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SUNDAY NOTEBOOK FINAL – NHRA GATORNATIONALS EDITION
1 – MOVE, GET OUT THE WAY! – Chad Green’s most crucial victory Sunday was in not running over someone as his tow vehicle blazed a path through the pits and the staging lanes en route to his semifinal match against Matt Hagan. Beating the multi-time champion to the finish line minutes later was just a bonus.
Winning the event? Priceless.
Green drove away to victory early when Ron Capps struck the tires. Green went 3.921 seconds at 329.18 mph in his Bond-Coat Ford Mustang to score the victory.
“This race is so special,” Green said. “I mean, it’s the Gatornats. So much historical things have happened at this race for so many years, and I was saying in my [top end] interview, my very first race down the racetrack in an official race car was here at this track. So it means a lot to me, and I’ve always said it’s so important to start off the year, especially the first race to do good or you’re behind the eight-ball, and this just takes the cake right here. I mean, start off with No. 1. That’s really awesome. I’m so excited.”
For the first time in his career, Green leads the NHRA Funny Car points. It was a milestone victory he admits was made possible by his team’s refusal to quit, especially when his Funny Car kicked a rod in the second round against Buddy Hull, and was faced with an abbreviated turn-around time to beat incoming weather.
With the horn blaring and the car with Green already strapped in, he refused to let the nerves get the better of him. Oh, did we forget there were crewmembers hanging off the car still getting it ready and a golf cart by Alexis DeJoria’s team that almost bit the bullet for nothing more than being on the tracks when a train was coming?
“That was nerve-wracking,” Green admitted. “Let me tell you, we threw a rod out on the run before, so we had to do a complete motor swap, and it was just tight. For example, when we had our second crew from next door coming over to help us, I had to just jump in the car and go 90 miles an hour to the water box. But when I got there, everything was calm, everything was good, I felt good, and we made a monster run that was really a monster run.”
In the end, Green credited crew chiefs Dean Marinis and Joe Serena.
“I can’t be more proud of those two guys,” Green said. “Dean’s been with me forever, since back in my Pro Mod days. He was on my Pro Mod crew team. I told him to come with me to the Funny Cars. He wasn’t a Funny Car guy. He’s like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing over here. I don’t know how this is going to go.’
“I was like, ‘Come on, buddy, just come stick with me.’ And he did. This is our sixth year now, and Dean has grown so much as a crew chief for these Funny Cars. And Joe, he’s been with me the same ever since I’ve been driving Funny Cars. … They really have stepped up. I had all the faith in the world that they could do it, and they just proved today they’re champs.”
2 – ANTRON’S FABULOUS FIRST-ROUND DAY – If Antron Brown has heard it once, he’s heard it a million times: It’s impossible to win a race without winning the first round. The reigning NHRA Top Fuel champion would like to have a chat with the one responsible for coming up with the phrase because Sunday in Gainesville was like no other first round he’s been a part of.
In six pairs, tire smoke affected all of the matches. Only one driver, Tony Stewart, made it to the finish line under power, and the rest proved entertaining. There were four lane swaps and one crash. And eventually, Mother Nature provided a bit of mercy when it started raining.
For the record, likely in the history of drag racing, never have so many drag racers cheered for liquid sunshine.
“You got to remember, when we get in the cars, we’re like gladiators,” Brown explained. “We don’t know any better. We’re just the nuts behind the steering wheel, the loose nuts. They got to tighten us up every once in a while.
“So when we go up there, I’m just looking at it through my past experience and going, ‘Alright. The track is weak.’
“When I did my burnout, I saw all the bald spots. I saw bare concrete. Rubber’s coming right off the racetrack. And I’m like, ‘Alright, well, should I leave with my hand on the brake?’
“That’s what I’m telling myself. But I didn’t. I was like, ‘No, I better not do that because they might slow it down too much and do some different stuff.’ And then I said, “Alright, I just got to be ready for it.’
“So, as soon as I hit the gas pedal, I was ready for any rattle that I felt. You didn’t even see smoke come off my tires. I felt a rattle before it spun. And as soon as I felt that rattle, this was one of those things in your mindset where you went, ‘Alright, what do you do?’”
Patience turned into his long-lost friend as he admitted to rolling into the throttle off of the starting line and worrying about popping the supercharger when he heard opponent Krista Baldwin having a time in the other lane.
