{"id":29286,"date":"2016-08-08T12:32:25","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T19:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=29286"},"modified":"2018-08-16T12:36:14","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T19:36:14","slug":"nhra-protect-the-harvest-nhra-northwest-nationals-experiences-rain-delayed-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/nhra-protect-the-harvest-nhra-northwest-nationals-experiences-rain-delayed-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"NHRA Protect the Harvest NHRA Northwest Nationals Experiences Rain, Delayed Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NHRA<\/h3>\n

Top Fuel and Funny Car Finals Shift to Brainerd, Pro Stock to Indy in Rainy Protect the Harvest Northwest Nationals<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Photos:<\/strong> Courtesy of NHRA<\/p>\n

Just as the build up to the final rounds were approaching at the Protect the Harvest NHRA Northwest Nationals, rain showers returned to Pacific Raceways forcing NHRA officials to compete the nitro classes in Brainerd, Minn., for the Lucas Oil Nationals and the Pro Stock category to be determined at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Labor Day weekend.<\/p>\n

The race had an hour and a half delay by the same pesky showers that roamed in and out of the Puget Sound, but when it stopped, it left incredible track conditions for three rounds of competition before the event was postponed Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

TOP FUEL<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"NHRA<\/p>\n

Steve Torrence and Antron Brown will battle it out at Brainerd International Raceway in two weeks for the Top Fuel Northwest Nationals title delayed by weather at Pacific Raceways.<\/p>\n

Torrence beat Scott Palmer in Sunday\u2019s first round, avenged last week\u2019s loss to Richie Crampton in round two and dispatched of J.R. Todd after running 3.695 seconds in the semifinals to reach the money round for the fifth time this season. \u00a0He is 2-2 in previous finals with wins at Pomona, Calif., and Englishtown, N.J.<\/p>\n

Brown reached trophy round roaring by a tire-slipping Morgan Lucas to record a time of 3.736 seconds, 322.58 mph to make it to his 103rd<\/sup> final round.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty disappointing not to get this thing run today,\u201d Torrence said, \u201cbut no matter when or where we finally run it, we\u2019ve got a team and a hot rod that can win it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torrence will pick his lane against Brown in Brainerd.<\/p>\n

Brown extended his Top Fuel points lead to 100 points over Doug Kalitta after he lost in the opening round of Sunday’s eliminations.\u00a0 A win over Torrence would pad that by 20.<\/p>\n

“It’ll put a little pressure on us (in Brainerd) but it also puts a little more meaning in qualifying which is special,” Brown said.\u00a0 “It doesn’t make a difference who you run, you have to run quick to beat everyone right now.\u00a0 The Capco (Torrence) car has been a strong, dominate force this whole year but we are right there.\u00a0 I think it’s going to be a great show.\u00a0 We’ll see how we can finish this bad boy off.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0FUNNY CAR<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"NHRA<\/p>\n

This one class thrilled the crowd in Seattle with continued record runs every qualifying session.\u00a0 Funny Car finalist, Del Worsham lowered the National elapsed time record three consecutive times over the weekend with the official number finally resting as 3.832 seconds that he secured in the final session to let everyone know, his DHL yella fellas are just warming up for the Countdown.<\/p>\n

“I so wanted to finish what we have started here,\u201d said defending Funny Car champion, Worsham \u00a0The car has been on a rail all weekend, and now we have to go to a different track two weeks from now to finish this event.\u00a0 However, I have the most confidence in my guys and our team.\u00a0 We\u2019ll go to Brainerd planning on scoring the Seattle trophy there.”<\/p>\n

Worsham defeated Matt Hagan in the semi-finals running 3.864 seconds at a booming speed of 330.96 mph to Hagan\u2019s impressive, but losing pass of 3.887 seconds becoming the quickest side-by-side Funny Car race in NHRA history.<\/p>\n

Capps and the NAPA Don Schumacher racing team extended its lead in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series Funny Car standings by advancing to their eighth final round with a chance to win a fifth title in 16 races.<\/p>\n

“I feel bad for the fans that saw three great days of racing before today got hit by a few showers,” Capps said. \u00a0He will arrive at Brainerd with 189-point lead over Courtney Force with two events remaining in the NHRA regular season that ends after the U.S. Nationals near Indianapolis.\u00a0 A win over Worsham would extend Capps’ lead to 209 points.<\/p>\n

In an eerily similar situation resembling Alexis DeJoria\u2019s crash from last week in Sonoma, Courtney Force was desperately trying to recover after smoking her tires in the first round against Jeff Diehl.\u00a0 In her attempt to catch him, she again lost traction slapping with a hard whipping action buckling the left lane wall at 140 mph.\u00a0 She was transported by ambulance to Valley Medical Center in Renton, Wash.\u00a0 \u00a0Force exited the vehicle on her own power and was checked by NHRA emergency services before heading to the hospital to be evaluated for knee and elbow injuries where she was treated and released.<\/p>\n

PRO STOCK<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"NHRA
Aaron Strong<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a rare scene, Washington state race fans had hometown driver, Aaron Strong of nearby Auburn, score his first three round wins of his career before the rains came.\u00a0 In the process, he vanquished a \u2018who\u2019s who\u2019 of Pro Stock racing beating Greg Anderson, Erica Enders and Bo Butner to face off against Vincent Nobile in the money round for the first time of his young career.\u00a0 This finale will take place during the U.S. Nationals in early September.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really exciting to race here but also nerve-wracking because I have so many friends and family out here to watch me,\u201d said a smiling Strong.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m probably the most familiar with this track.\u00a0 I\u2019ve made more passes down it bracket racing over the years, but Pro Stock is a whole different deal.\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t be happier with what we have been able to accomplish here at home, and we hope it continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the second final round Nobile has been to in the last three races. \u00a0He was runner-up to Allen Johnson just two weekends ago in Denver.\u00a0 He was the No. 1 qualifier at Pacific Raceways with a time 6.527 seconds, 211.49 mph.\u00a0 He marched through eliminations with a first round bye; beat Shane Gray in a close race in the quarterfinals before seeing race favorite, Jason Line red light in the semi-finals after line-lock problems.<\/p>\n

NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing will continue in Brainerd, Minnesota, with the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals, August 18-21, at Brainerd International Raceway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bad weather in Seattle pushes some big NHRA finals to Brainerd and Indy.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":29290,"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":[3465,3470,3399,22],"tags":[3815,4771,82,77,79,38,4801,4770,4772,4769,1942,73],"class_list":["post-29286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-nhra","category-event-coverage","tag-2016-nhra-mello-yello-drag-racing-series","tag-aaron-strong","tag-antron-brown","tag-courtney-force","tag-del-worsham","tag-funny-car","tag-pro-stock","tag-protect-the-harvest-northwest-nationals","tag-rain-delays","tag-seattle","tag-steve-torrence","tag-top-fuel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/267-AntronBrown-Sunday-Seattle1_Feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-7Cm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29286","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29295,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29286\/revisions\/29295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}