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NHRA held an action-packed meeting on the Bristol Dragway drag strip in Tennessee this past weekend, combining the weather-affected New England Nationals with the scheduled Thunder Valley Nationals to give racers and fans enough on-track action to last them at least until the tour encamps in Norwalk, OH two weeks from now.<\/p>\n
After weather scotched any opportunities to race in Epping, NH, NHRA elected to have the seventh contest of the year in Top Fuel and Funny Car eliminations during Saturday\u2019s dual qualifying sessions and revert to normal scheduling for Sunday\u2019s Bristol eliminations. That made for a full Saturday of racing in Thunder Valley and gave fans more action than they\u2019ve ever gotten in a single day of straight-line racing, NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series style.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with the Epping contest, won by Justin Ashley\u2019s Maynard Ashley Racing dragster in Top Fuel, beating eight-time Top Fuel champ Tony Schumacher (who also races under the Maynard family\u2019s flag) with a lap of 3.846 seconds at 324.12mph. It was Ashley\u2019s third win of the young season. Bob Tasca III\u2019s Ford Mustang earned the nod in Funny Car, giving the Rhode Island native a first \u201chome\u201d win pretty darn far away from home as he defeated 16-time champ John Force\u2019s Chevrolet Camaro SS, Force appearing in his 265th final round, to earn his first win of the year.<\/p>\n
The competition for New England Nationals glory began on Friday evening and continued through Saturday\u2019s dual qualifying sessions, even as drivers were also attempting to earn upper berth starting positions for Sunday\u2019s Thunder Valley Nationals AND take home the latest Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge in Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle. Those points and money prizes went to Aaron Stanfield\u2019s Elite Motorsports Camaro and, once again Gaige Herrera\u2019s Vance & Hines Suzuki Hayabusa.<\/p>\n
Herrera continued his mastery Saturday afternoon as he earned No. 1 qualifier in the two-wheeled class, joining Tony Stewart Racing\u2019s Leah Pruett in Top Fuel as she earned her 14th No. 1, Robert Hight and his John Force Racing Camaro SS in Funny Car and reigning Pro Stock champion Erica Enders\u2019 Elite Motorsports Camaro, the latter finally looking like the champion she is after a truly tough start to her season. This was her first No. 1 qualifier of the season. It would presage Sunday\u2019s eliminations.<\/p>\n Justin Ashley ended his superb weekend by winning the 22nd Thunder Valley Nationals a second straight time and increasing the points lead he took after winning the 10th New England Nationals a day earlier, along with the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge, where he\u2019s collected $30,000 and nine championship points. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to turn on win lights in this sport, so I just have so much gratitude for my entire team and the work they did to turn this car around, round after round, and make sure it went down the race track,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ashley was the No. 4 qualifier for Sunday\u2019s race and got to the finals by beating Doug Foley, Josh Hart, Austin Prock (without lane choice) and, finally, fellow Toyota driver and friend Antron Brown, the No. 1 qualifier in New England. Ashley\u2019s victory marked Toyota\u2019s 199th NHRA victory and left him in NHRA\u2019s catbird seat, 64 points ahead of four-time champ Steve Torrence. Reigning titleholder Brittany Force is third, followed by her John Force Racing teammate Austin Prock, Antron Brown, Leah Pruett, Mike Salinas, Josh Hart, Doug Kalitta and Shawn Langdon. There\u2019s a 266-point gap from first to tenth.<\/p>\n Bob Tasca III may have driven his Mustang to the Winner\u2019s Circle in Epping at Bristol, but the remainder of his weekend wasn\u2019t the thrill show he had hoped for. When Robert Hight\u2019s primary tuner, Jimmy Prock found the sweet spot for his driver\u2019s Camaro, Tasca ended up with the No. 4 spot, behind Ron Capps and Chad Green. Tasca would be out of the running after a single round, while reigning titleholder and 2022 Bristol winner Ron Capps used his No. 2 qualifier to make it to the finals against a resilient Alexis DeJoria, both of them racing Toyota GR Supra Floppers. Capps got to the finals by defeating Dave Richards\u2019 Mustang, John Force\u2019s Camaro SS and Green\u2019s Mustang.