{"id":87761,"date":"2022-10-17T16:22:26","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T23:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=87761"},"modified":"2022-10-19T07:15:29","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T14:15:29","slug":"nhra-fallnationals-prove-everything-is-bigger-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/nhra-fallnationals-prove-everything-is-bigger-in-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"NHRA FallNationals Prove Everything is Bigger in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Ron Capps, Hector Arana Jr., Erica Enders and Justin Ashley celebrate their victories – NHRA photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The uniqueness of drag racing, particularly the NHRA\u2019s Camping World Drag Racing Series, can\u2019t be understated. Whoever leads the standings at the close of the regular season gets a 20-point advantage heading into the six-contest playoffs, but has to perform equally well over the half-dozen races that comprise the Countdown to the Championship.<\/p>\n

There are opportunities galore among those that qualify for the Countdown, and similar chances to upset the apple cart for the racers who didn\u2019t make that cut. This past weekend\u2019s culmination of Texas Motorplex\u2019s Stampede of Speed, the 37th NHRA FallNationals was a prime example of Yogi Berra\u2019s theory that, \u201cIt ain\u2019t over \u2019til it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the start of this Countdown, John Force Racing\u2019s Brittany Force was the class of her Top Fuel field; the 2017 champion who owns the top 10 speed records in her class, led the series into Reading looking for her second championship. This weekend her David Grubnic and Mac Savage-tuned rail was heading for the trailer after the second round, despite again turning some monumental speeds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Justin Ashley, in his third year of competition and, like Force a former Rookie of the Year, stretched his advantage over Force to 82 points with his Texas victory over No. 1 qualifier and Force\u2019s teammate Austin Prock. Antron Brown got as far as the semifinals and is two points behind Force, while Steve Torrence\u2019s bid for a fifth straight title got hammered when he fell to Shawn Langdon in the first round, leaving him in fourth place, having to make up 96 points.<\/p>\n

There were other issues for those that were looking to move up the Top Fuel ladder, like Mike Salinas, whose first-round foul to Spencer Massey moved the Californian to fifth place (-118), while Josh Hart has quietly moved forward with his quarterfinal result in Texas (-147), as has Prock, up to seventh place and needing 160 points to match Ashley\u2019s total. Kalitta Motorsports teammates Doug Kalitta and Langdon are eighth and ninth, Clay Millican is in 10th, with Leah Pruett and Tony Schumacher the final Countdown-eligible racers. The eight-time champ, Schumacher is now 273 points behind Ashley.<\/p>\n

\"Justin
Justin Ashley’s great season continues. Photo: Courtesy of NHRA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New Yorker Ashley, who has three final-round appearances in this six-race Countdown, used four sub-3.7-second laps to earn his victory. \u201cIt was really a great weekend,\u201d he said. \u201cAny time you can go out there and turn on four win-lights on race day, it is great. There are only two more races after this and we know the past history has shown that, if you win Dallas, you really put yourself in position to go after that championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Stampede of Speed began, regular season points leader Robert Hight\u2019s John Force Racing Camaro SS had a 46 point advantage on two-time champ Ron Capps. The reigning Funny Car titleholder took his Toyota GR Supra to the Winner\u2019s Circle for a second straight year and now the new team owner\/driver has a 10-point gap to Hight, whom he beat in the semis. Matt Hagan was Capps\u2019 combatant in Sunday\u2019s finals, which had been delayed by weather, and now Tony Stewart Racing\u2019s Flopper runner has his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat in third place, but lags by 78 points to Hight. The estimable John Force\u2019s Camaro took him to the quarterfinals and left him in fourth place, albeit 137 points behind his company president.<\/p>\n

Bob Tasca III and his Ford Mustang retain fifth place points but his gap, too, grew after his semifinal loss to Hagan; he is now 174 points in arrears. Tim Wilkerson has moved up to sixth place with his Mustang, while Alexis DeJoria is seventh and J.R. Todd is eighth, both racing Toyota GR Supra Floppers. Cruz Pedregon, Blake Alexander and Jim Campbell, in 11th are the remaining Countdown entries, but are in a different county from the leaders.<\/p>\n

