{"id":96364,"date":"2024-06-11T16:12:46","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T23:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=96364"},"modified":"2024-06-11T16:13:03","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T23:13:03","slug":"bristol-nhra-backstories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/bristol-nhra-backstories\/","title":{"rendered":"Bristol NHRA Backstories"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tony Schumacher is tipping the Top Fuel scales – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The big stories from NHRA\u2019s 23rd annual Super Grip Thunder Valley Nationals have already been told, but there was so much more to delve into below the surface at this always-anticipated contest. While it\u2019s true there only one winner in each class, one driver or rider who\u2019s quickest in qualifying, there were stories surrounding this particular race that need to be told before the tour alights in Richmond little more than a week from now.<\/p>\n

Two-time Top Fuel champion Brittany Force looked competitive this past weekend and won a round, something she has failed to do in quite a while. From failing to qualify at Joliet in May, through to her first-round departure in Epping, Force and her team have been behind the eight-ball throughout this 2024 20-race season. Her semifinal loss against 2023 Top Fuel titleholder Doug Kalitta showed that crew chiefs David Grubnic and John Collins could be turning the corner when it matters. After all, getting to the Countdown to the Championship that begins after the U.S. Nationals on Labor Day weekend in Indianapolis is the goal.<\/p>\n

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Was Bristol Brittany Force’s turnaround race? Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Force\u2019s dad, John Force, is looking way younger than his 75 yeas, having earned his 157th Funny Car race in Epping. He\u2019s racing well, and his crew chiefs Danny Hood and Chris Cunningham have the car tuned to his liking. It\u2019s been 11 years since Force earned his 16th championship but 2024 looks like a great opportunity, if he and his team can continue their momentum through to the close of this 20-eace campaign. Force has been doing his job on the track and the team has done theirs in the pits. It\u2019s all come together for him thus far. There\u2019s a legion of NHRA fans just chomping at the bit for the Funny Car GOAT to get another title.<\/p>\n

Justin Ashley was looking to continue his dragster dominance in Thunder Valley but it wasn\u2019t meant to be for the New York native. There were weather changes to deal with from qualifying to eliminations and Ashley, the No. 2 qualifier, was racing none ofter than Brittany Force in the first round. While he left well – as usual – and looked to have this race in hand, an engine explosion at the 1,000-foot finish line scotched that round and left Ashley 22 points behind finalist Doug Kalitta, who won in Epping, NH a week before Bristol.<\/p>\n

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Justin Ashley is 22 points behind Doug Kalitta – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The addition of father Billy Torrence to the CAPCO Contractors Top Fuel team that runs son Steve, a four-time consecutive champion, was intended to elevate that squad back to the top of the heap, but so far this year they\u2019re treading water, relatively speaking. While Steve Torrence is going rounds at most races, last weekend he, again, looked human in the water box for his two-round Sunday performance. While Steve Torrence\u2019s mind last weekend had to be on the coming attraction of a second child, being able to make it two rounds was an improvement. Steve Torrence is currently in fourth place; Billy holds eighth-place points.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no shame in losing to John Force. It\u2019s happened to everyone in the Funny Car wars at least one time. Last week it was Daniel Wilkerson\u2019s turn to come out on the L side of the game in the first round of competition. Wilkerson, who suffered an engine explosion during Saturday evening\u2019s qualifying session, had a great run but came up on the wrong side. He was using his backup Ford Mustang because the time involved in repairing the primary car would have taken too long. Racing began early – at 10am\u00a0 <\/span>in order to finish before weather rolled into the Tennessee hills.<\/p>\n

Last year, Steve Johnson was the winner in Thunder Valley, making Gaige Herrera a loser for the first time in 2023. There was no repeat in 2024, but Johnson is readying preparations for a very important moment in his long Pro Stock Motorcycle career. The hirsute Suzuki rider will soon celebrate 500 races run since joining this class 1987; No. 500 occurs at the Sonoma Nationals the end of July and that should be quite the party! After all, Johnson is always animated when he\u2019s happy and there\u2019s no reason for him to be anything but overjoyed when he reaches that milestone, hopefully in the Winner\u2019s Circle – and ruining another day for Herrera.<\/p>\n