<\/p>\n Capps\u2019 victory and Tony Stewart Racing\u2019s Matt Hagan\u2019s second round defeat in his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, courtesy of Hight, enabled the Californian to take the top spot in Funny Car standings by a miserly 32 points. Hight is third, Green is fourth, followed by DeJoria, Tasca III, Tim Wilkerson, Force, Cruz Pedregon and J.R. Todd of Kalitta Motorsports. With his victory, Capps became the most successful racer at Bristol Dragway, earning his seventh win in Tennessee and first victory of the season and taking over the winningest mantle from Tony Schumacher, who has six wins at this facility. In giving Toyota its 198th win Capps noted, \u201cI was pretty stoked when we pulled up for the final round and all four nitro cars were Toyota teams. While it\u2019s great on Monday morning to see that we\u2019re the points leaders, it doesn\u2019t really count until Sunday at Pomona. We\u2019re just trying to get wins and just get our consistency down, but this is huge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The 2023 season has been a very tough one for Erica Enders, easily her most difficult since the 2016 start of the fuel injection era in Pro Stock. She\u2019s had the kind of poor luck you wouldn\u2019t wish on a flea and has had difficulty just getting her Elite Motorsports Camaro down each drag strip where her class has raced. That all turned around this past weekend and, for Enders and her team, not a moment too soon.<\/p>\n After qualifying No. 1 for the 44th time in her illustrious career and third occasion on Bristol\u2019s dragstrip, Enders advanced to the final round by beating Mason McGaha, Kyle Koretsky and fellow five-time champ Greg Anderson before beating Deric Kramer in the finals with her 6.680\/204.08 lap to Kramer\u2019s 6.727\/197.05, both racing Camaros.While points leader Dallas Glenn of KB Titan Racing fell to teammate Anderson in the second round, he maintained a healthy 139-point advantage on Kramer, followed by Matt Hartford, Troy Coughlin Jr., Aaron Stanfield – who won the Factory Stock Showdown competition – with Anderson sixth and Camrie Caruso seventh. Enders, who wasn\u2019t even in the top 10 after Pro Stock\u2019s most recent race in Joliet, vaulted into eighth place, followed by Cristian Cuadra and Bo Butner III, both Elite Motorsports teammates.<\/p>\n Enders isn\u2019t the only competitor who\u2019s had a tough start to the season. With Gaige Herrera wiping up the Pro Stock Motorcycle class on his Vance & Hines Suzuki Hayabusa, the onus has been on other Suzuki riders to procure the Hayabusa3 bodywork so they might be able to, at least be somewhat competitive. Last year was one of the most competitive for veteran Steve Johnson, who finished fifth in the overall standings, using Monster heads on his Suzuki motorcycle. Johnson came into Bristol with a new body and had hopes of making his way up the points standings from eighth.<\/p>\n Johnson did just that, ruining Herrera\u2019s previously perfect season as he beat Joey Gladstone\u2019s Suzuki Hayabusa, the Vance & Hines Suzuki Hayabusa of Eddie Krawiec with a hole shot, a truly competitive Hector Arana Jr.\u2019s Buell and, finally, taking Herrera out of his perfection zone when the Vance & Hines rider fouled at the line. Although Herrera maintains a 216-point advantage over his teammate, Krawiec, Johnson vaulted into third place and is only eight points out of second, with Arana Jr.\u2019s Buell, Matt Smith\u2019s Suzuki, Angie Smith\u2019s Buell, rookie Chase Van Sant on his WAR Suzuki, Gladstone, Chip Ellis (Buell) and Jianna Evaristo\u2019s Matt Smith Racing Suzuki completing the top 10.<\/p>\n After having two races in one weekend, both the competitors in NHRA\u2019s Camping World Drag Racing Series and every ancillary member of the drag racing community might need a weekend off. They\u2019ve got it! The Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals, where all four Camping World classes convene again at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park at Norwalk, OH is set for June 22-25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NHRA held an action-packed meeting on the Bristol Dragway drag strip in Tennessee this past weekend, combining the weather-affected New England Nationals with the scheduled Thunder Valley Nationals to give racers and fans enough on-track action to last them at least until the tour encamps in Norwalk, OH two weeks from now.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":91244,"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":[3465,3470,5029,3399,22],"tags":[9267,38,9740,2924,7,4801,74,4621,73],"class_list":["post-91241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","category-event-coverage","tag-camping-world-drag-racing-series","tag-funny-car","tag-mission-2fast2tasty-challenge","tag-new-england-nationals","tag-nhra","tag-pro-stock","tag-pro-stock-motorcycle","tag-thunder-valley-nationals","tag-top-fuel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Johnson-with-trophy-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-nJD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91241","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=91241"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91256,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91241\/revisions\/91256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Maynard-Ashley-Racing-team-celebrates-min.jpg\")
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