\"Ron
Ron Capps celebrates his big win in Texas. Photo: Courtesy of Auto Imagery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Capps\u2019 road to the finals had him beating Jeff Diehl, John Force and Robert Hight to meet Hagan in the finals, where he squeaked out a win at 3.911\/327.18 to the Virginian\u2019s 3.923\/331.32. After qualifying third, he landed three 3.8-sec runs down the 1,000-foot drag strip before the final round, his fifth in the last six races. Knowing that points-and-a-half are on offer at the season finale in Pomona Capps said, \u201cIf we can leave Vegas in the position we\u2019re in right now, or even gain a little bit, that\u2019d be huge. It\u2019s shaping up to another year like last year. We never left the [championship] conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Erica Enders doesn\u2019t win her fifth championship in Pro Stock this year, it will be a total shock, as the Texan earned her ninth win of the 22-race 2022 season and her second in her home state, beating arch-rival and reigning Pro Stock champ Greg Anderson of KB Racing with a 6.537 pass at 209.63 mph to Anderson\u2019s 6.547\/208.74.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Erica Enders did the Texas Two-Step, winning at Houston and Dallas. Photo: Courtesy of NHRA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This result gives her the opportunity to win it all at Las Vegas in two weeks time, holding a 163-point advantage over Elite Motorsports teammate Aaron Stanfield, defeated by Anderson in the semis. Anderson remains in third place, while Elite\u2019s Troy Coughlin Jr. is fourth, Kyle Koretsky holds fifth place points, and Matt Hartford, Dallas Glenn, Mason McGaha, Bo Butner and Camrie Caruso, the latter driver discovering the difficulties of running consistently in this class close out the top 10.<\/p>\n

Enders entered race day as the No. 1 qualifier – for the fifth time this season – and won a $7,500 cash bonus from Texas Motorplex for her Friday night pass of 6.524-sec at 210.53 mph. \u201cI\u2019ve got the best crew that stands behind me. Coming in on Friday, we had high hopes for the weekend,\u201d Enders admitted. \u201cGoing on to win the race today was icing on the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making only his fifth race start in Pro Stock Motorcycle this season, Hector Arana Jr., the first rider to hit the 200mph mark at Gainesville in 2018, took his Buell to the Winner\u2019s Circle on Sunday, leaving behind a trail of disappointed championship hopes for every rider he faced. He began by taking out the Matt Smith Racing Suzuki of Chip Ellis, then powering past the Buell of Angie Smith, who joined husband Matt on the trailer after both had issues against Arana Jr. In the final round, Arana faced former champ Jerry Savoie\u2019s Suzuki and the duo had a good side-by-side run with Arana overcoming a slower reaction time to take the win, 6.833\/196.35 to Savoie\u2019s 6.890\/193.03.<\/p>\n

Despite his semifinal run, Matt Smith remains in first place with 51 points over Joey Gladstone\u2019s Reed Motorsports Suzuki, followed by Savoie in third (-103), Steve Johnson fourth and 118 points back on his Suzuki, Angie Smith a point behind semifinalist Steve Johnson, while Eddie Krawiec and Angelle Sampey\u2019s Vance & Hines Suzukis hold sixth and seventh place points respectively. Marc Ingwersen\u2019s Buell is eighth, Karen Stoffer\u2019s in ninth with her White Alligator Racing Suzuki out of the Savoie stables, and Ryan Oehler retains tenth-place points, one behind Stoffer but definitely out of championship contention.<\/p>\n

\"Hector
Hector Arana Jr. relishes his first Pro Stock Motorcycle victory since 2019. Photo: Courtesy of NHRA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earning his firs win sine 2019, Arana – and his family – are in this sport for the love of it and it shows. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to make the best of it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just have such a passion for it. It\u2019s been so long, and we love being out here with all the fans, and to bring home a Wally, is the icing on the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the nitro classes, this was another big weekend for Toyota, who doubled up with Ashley in Top Fuel and Capps\u2019 Funny Car victorious. The upcoming two final races, with the NHRA Nevada Nationals on Halloween weekend and the Auto Club NHRA Finals two weeks later, set the stage for an exciting end to the 2022 season for all four Camping World categories.<\/p>\n

NHRA\u2019s FuelTech NHRA Pro Mod Series\u2019 first-time champion was crowned at Texas as Kris Thorne earned the title on Saturday after the first two rounds of competition and then closed his impressive season with victory on Sunday in his ProCharger-powered Camaro. He earned his fourth win of the year with the quickest round of the weekend: 5.720-sec and 250.24 mph. \u201cI would have never dreamed this,\u201d Thorne said, \u201cbut I\u2019ve got the best guys in the world. They bailed me out so many times and every time we rolled up to the beams, I tried to give it everything I had.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This past weekend\u2019s culmination of Texas Motorplex\u2019s Stampede of Speed, the 37th NHRA FallNationals was a prime example of Yogi Berra\u2019s theory that, \u201cIt ain\u2019t over \u2019til it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":87756,"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":[3448,3470,5029,3399,22],"tags":[9322,9267,846,9277,7,9320,8642,6695,9321],"class_list":["post-87761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-race-101","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","category-event-coverage","tag-buell","tag-camping-world-drag-racing-series","tag-chevrolet-camaro","tag-fueltech-pro-mod-drag-racing-series","tag-nhra","tag-nhra-texas-fallnationals","tag-stampede-of-speed","tag-suzuki","tag-toyota-gr-supra"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/NHRA-Texas-FallNationals-Winners-Circle.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-mPv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87761","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=87761"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87778,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87761\/revisions\/87778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}