{"id":106872,"date":"2026-07-28T16:43:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=106872"},"modified":"2026-07-28T16:43:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:43:05","slug":"kalitta-todd-anderson-surge-to-seattle-nhra-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/kalitta-todd-anderson-surge-to-seattle-nhra-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"Kalitta, Todd, Anderson surge to Seattle NHRA wins"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kalitta, Todd, Anderson victorious in Seattle – NHRA photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are now only two races left to determine the winners of NHRA\u2019s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series regular season championships, the participants in its six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs and to crown victors in both the Brainerd and Indy drag racing contests.<\/p>\n

This past weekend, several drivers got their invitations to participate in the Countdown, having elevated themselves and their teams to the stratosphere of contention for a title – or two. As expected, the Kalitta Motorsports Top Fuel duo of reigning titleholder Doug Kalitta and 2012 champ Shawn Langdon have qualified for the Countdown, as has three-time champion Ron Capps, racing his GR Supra in Funny Car. Pro Stock\u2019s KB Titan Racing powerhouse of Greg Anderson, the six-time champ, and reigning titleholder Dallas Glenn have also qualified.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Pro Stock Motorcycle, which hasn\u2019t run since Norwalk and is on hiatus until The Big Go in Indianapolis, reigning champs Richard Gadson and two-time-consecutive titleholder Gaige Herrera placed their Vance & Hines Motorsports Suzuki Hayabusa3 motorcycles into the Countdown, as have Angie and Matt Smith, the latter a six-time titleholder, both riding Matt Smith Racing Buells.<\/p>\n

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Doug Kalitta, winner of the last two races, is only five points behind teammate and Top Fuel leader Shawn Langdon – NHRA photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This past weekend\u2019s 12th race of the 75th anniversary NHRA season, the 37th annual Muckleshoot Casino Resort NHRA Northwest Nationals, held in the greenery of Pacific Raceways, accented the exceptionalism of Kalitta\u2019s three-car entry. While Langdon fell in the first round of play on Sunday against Justin Ashley after losing cylinders and his blower belt, it was Doug Kalitta who had the upper hand – again – over Leah Pruett in the finals. Reenacting their 2024 series final round, the duo matched up well, with Kalitta first out of the blocks and never trailing, and with a tiny 0.0222-sec margin of victory that\u2019s about 11 feet. He earned his third diamond Wally trophy this season and 62nd of his illustrious career.<\/p>\n

Kalitta, winning his second consecutive race, was joined on the Winners Circle stage by his Funny Car teammate, J.R. Todd\u2019s GR Supra flopper, as this duo gave Kalitta Motorsports only its second double-up in the team\u2019s long history. The first occurred in the 2024 season starter at Gainesville, for Langdon and Todd. The win for Kalitta swept this Western Swing, his second win in Seattle and first at this track since 2014. He\u2019s now tied with Larry Dixon for third place on the all-time Top Fuel wins list and 11th all-time in the overall Mission Foods series.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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J.R. Todd and Doug Kalitta delivered Kalitta Motorsports\u2019 second double-up – Kalitta Motorsports photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The always-gracious Kalitta first saluted his teammate: \u201cHats off to J.R.,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just so happy for Connie\u201d (team owner Connie Kalitta, Doug\u2019s uncle). \u201cHe\u2019s given us everything we need and everybody\u2019s pulling together, trying to help one another. Today\u2019s a good result of that.\u201d A relieved Todd, now in his third season working with Dickie Venables and with Todd Smith rejoining the Kalitta team said, \u201cThis has been a long time coming. I think we turned the corner with this GR Supra and it\u2019s time to make some hay on these front-runners. I\u2019ve been wanting one of these [Diamond] Wallys all year long. This is great,\u201d Todd crowed.<\/p>\n

To reach their final rounds, Kalitta advanced over local racer Shawn Reed, Jasmine Salinas and Antron Brown. Pruett defeated Will Smith, Justin Ashley and Josh Hart. In Funny Car, Todd beat Jeff Arend in Jim Dunn\u2019s Charger, Jordan Vandergriff\u2019s John Force Racing Chevrolet SS and Matt Hagan\u2019s Tony Stewart Racing Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat to meet defending titleholder Austin Prock, driving Tasca Racing\u2019s Ford Mustang. The latter driver, whose fortunes appear to be changing for the better, was enraged with himself after leaving .005 sec too soon.<\/p>\n