The track came around after the weather delay, and it was business as usual when Brown beat Clay Millican, Steve Torrence, and then Shawn Langdon in the final round. It was his second career victory at Gainesville Raceway.
“We can race with anybody on race day, especially when it gets warm, hot, tricky,” Brown said. “It gets good, we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot, we’re very methodical at racing. That’s what Brian Corradi is. Brad [Mason] is at the helm, where he’s been working. And then this offseason, our main game plan was that we needed to pick our package up where we could run and qualify No. 1, like we did this race, go out there, and drop low ET in the final round like we just did.
“We just want to let people know that we’re here to play. We’re very competitive, and we want to have a shot. And when you’re making a run like that in the final, and you have to be on time. Justin Ashley has picked the whole class up like that, where .030s and .040s are going to become the norm.”
3- I GOT HIM THIS TIME – It’s no coincidence that beating Greg Anderson led to Dallas Glenn’s 14th career NHRA Pro Stock victory. From Day One of the weather-plagued NHRA season-opener, Anderson had established himself as the driver to beat.
“Looking throughout the rounds, I don’t feel like I always had the best car, but I had a very good car, and they were just kind of picking away at it, picking away at it, trying to get it to run,” Glenn said. “We laid down a really good lap there in the semis against Corey Reed, and he’s got one pretty bad hot rod right now. I probably got lucky that round that he pushed it just a little too hard against me. But to go up there in the final, we wanted to go up there and try to throw one down, and Greg got a little bit more aggressive than mine did.”
Anderson was part of an aggressive quartet of Pro Stockers that claimed the top four qualifying positions.
Anderson has had Glenn’s number in the final round more times than not. Knowing this, Glenn said one of his strengths has been staying out of his own head and focusing on the task at hand.
“It’s like I’ve got a lot of runs in the car now I know what I need to do,” Glenn said. ‘I know I can beat Greg even though I hadn’t done it in a final. I’ve beaten him before, and then you go look, even when he set the national record there Friday night, I still got the win light, so I can still hold that over him.”
4- GAIGEVILLE RACEWAY – Gaige Herrera continued his dominance at Gainesville Raceway, winning his third consecutive Gatornationals with a run of 6.722 seconds at 200.23 mph. The back-to-back defending world champion defeated rival Matt Smith to extend his unbeaten streak at the facility.
This victory marked Herrera’s 22nd win since the start of the 2023 season, a remarkable run that began with his first career win in Gainesville. He advanced to the final by defeating Geno Scali, Kelly Clontz, and Chase Van Sant before facing Smith.
“This was a good day for me and a great day for Vance & Hines,” Herrera said. “We made three straight runs that were 6.76, and I’m amazed that Andrew [Hines] can do that. I didn’t expect a 6.72.”
Smith finished the final round in 6.723 seconds at 203.19 mph, marking his 82nd appearance in a championship round. Earlier, he defeated Lance Bonham, John Hall, and his wife, Angie, to reach the final.
5 – ANGELLE DISQUALIFIED – Getting disqualified is a disheartening experience. However, the loss is magnified when that disqualification comes on a run where you would have had a single.
During a pre-run check in the staging lanes, Angelle Sampey was disqualified in the first round when her A/Fuel Dragster measured a temperature lower than the NHRA’s 50-degree rule. Because cooler nitro can create more oxygen and lead to more power, the NHRA adheres strictly to its rule with no margin of error. For instance, if a reading comes up 49.9 degrees, the run is tossed, or if it comes in eliminations, the driver is disqualified.
Sampey was to race Dan Dietrich, but he could not make the first-round call.
6 – THE TOP FUEL ROUND FROM HELL – In the first six races, four of those races featured lane swaps. And in the end, it didn’t make a difference.
The first pair with Clay Millican and Josh Hart presented bountiful amounts of smoke. Tony Stewart ran a 3.72 in the first round in the right lane while Brittany Force smoked the tires. Watching what transpired ahead of him, Shawn Langdon made a lane swap and took the right lane against Justin Ashley – but both smoked the tires. Antron Brown swapped lanes into the left lane, and once again, a double-smoker that Brown went on to win. The next race, same thing – smoke on both sides.
