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NHRA\u2019s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Countdown to the Championship will look different in 2025, as the fall race on Charlotte\u2019s zMAX Dragway becomes a four-wide contest, making for three races next year that have combatants racing four across. As is customary, early in the season Las Vegas will contest its four-wide race, followed by the 4-Wide spring contest at zMAX Dragway.<\/p>\n
For the first time, challengers in Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle will need to show their proficiency at this very different type of side-by-side racing. The revamped NHRA 4Wide Carolina Nationals are scheduled for September 1921, 2025 at what is considered the Bellagio of Dragstrips, zMAX Dragway.<\/p>\n
As the second of six total Countdown contests and the 16th of 20 races during the 2025 Mission Foods Drag Racing season, the race in Charlotte has been two-wide since the dragstrip began holding a pair of NHRA races each year. Greg Walter, president and general manager at Charlotte Motor Speedway remarked, as he announced this revamping of the fall race at the Performance Racing Industry show, \u201cCreating remarkable events is at the core of what we strive to do every day, and a four-wide Countdown race is the next in a long line of firsts we\u2019re proud to be part of in motorsports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen the popularity of four-wide racing with fans for years at our spring event,\u201d Walter continued, \u201cbut with championship implications on the line, next year\u2019s showcase of speed promises to be our best yet.\u201d zMAX Dragway was the first purpose-built four-lane dragstrip. The four-across track debuted in 2010 at its spring race and has been a fan favorite ever since, packing this very large facility every year during the early-season race.<\/p>\n
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Bringing four-wide racing to NHRA\u2019s Countdown to the Championship will bring more stress to the drivers and crew chiefs as they strive to succeed in the Countdown, which begins with three races in a row: Reading, Charlotte and St. Louis. Last year\u2019s Carolina Nationals winners were eventual champions Antron Brown in Top Fuel and Austin Prock in Funny Car. They were joined by Dallas Glenn in Pro Stock and Matt Smith in Pro Stock Motorcycle, who placed second in their respective classes.<\/p>\n
zMAX Dragway and its four-wide races have provided some exquisite side-by-side-by-side-by-side contests in the spring action and in 2025, the spring race, April 25-27 will feature the 1,000th race in Top Fuel. \u201cI think it\u2019s positive,\u201d said 2023 Top Fuel titleholder Doug Kalitta. \u201cYou have to go as many rounds as you can in those six [Countdown] races, no matter what, and I think it\u2019ll be good. \u201cIf it helps the attendance, that\u2019ll be a double bonus, and I\u2019m totally down with it. People can be pretty opinionated about the four-wide races,\u201d he acknowledged, \u201cbut Bruton Smith stepped up like he did his whole life building the beautiful facilities, trying to grow the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf somebody\u2019s willing to spend the money to build a four-wide track to try to improve the sport, I\u2019m definitely down with supporting people and efforts like that. I like the four-wide,\u201d the veteran Top Fuel ace said, \u201cand I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be a problem. Just like with NASCAR and what they do with the road courses and the (Charlotte) Roval, we\u2019re mixing it up. I\u2019m for doing whatever it takes to promote our sport and get the most fans at the events.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the biggest names in the sport have great four-wide success, including two Top Fuel four-time champions, Brown and Steve Torrence. Torrence has a quartet of four-wide wins in Charlotte (and six overall), while Brown has earned two four-wide victories and six overall at the Dragway. Funny Car legend John Force won the first four-wide event in 2010 and also the most recent this past spring. Ron Capps and Jack Beckman have also won twice at the biggest spectacle in drag racing.<\/p>\n In Pro Stock reigning, six-time world champion Greg Anderson has three four-wide wins at zMAX Dragway, including this year, while reigning two-time-consecutive Pro Stock Motorcycle champ Gaige Herrera won the spring four-wide race the past two seasons at Charlotte.<\/p>\n Glen Cromwell, NHRA president understands the excitement this new format can provide: \u201cWe\u2019re excited to team up with the incredible team at zMAX Dragway and have our first-ever four-wide drag racing in the Countdown to the Championship. We wanted to try something different for our fall race in Charlotte and this marks a thrilling new challenge that will be full of playoff intensity. It\u2019s one we think our fans will be eager to see next fall.\u201d<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How will the 4-Wide race change the championship?<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":99172,"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":[10333,1259,9966,7,800],"class_list":["post-99171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","tag-charlotte-nhra-4-wide-nationals","tag-countdown-to-the-championship","tag-mission-foods-drag-racing-series","tag-nhra","tag-zmax-dragway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Four-wide-2-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-pNx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99171","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=99171"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99182,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99171\/revisions\/99182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Funny-Car-4-wide-action-min-300x200.jpg\")