{"id":101798,"date":"2025-07-29T13:54:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T20:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=101798"},"modified":"2025-07-29T13:54:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T20:54:16","slug":"kalitta-prock-greg-stanfield-gadson-win-in-sonoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/kalitta-prock-greg-stanfield-gadson-win-in-sonoma\/","title":{"rendered":"Kalitta, Prock, Greg Stanfield, Gadson Win in Sonoma"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Doug Kalitta, Austin Prock, Richard Gadson and Greg Stanfield celebrate their victories – NHRA photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 37th annual Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals saw new and returning winners, the end of two rather long droughts – both at this track and in class – resulting in a Winners Circle that stressed family.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Twenty years after his most recent (!) victory at Sonoma Raceway, Doug Kalitta ended his 2025 victory drought and brought home the win for Kalitta Motorsports, bookending Shawn Langdon\u2019s win last weekend in Seattle and giving this team a sweep of NHRA\u2019s two-race Western Swing. With this win, his sixth at the wine country track north of San Francisco, Doug Kalitta now is the most successful Top Fuel racer at a track where he always enjoys racing.<\/p>\n

Qualifying second with his Friday evening burst at 3.661 seconds for 332.84 mph, Kalitta swept by Ron August Jr. and Josh Hart to reach the semifinals, where he had a bye round, due to the 10 dragster competitors on-site. Matched against reigning Top Fuel champion Antron Brown in the final round, Kalitta had the better of his opponent, 3.752\/334.57 to Brown\u2019s traction-challenged 4.067\/229.74.<\/p>\n

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Doug Kalitta races Antron Brown in the final round – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Kalitta has had good results in qualifying and in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge through this regular season, \u201cIt\u2019s been a while since we made it to the finals, so I\u2019m glad we managed to get this win,\u201d he said..\u201dSonoma is actually the first place where I won, so it\u2019s cool to pull it off again today. Going rounds and getting a win will help with confidence; we\u2019re in for the fight and looking forward to it. I just can\u2019t say enough about Alan Johnson and my whole team here.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shawn Langdon continues to lead the standings after Tony Stewart lost in the first round bout, with Justin Ashley, Doug Kalitta, Antron Brown, Brittany Force, Clay Millican, absent Steve Torrence, Josh Hart and injured Shawn Reed completing the top 10 dragsters.<\/p>\n

Another drought ended when the Stanfield family raced in the Pro Stock final round, with Greg Stanfield beating son Aaron to earn his first class victory since the 2011 World Finals. While he\u2019s had success in Factory X, Greg Stanfield\u2019s return to Pro Stock had been somewhat pedestrian until this Sunday. His Elite Motorsports team has had a tough season thus far and Stanfield\u2019s victory is the first for this squad since the second 2024 Las Vegas race in November. Stanfield, the No. 3 qualifier, marched past Elite\u2019s Stephen Bell, KB Titan Racing\u2019s Matt Latino (still subbing for his dad Eric) and six-time champ Greg Anderson to do battle with son Aaron, who arrived at the finals after beating Cory Reed, Cody Coughlin and points leader Dallas Glenn.<\/p>\n

Earning his sixth Pro Stock win in 28 final round appearances, Stanfield admitted, \u201cI\u2019m in shock right now. I can\u2019t believe that just happened and I\u2019m just trying to soak it in,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously this is something we\u2019ve both dreamed about, to be able to race Aaron in the finals. It\u2019s incredible – and then to win! I\u2019m blessed and honored to be able to have this opportunity to race with him. I can\u2019t describe it. To have Aaron in the finals with me makes it even better – a lot of credit goes to him because he tunes my engine!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Greg Stanfield races son Aaron in the Pro Stock final round – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Post-race, Stanfield acknowledged how important the victory is for the Elite squad. \u201cIt was huge for Elite to come out on top here. Elite has been working double overtime to try to get our cars faster, and we\u2019re showing that in qualifying. We just needed to have it show on race day,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m ecstatic right now. I don\u2019t know how I\u2019m sitting here with this trophy, but they picked me to win this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his semifinal result, Dallas Glenn continues to lead the standings over KB Titan teammates Greg Anderson, Matt Hartford, Cory Reed and Eric Latino. Elite\u2019s Aaron Stanfield is sixth, followed by Greg Stanfield, Jeg Coughlin Jr., KB Titan\u2019s Cody Coughlin and Deric Kramer.<\/p>\n