“I have my personal thoughts on this thing,” said Matco Tool Top Fuel crew chief Brian Corradi. “This could have been avoided by starting on this thing and dragging earlier and putting down some rubber because they know how to do it. I don’t know what you want to call that, but I have a name.”
Shawn Langdon said in a top-end interview that he saw rubber peeling up from the track.
Following Langdon’s interview, in the next pair, Trip Tatum lost control of his dragster and crashed into both walls. The car continued down track with the engine still under fire, but eventually came to a stop in the shutdown area. Tatum exited the car under his own power and no apparent injuries were reported.
Then, almost as if in a merciful move, the rain started to fall.
7 – BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! – NHRA’s Safety Safari went to work on the much-maligned racing surface, not only drying it, but adding rubber to some of the bald spots caused by two days of rain.
Just moments before the race was to resume at 1:30 p.m., Alachua County’s power grid servicing Gainesville Raceway suffered a power failure, per an NHRA spokesperson. The power outage made the tower go dark in addition to the track’s timing system. Racing resumed 30 minutes later with a conclusion not as challenging as the first round.
8 – TOP FUEL MUD-FLAPS OPTIONAL? – Racers commonly refer to the canards on the side of Top Fuel dragsters as mud flaps. After this weekend, they will be called something else – optional.
NHRA notified its Top Fuel teams that the canards are not required equipment. There’s a good reason, according to a top crew chief, because the canards have very little influence on the car.
One outfit might beg to differ, though, as Brittany Force’s Top Fuel team, in a pre-Gatornationals test run recorded a 302-mile per hour run to the eighth-mile, with a 2.936 elapsed time. The canards were reportedly not attached for the run.
9 – PRO MODIFIED TABLED FOR THE WEEKEND – Eliminations in the Congruity NHRA Pro Mod Series, originally scheduled for the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals, have been moved to the Gerber Collision & Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals in Chicago. This change is due to time constraints Sunday at Gainesville Raceway.
The first two rounds of eliminations will occur during the initial two qualifying sessions Friday, May 16. The semifinals and final round will take place during the third and fourth qualifying sessions Saturday, May 17.
The Congruity NHRA Pro Mod Series is set to resume action March 21-23 at the NHRA Arizona Nationals, held at Firebird Motorsports Park near Phoenix.
10 – YES, THEY SAID IT – Drag racers sometimes say the darndest things, and at the season-opening NHRA Gatornationals, they had plenty to say Sunday.
“I want to thank every one of these Gainesville fans for coming out at the butt-crack of the morning and then staying through all of this rain and stuff. I appreciate you guys very much. We are out here to put on a show for y’all. Thank you guys for that. We’re going to get this thing turned around and go some rounds with this CAPCO dragster. It’s hard when you are fighting the organization.” – Steve Torrence.
“We took the high road. The ready line is back there; [Matt Smith] should have had his stuff ready. But we took a chance at the tree.” – Vance & Hines crew chief Andrew Hines on waiting for his team’s rival to fix an issue on his bike.
“Well, it’s not an ideal situation…” – Shawn Langdon, when asked what it was like to have a driver put a holeshot on them like Justin Ashley did in their first-round match.
“Even though he’s an old guy, he’s still got it.” – Pro Stock winner Dallas Glenn on beating teammate Greg Anderson in the final round.
“These are the kind of days I wish I was driving.” – Del Worsham on driver Bobby Bode getting his first round win in the DC Motorsports Funny Car.
“I want to say it to the fans: I’m very disappointed with Fox Sports. All winter I got to hear, ‘The fastest motorsports in the world,’ and I looked up and I didn’t see the PPG Mustang. And I didn’t see (Austin) Prock’s car, I saw an IndyCar. And the fact is that we are the fastest motorsport in racing. And I think it’s an insult to the drivers and the fans. And truthfully, I didn’t think Fox was the Fake News Network.” – Bob Tasca discussing IndyCar’s ad campaign on Fox Sports proclaiming it’s the fastest motorsport in the world.
SATURDAY NOTEBOOK – WELL, THEY DO CALL IT RAINESVILLE FOR A REASON
1 – MOTHER NATURE 1, DRAG RACING 0 – NHRA should have just remained on its traditional third-weekend-of-the-month schedule. Apparently, Mother Nature agrees.
