’s rather elite group of teammates and realize that they’re going to turn this around. For her fifth and sixth titles, Erica Enders started the year on a similarly iffy basis but came alive when it mattered. Lately, it hasn’t seemed like that’ll happen. After all, it was all KB-affiliated racers in the semifinals: Greg Anderson, Dallas Glenn, Deric Kramer, and Cory Reed.
Speaking of Reed, he’s a graduate of Pro Stock Motocycle who segued to four wheels after his nasty crash in Charlotte’s fall race several years back. Reed had been riding a new-spec Suzuki Hayabusa3 motorcycle with Vance & Hines support. He had a teammate in Joey Gladstone. He still has Gladstone in his pits as he moves up the Pro Stock food chain and also has Joey’s dad helping to get him down the track. They’ve started knocking on the Winner’s Circle door and could make it to the top – if Greg Anderson or Dallas Glenn don’t.
Budwieser’s Clydesdales made dual appearances at the 65th Winternationals on Saturday and race day. So did vintage nitro Funny Cars and NHRA even put on a rolling cacklefest for fans to enjoy. Throughout the race weekend, one that had rather cool temps but, thankfully, few mechanical glitches and zero rainfall to cause more work for the series’ vaunted Safety Safari, there were events to capture any fans’ interests, from discussions on making the teams, understanding the track, technically interesting interviews with drivers and crew chiefs during the weekend.
Pomona is one of several important tracks on NHRA’s annual schedule. It’s joined by Gainesville, which now starts the season, the trio of four-wide events at both Las Vegas and Charlotte, the U.S. Nationals that rival cross-town INDYCAR for their importance and will now be held at a renovated Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, the fall Halloween race in Las Vegas and the finale back at Pomona. Is it right for the Winternationals to be held in springtime, as they have been the past three years? With the weather delays in Florida, the moving of Right Trailers’ All-Star Top Fuel Callout from Gainesville to Pomona, maybe it’s time to move the Winternationals back to winter?