The John Force Racing family experienced both the highest of highs and a few lows, as Brittany Force re-set the world record for Top Fuel during Friday night\u2019s late qualifying session. Blasting down the very cool 1,000-foot track at 3.645 seconds for a world record of 343.16 miles per hour, her speed at the 660-foot mark was an amazing 304.94 mph. That all went to naught on Sunday as Force, the No. 1 qualifier with that Friday night blast, fell to Kalitta Motorsport\u2019s Shawn Langdon in the first round.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Brittany Force owns the NHRA\u2019s Top Fuel record at 343-plus mph – John Force Racing photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Austin Prock and his Chevrolet SS Funny Car came to the JFR rescue as he earned his fifth victory of the season against Jim Head Racing\u2019s Spencer Hyde in a Chevy vs Ford final round. While qualifying fifth in the full field of 16 (plus two), Prock raced past Cruz Pedregon\u2019s Dodge Charger SRT in Prock\u2019s first 340mph run of the season, then took on the Dodge of Paul Lee, finally defeating No. 1 qualifier Matt Hagan, who won last week at Seattle, also in a Dodge to meet Hyde, who earned the semifinal win when Prock\u2019s teammate, Jack Beckman crossed the centerline in a smokefest and was disqualified.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The reigning titleholder, Prock took the lead at the tree and never relinquished it, defeating rookie Hyde, who earned his second final round appearance of the season by beating Alexis DeJoria\u2019s Dodge, Ron Capps\u2019 Toyota GR Supra and Beckman. \u201cThis is huge with the crowd here all weekend long,\u201d Prock said. \u201cIt was outstanding, and I never realized how many fans I had here in Sonoma County. We struggled in qualifying (and struggled in Seattle last weekend), so we had a lot of work to do. We went to work and we had four different setups that we were trying throughout the weekend. We came across something that showed a little potential. You really only have to focus on leaving the starting line, and then keeping it in the groove. So this was a good test for me today.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Austin Prock races Spencer Hyde for the Funny Car win – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Austin Prock continues to rack up those all-important points towards the regular season title, leading Matt Hagan 1020 to 819, a 201-point gap. Jack Beckman lies four points behind the Tony Stewart Racing driver, followed by Ron Capps, Paul Lee, J.R. Todd\u2019s Toyota GR Supra, Daniel Wilkerson, Spencer Hyde and Bob Tasca III in Fords, while Alexis DeJoria\u2019s Dodge completes the top ten..\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals were successful for\u00a0 <\/span>Pro Stock Motorcycle\u2019s Vance and Hines Motorsports as well, as Richard Gadson earned his second victory of the season after taking his first career No. 1 qualifier on Friday night on his Suzuki Hayabusa3.\u00a0 <\/span>A foul in the finals of the GETTRX Pro Stock All-Star Motorcycle Callout on Saturday afternoon gave that victory – for the second straight year – to Matt Smith\u2019s Buell, but Smith was gone by Sunday\u2019s semifinals, giving up the win to teammate John Hall, who met Gadson in the final round. The duo had a fierce battle down the quarter-mile; Gadson prevailed at 6.756199.97 to Hall\u2019s 6.807\/196.04.<\/p>\n

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Richard Gadson at the hit – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis is all about getting right back after it, following that red light. I probably couldn\u2019t think of a better way to do it than how this day turned out,\u201d Gadson remarked in the Winners Circle. \u201cNormally, when something like that happens, you\u2019ve got to sit on it for a week or however long until the next race. Luckily for me, I got to go back out the next day and try it again. Today, revenge was on my mind. We all find our motivators from different things, and that\u2019s the kind of guy I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaige Herrera continues to lead Pro Stock Motorcycle\u2019s top 10, followed by Gadson, Matt Smith, John Hall, Angie Smith on their Buells, Chase Van Sant\u2019s WAR Suzuki, Jianna Evaristo\u2019s Buell, Chris Bostick\u2019s and Steve Johnson\u2019s Suzukis, with Marc Ingwersen\u2019s Buell in tenth place.<\/p>\n

NHRA, after a busy June and July, takes a few weeks off before heading for Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota, site of the 43rd Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals August 14-17 and the penultimate regular season race of the 20-contest 2025 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 37th annual Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals saw new and returning winners, the end of two rather long droughts – both at this track and in class – resulting in a Winners Circle that stressed family.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":101803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,5029],"tags":[12370,10591,9740,9966,7,862],"class_list":["post-101798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","tag-37th-denso-nhra-sonoma-nationals","tag-gettrx-pro-stock-motorcycle-all-star-callout","tag-mission-2fast2tasty-challenge","tag-mission-foods-drag-racing-series","tag-nhra","tag-sonoma-raceway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Kalitta-Prock-Gadson-Stanfield-min-e1753822443996.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-qtU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101798"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101808,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101798\/revisions\/101808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}