Weather conditions prompted the cancellation of racing Saturday during the 56th annual NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway.
Eliminations will begin at 9:30 a.m. Sunday for the first event of the 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series. Gates will open at 7:30 a.m., and tickets from Saturday can be exchanged for Sunday admission or applied toward next year’s event.
2 – FIELDS ARE SET – Antron Brown (Top Fuel), Jack Beckman (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock), and Gaige Herrera (Pro Stock Motorcycle) qualified No. 1 based on Friday’s results.
Brown claimed his 51st career No. 1 qualifier with a run of 3.685 seconds at 334.24 mph in his Matco Tools dragster.
“That’s something we’ve been shooting for, for a while – to be a No. 1 qualifier,” said Brown, who most recently started from the top of the elimination ladder during the 2023 Epping, N.H., event. “We used to do it quite often, but the competition got so steep and tough where we qualified the way we race. And now, we’ve picked up the pace and picked up the tone. We went out to the PRO Superstar Shootout preseason event this year and felt really good to be the No. 1 qualifier there and run a low 3.60, and then to come out here and have the same pace and be the No. 1 qualifier is where we need to be. A bummer we weren’t able to do the All-Star Callout. We feel bad for the fans, but you can’t control Mother Nature. With that being said, we’ll get ready for tomorrow.”
Beckman secured the top spot in Funny Car with a time of 3.832 seconds at 334.65 mph in his PEAK Chevrolet Camaro SS.
Greg Anderson made NHRA history Friday with a world-record run of 6.443 seconds at 212.06 mph in his HendrickCars.com Camaro, marking his 133rd career No. 1 qualifier.
“I’m excited for tomorrow,” said Anderson. “My HendrickCars.com Chevrolet is fully prepared to go the distance, and even though we only had two runs on Friday before the field was set, what we saw was proof enough for me that we can get it done here tomorrow and start the season with a trophy. I’m looking forward to getting back here in the morning and getting to work.”
Herrera rounded out the top qualifiers with a run of 6.670 seconds at 202.97 mph on his RevZilla/Mission Foods/Vance & Hines Suzuki.
3 – TOP FUEL ALL-STAR CALLOUT MOVED TO POMONA – Due to inclement weather at Gainesville Raceway, NHRA officials were left with no choice but to move the race-within-a-race to the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals set for March 27-30 at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip.
Selections for the event made Friday in Gainesville will carry over to Pomona, California. Top seed Steve Torrence will face Tony Stewart in the opening round, while Doug Kalitta will compete against Clay Millican. Shawn Langdon will race defending world champion Antron Brown, and Justin Ashley will take on Brittany Force in the final first-round matchup.
4 – WELCOME TO THE SHOW, ROOKIE – Pro Modified racer turned nitro Funny Car rookie Spencer Hyde was one of the two drivers who missed the cut for the Funny Car field. He faced a mountain of challenges, including two lost qualifying sessions when Saturday’s action got washed out.
Hyde, in his inaugural event driving for Hall of Fame drag racer, team owner and innovator Jim Head, had a tough first day on the job.
“It had its ups and downs; more downs than ups,” Hyde admitted. “We smoked the tires on the first run, so we knew we had to get down the second one. And the car was on a good run. It probably would’ve went 3.89 or 3.90.”
Hyde’s first run Friday was actually the first time he’d gone the full 1,000-feet under power, and under the lights, as well.
“I’ve never ran here in the dark, and it’s a lot darker than I expected it to be,” Hyde explained. “I knew the car was pushing left, and I had a bunch of wheel in it trying to pull it back to the right and it wouldn’t go. And probably just need some more laps to figure out how much wheel I can put in it. Coming from the Pro Mod side of things, we can’t put much wheel into our cars (or) we will end up upside down. I know these things are a lot different, but just going to take some more laps to get used to it. I thought if I lifted before the cone, I could yank it over and I didn’t get there, but I clipped a 1,000-foot cone with the corner of the front end and got the run thrown out.”
In clipping the foam block, the rookie Hyde broke one of Head’s three commandments. “When we put our deal together, he told me this: ‘Never hit the wall, never red-light and never hit a cone,’” he said.
Hyde said that as hard as Head could have been on him, it paled in comparison on how hard he was on himself.