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Jasmine Salinas is making strikes in her dad’s dragster – Mark Rebilas photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you haven\u2019t been paying attention to the Salinas girls, open your eyes. Jasmine Salinas is filling in for her fast father, Mike, in Top Fuel during the early part of this season – he intends to return to action at Sonoma\u2019s late-July race, which is close to his East Bay area home near San Francisco. Sonoma is his local track and the first place where Salinas raced as a Top Fuel entry. With Rob Flynn turning the knobs for Jasmine, a rookie in Top Fuel, the driver has been making improvements at every stop and her qualifying attempts are getting better, too.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Jasmine Salinas, as the No. 5 qualifier in Bristol, she had to run Tony Schumacher, who would go on to the finals and earn his 87th visit to the Winner\u2019s Circle. The pair put on a good show, neck and neck down the 1,000-foot track. While Jasmine Salinas made her best run of the event, t wasn\u2019t enough to outpace Schumacher (3.802 to 3.794). \u201cWe earned our way onto the top half of the ladder and even earned some bonus points in qualifying,\u201d she related. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019ve been looking for. I know that if we keep this up, those wins will come.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jianna Evaristo went to her second final round at Bristol – Mark Rebilas photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jasmine\u2019s sister Jianna, who earned her first Pro Stock Motorcycle victory in her rookie season at the 2019 Pomona finale, made it to the final round of last weekend\u2019s race after her solo run in the first round, having her opponent, Chase Van Sant red-light in Round 2 and beating Richard Gadson\u2019s Suzuki in the semifinal round. Riding a Matt Smith Racing Buell for the first time in her career after starting in this class on a Suzuki, Evaristo has been fine-tuning her riding expertise and is finally able to make it down the quarter-mile drag strip without leaning over on the bike. Evaristo has earned her stripes as a member of the Pro Stock Motorcycle community. While she\u2019s sitting ninth in the standings, there\u2019s ample opportunity to move up this food chain before the Countdown sets in after Indy.<\/p>\n

On a weekend when his tuner, Dean \u201cGuido\u201d Antonelli was celebrating a birthday, Ron Capps and his Toyota GR Supra made an about-face on poor luck. After qualifying third, he lost a close second round race to eventual runner-up J.R. Todd\u2019s similar machine. The Kalitta Motorsports driver would prevail in a close race but the qualifying results and Capps\u2019 first-round victory show a rebound for that team.<\/p>\n

As for Todd, running against Austin Prock in the finals gave fans the opportunity to see two drivers who can win in any nitro car, whether it\u2019s got open- or closed wheels. Both Todd and Prock have won NHRA races in Top Fuel and Funny Car, an anomaly the both exploit. Being sufficiently talented to race and win in drag racing\u2019s two top categories is a calling card. Either of these cars are tough enough to drive; to be able to handle both is quite an achievement for any racer.<\/p>\n

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J.R. Todd can wheel any nitro car – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are few big teams left in the nitro ranks of NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series classes: Don Schumacher Racing folded a few years back and its drivers have either started their own teams – Antron Brown and Ron Capps come to mind immediately with teams in Top Fuel and Funny Car, while Tony Stewart Racing took over the cars of Matt Hagan – who rewarded his new team owner with a Funny Car championship in 2023 – and Leah Pruett, who nearly did the same against eventual champ Doug Kalitta last year in Top Fuel. Seeing independent racers – rather than large nitro squads – has been exciting and hearkens to earlier times when most folks owned their own teams.<\/p>\n

Clay Millican delighted his nearly hometown crowds with his exploits in Rick Ware Racing\u2019s Top Fuel car this weekend. Millican, always a crowd favorite, won his first Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge bonus race on Saturday and was the No. 1 qualifier in his class for Sunday\u2019s eliminations. He\u2019ll have the opportunity to win the bonus race again by going to the semifinals last Sunday, where he was defeated by eventual race winner Tony Schumacher in a very tight race (3.795 bet 3.824).<\/p>\n

After this upcoming weekend off, NHRA goes first to Richmond and then on to Norwalk, Ohio, the latter one of the most anticipated races for everyone in the series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The big stories from NHRA\u2019s 23rd annual Super Grip Thunder Valley Nationals have already been told, but there was so much more to delve into below the surface at this always-anticipated contest<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":96370,"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":[10407,3841,38,423,4730,7,74,10195,9632,73],"class_list":["post-96364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","tag-23rd-annual-super-grip-nhra-thunder-valley-nationals","tag-bristol-dragway","tag-funny-car","tag-john-force-racing","tag-kalitta-motorsports","tag-nhra","tag-pro-stock-motorcycle","tag-scag-racing-team","tag-scrappers-racing","tag-top-fuel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Tony-Schumacher-in-car-min-e1718147556748.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-p4g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96364","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=96364"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96376,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96364\/revisions\/96376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}