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J.R. Todd\u2019s GR Supra is running to his satisfaction – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With his win, Kalitta trails Langdon by a scant five points, with Pruett third, a surging Brown fourth, Tony Stewart, Maddi Gordon (out in the first round), Josh Hart, Billy Torrence, Justin Ashley and Clay Millican comprising the Top Fuel top ten. There\u2019s a lag of 618 points from first to tenth, with eight-time champ and Millican teammate Tony Schumacher just 72 points behind Millican in 11th. In Funny Car, despite falling to Friday top qualifier Cruz Pedregon in the first round, Ron Capps retains the top spot, followed by John Force Racing\u2019s Jack Beckman and his Chevrolet SS, Todd, Vandergriff, Hagan, Chad Green\u2019s Charger, Prock, Alexis DeJoria\u2019s Chevy, Spencer Hyde and Daniel Wilkerson\u2019s Mustangs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Daniel Wilkerson won the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge in Funny Car, but is still waiting to earn his first Wally winner\u2019s trophy – NHRA photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As happened a week earlier in Sonoma, the Seattle-area contest had quite a few surprising competition departures, both in qualifying, the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge and in four rounds of eliminations. While Friday qualifying saw Jasmine Salinas, two-time Funny Car champ Cruz Pedregon and Dallas Glenn start the weekend off with quick times, they wouldn\u2019t last. Except for Glenn, who nailed qualifying both days and ended up with the top Pro Stock time and speed before Sunday\u2019s eliminations. On Saturday, it was John Force Racing\u2019s Josh Hart on top of the dragster time sheets, J.R. Todd leading Funny Car and Glenn topping Pro Stock. The Mission #2Fast2Tasty awards went to four-time champ Antron Brown, Funny Car winner-in-waiting Daniel Wilkerson and Greg Stanfield, who is out-performing many of his Elite Motorsports teammates.<\/p>\n

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The addition of John Medlen to Antron Brown\u2019s \u201cbrain trust\u201d is making a big difference – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Sunday the tides turned a bit, with Kalitta, Todd and Greg Anderson earning those diamond Wally trophies. In Anderson\u2019s case, the victory marked his fourth at this tree-laden track but his first since 2010! In earning his third diamond Wally this season, Anderson swept to his 115th Pro Stock win as he regained the top slot in his class. A pair of first-round losses before arriving in Seattle didn\u2019t demoralize the six-time titleholder, but he \u201cdidn\u2019t have a lot of confidence when I came here today,\u201d Anderson admitted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Greg Anderson\u2019s six championships, 115 wins still have him wanting more – NHRA photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe raced a lot better this weekend; my car was definitely better but I could see, as everybody could see, Dallas Glenn had the car to beat, so to get by Dallas and everybody else out here, is really great.\u201d He gave credit to his teammate Glenn and to Stanfield, \u201cwho\u2019s on a roll.\u201d With his long history in the doorslammer class, Anderson knows just how competitive the field he\u2019s facing can be. \u201cIt\u2019s just a cool class right now. It\u2019s going to be a real dogfight and I just feel fortunate to be part of it. I apparently, somehow, took the [points] lead from Dallas today, so that\u2019s pretty damn cool and it just shows what can happen in this class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanfield, going for two in a row, left early and fouled out in his final round against Anderson, leaving 0.008-sec too soon. As the leader eked out an eight-point advantage over Glenn, Elite\u2019s Stanfield isn\u2019t that far behind in third place, followed by KB Titan\u2019s Matt Hartford, Elite\u2019s Erica Enders, a tie between KB Titan\u2019s Matt Latino and Elite\u2019s Aaron Stanfield, Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Troy Coughlin Jr. of Elite and Eric Latino from KB Titan. There\u2019s a 522-point gap between first and tenth places.<\/p>\n

While some competitors plan to compete in the Bader family\u2019s Summit Motorsports Park\u2019s Night Under Fire this upcoming weekend, the next chance to race for points takes place at Brainerd International Raceway in the town of the same name in Minnesota. It\u2019s scheduled for August 20-23 and is the 44th annual NHRA Brainerd Nationals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are now only two races left to determine the winners of NHRA\u2019s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series regular season championships, the participants in its six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs and to crown victors in both the Brainerd and Indy drag racing contests.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":106873,"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":[13459,82,604,8745,511,887,719,4730,9740,9966,7,13460,5473,442],"class_list":["post-106872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","tag-37th-muckleshoot-casino-resort-nhra-northwest-nationals","tag-antron-brown","tag-cruz-pedregon","tag-dallas-glenn","tag-doug-kalitta","tag-greg-anderson","tag-j-r-todd","tag-kalitta-motorsports","tag-mission-2fast2tasty-challenge","tag-mission-foods-drag-racing-series","tag-nhra","tag-northwest-nats","tag-pacific-raceways","tag-ron-capps"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Kalitta-Todd-Anderson-celebrate-e1785282175961.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-rNK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106872","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=106872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106884,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106872\/revisions\/106884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}