“I broke one of the rules on the first full run, so I thought I was going to get a bit more shit than I did,” Hyde said. “He [Head] was pretty good about it. He said, ‘That wasn’t really fair to you, sending you to the finish line for the first time at night.’
“It is what it is. I beat myself up pretty bad all night about it last night and most of the day today.”
5 – STEWART’S DIRTY DIAPER PHOBIA – It’s a diaper, for crying out loud.
But NHRA Top Fuel drag racer Tony Stewart has yet to change four-month-old son Dominic’s drawers. And he has turned the ordeal into more of an angst-filled anticipation than learning to wrestle a 12,000-horsepower, nitro-burning race car.
“I’d never thought I would say this,” Stewart prefaced during a press conference Friday at the NHRA’s Amalie Oil Gatornationals, which was arranged to announce his two-car team’s multiyear extension with Dodge but degenerated into a discussion about dirty diapers. But, he said, “I’m kind of looking forward to this a little bit, because I feel like it’s a rite of passage to a certain degree as a father. So it is coming, and I’m planning and psychologically getting my mind in the right frame of mind to do this because I’ve watched ’em pull the diaper down and I’ve seen what’s in there, and I immediately exit, stage right. So, I’m going to have to commit to this one, but once we do the first one, it’ll be fine.”
Teased about being so squeamish, Stewart defended himself, saying, “I’m … a … guy.”
He said, “I still am undefeated at this point. I have not changed the diaper.” He said he has told wife Leah Pruett that “I am ready in the right situation. So I would say just keep tuned to social media, because I will make sure the world knows when I change my first one. I’m ready for this. I am probably more scared about changing this first diaper than I was lining up against Justin Ashley [at the season-opener] last year first round. We’ve had help. We’ve had a newborn-care specialist that’s helped. I don’t know how many people it takes to change a kid, so we’ve got plenty of help.”
Stewart denied that he had to change his own diaper after fretting about facing formidable rival Ashley in that first competitive pass in a dragster a year ago: “Trust me, that part of me was so tight nothing was going to happen. You never worried about that.” – Susan Wade
7 – THE NEW FUNNY CAR DRIVER PIPELINE FLOWING – Will Smith – not that Will Smith – added another line item to his resume: Funny Car driver.
Smith made his pro debut two years ago at the NHRA U.S. Nationals driving a Top Fuel dragster fielded by Larry Dixon. The marketing and advertising sales director of the PDRA had long desired the opportunity to acquire his crossover license into Funny Car.
“I’m a die-hard drag racer, man. I eat, sleep, and breathe it,” Smith said. “I love nitro racing, love funny cars, love dragsters – love it all. It’s been a bucket-list thing. But my goal from day one is to be as versatile as possible for any opportunities that may come about. I want to make a living at drag racing and that’s hard to do these days, but I’m working hard at it and, man, just had to stand on the gas in it.”
Even with a license in the quicker Top Fuel dragster, Smith had to cross-license – so he turned to another nitro veteran to earn his Funny Car permit. He went to Funny Car veteran Paul Smith (no relation) to help him get through the experience.
“What’s crazy is I never even sat in a Funny Car until the morning of and never had the body down on it until we went to the staging lanes,” Will Smith revealed. “But, man, I felt right at home. …
“A lot of people suggested Paul, and I’ve known Bodie (Paul’s son, John) and those guys for a while, and they’re great people and Paul’s got a good car and that thing will go down a dirt road. And he’s a great teacher. I’ve always known that and he’s a great guy. Really gotten to know him over the last couple of years and it just made sense to do it. He’s a great teacher and, man, we had some fun and I learned a lot and had a great time.”
Smith’s license crossover was completed when he ran a 4.17 at 310 on his first full run. He made two other runs in the crossover process.
“The minimum requirement is a half-track run in two full runs, and it was straight down the track. We’d come back and what was funny was Paul’s like, ‘Man, it ain’t never run 310 before.’
“I was like, ‘Wow.’ But, man, when that cannon come in, the clutch locked up out the back, man, that thing just … like it took off again and set you back and your vision’s as black as it could be with clutch dust. And it don’t get any cooler than that. I hope I can find a way to experience it more. That’s the ultimate goal.”
John Smith and Del Worsham signed off on Smith’s license. Will Smith said the three sponsors that made this possible for him were Greenbrier Excavating & Paving (Alan O’Brien), Robert A Tull Inc (Tony Tull) and SP Tools USA.
On that same day, Julie Nataas attempted to earn her crossover Funny Car license. She still needed one run, but has already run as quick as a 3.94.
8 – PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT – As a member of SCAG Racing, Justin Ashley said he got to exercise something he’s been limited in before. The former NHRA Rookie of the Year, who has been a bona fide championship contender for the last few years, had the opportunity to test, and really do it the way he’d always wanted to without severe budget constraints.
Ashley’s dragster, spearheaded by Mike Green and Tommy DeLago, made 20 passes during the PRO SuperStar Shootout and the test session at Gainesville Raceway.
“We feel good about the things we learned and are now focused on applying it moving forward,” Ashley said. “Gainesville is a prestigious race, one that’s highly attended, and includes the All-Star Callout, so we’ll have to come with our A-game,” Ashley said. “I am looking forward to another great season with our SCAG Power Equipment Toyota team.”
9 – SUNDAY’S PAIRINGS – Here are Sunday’s first-round pairings for eliminations for the 56th annual AMALIE Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals, the first of 20 events in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series. Pairings based on results in qualifying, which ended Saturday. DNQs listed below pairings.
Top Fuel –– 1. Antron Brown, 3.685 seconds, 334.24 mph vs. 16. Krista Baldwin, 3.996, 227.61; 2. Tripp Tatum, 3.685, 326.56 vs. 15. Dan Mercier, 3.794, 323.12; 3. Shawn Langdon, 3.690, 335.23 vs. 14. Justin Ashley, 3.782, 324.44; 4. Doug Kalitta, 3.690, 328.78 vs. 13. Ida Zetterstrom, 3.781, 316.67; 5. Steve Torrence, 3.694, 334.82 vs. 12. Doug Foley, 3.761, 327.27; 6. Brittany Force, 3.696, 331.77 vs. 11. Tony Stewart, 3.760, 326.79; 7. Shawn Reed, 3.697, 332.43 vs. 10. Jasmine Salinas, 3.759, 331.61; 8. Clay Millican, 3.716, 330.63 vs. 9. Josh Hart, 3.755, 324.90.
Did Not Qualify: 17. Scott Farley, 10.498, 63.06.
Funny Car — 1. Jack Beckman, Chevy Camaro, 3.832, 334.65 vs. 16. Blake Alexander, Dodge Charger, 4.260, 243.41; 2. Bob Tasca III, Ford Mustang, 3.833, 333.82 vs. 15. Austin Prock, Camaro, 4.231, 206.10; 3. Ron Capps, Toyota GR Supra, 3.857, 335.73 vs. 14. John Smith, Charger, 4.171, 303.71; 4. Paul Lee, Charger, 3.895, 333.33 vs. 13. Chad Green, Mustang, 4.148, 245.32; 5. Daniel Wilkerson, Mustang, 3.901, 325.45 vs. 12. Buddy Hull, Charger, 4.053, 311.92; 6. Bobby Bode, Mustang, 3.925, 318.17 vs. 11. J.R. Todd, GR Supra, 4.052, 265.17; 7. Alexis DeJoria, Charger, 3.932, 324.75 vs. 10. Terry Haddock, Mustang, 4.017, 317.87; 8. Cruz Pedregon, Charger, 3.950, 324.05 vs. 9. Matt Hagan, Charger, 3.953, 328.06.
Did Not Qualify: 17. Dave Richards, 4.594, 160.42; 18. Spencer Hyde, 8.742, 69.64.
Pro Stock — 1. Greg Anderson, Chevy Camaro, 6.443, 212.06 vs. 16. Chris McGaha, Camaro, 6.597, 209.95; 2. Deric Kramer, Camaro, 6.463, 212.23 vs. 15. Cory Reed, Camaro, 6.597, 211.23; 3. Dallas Glenn, Camaro, 6.466, 212.56 vs. 14. Brandon Miller, Dodge Dart, 6.577, 209.07; 4. Eric Latino, Camaro, 6.467, 210.87 vs. 13. Kenny Delco, Camaro, 6.536, 211.39; 5. Greg Stanfield, Camaro, 6.491, 212.09 vs. 12. Jeg Coughlin, Camaro, 6.516, 212.16; 6. Troy Coughlin Jr., Camaro, 6.494, 212.23 vs. 11. Aaron Stanfield, Camaro, 6.514, 212.93; 7. Matt Hartford, Camaro, 6.496, 212.43 vs. 10. Mason McGaha, Camaro, 6.505, 211.59; 8. Derrick Reese, Ford Mustang, 6.502, 211.43 vs. 9. Erica Enders, Camaro, 6.503, 210.60.
Did Not Qualify: 17. Shane Tucker, 6.636, 208.49; 18. Cody Coughlin, 6.964, 154.63; 19. Brandon Foster, broke.
Pro Stock Motorcycle — 1. Gaige Herrera, Suzuki, 6.670, 202.97 vs. 16. Geno Scali, Suzuki, 7.116, 190.92; 2. Matt Smith, Buell, 6.679, 203.49 vs. 15. Lance Bonham, Buell, 7.077, 189.02; 3. Angie Smith, Buell, 6.709, 201.01 vs. 14. Brayden Davis, Suzuki, 6.920, 193.54; 4. Richard Gadson, Suzuki, 6.727, 201.67 vs. 13. Brandon Litten, Suzuki, 6.895, 191.24; 5. Chase Van Sant, Suzuki, 6.764, 199.64 vs. 12. Chris Bostick, Suzuki, 6.862, 196.82; 6. Jianna Evaristo, Buell, 6.783, 201.58 vs. 11. Marc Ingwersen, EBR, 6.838, 196.56; 7. John Hall, Beull, 6.795, 195.36 vs. 10. Ron Tornow, Victory, 6.812, 199.64; 8. Ryan Oehler, EBR, 6.798, 197.05 vs. 9. Kelly Clontz, Suzuki, 6.808, 199.35.
Did Not Qualify: 17. Steve Johnson, 7.243, 188.54; 18. Wesley Wells, 7.417, 186.67.
Pro Modified –– 1. Jason Scruggs, Chevy Camaro, 5.707, 253.18 vs. 16. Dmitry Samorukov, Chevy Corvette, 9.033, 116.44; 2. Justin Bond, Camaro, 5.709, 251.02 vs. 15. Sidnei Frigo, Camaro, 6.620, 151.83; 3. Dwayne Wolfe, Camaro, 5.716, 253.52 vs. 14. JR Gray, Camaro, 6.186, 244.12; 4. Jose Gonzalez, Camaro, 5.743, 250.55 vs. 13. Mike Castellana, Camaro, 6.155, 168.83; 5. Billy Banaka, Camaro, 5.757, 250.78 vs. 12. Rickie Smith, Ford Mustang, 6.030, 209.72; 6. Mason Wright, Camaro, 5.760, 249.44 vs. 11. Stan Shelton, Mustang, 5.826, 248.02; 7. Mike Stavrinos, Camaro, 5.765, 246.08 vs. 10. Kevin Rivenbark, Mustang, 5.795, 248.43; 8. Ken Quartuccio, Camaro, 5.769, 255.19 vs. 9. Derek Menholt, Camaro, 5.794, 251.02.
Did Not Qualify: 17. Alex Laughlin, 9.117, 106.32; 18. William Brown, 9.807, 89.25; 19. Mike Janis, 9.986, 98.31; 20. Chip King, 10.020, 94.17; 21. Jordan Lazic, 10.613, 98.22; 22. Khalid alBalooshi, 19.703, 37.56.
10 – THE SPEED MERCHANTS MEET IN E1 – The Prock-Tasca Funny Car matchup drew significant attention in the pits Saturday afternoon. Prock’s national record-holding Cornwell Tools Chevrolet SS finished qualifying in the No. 15 position with a time of 4.231 seconds at 206 mph due to a broken rear end.
Tasca secured the No. 2 qualifier spot behind “Fast Jack” Beckman, setting up a matchup between two drivers who have surpassed the 340 mph barrier. Tasca first achieved this milestone during an exhibition in 2024, running 341.68 mph, while Prock matched that speed during last November’s In-N-Out Burger Finals.
Prock was positioned to challenge Beckman’s leading time of 3.873 seconds in his first qualifying round when his car experienced a significant failure. “Tough day at the racetrack,” Prock said. “The car was flying, but the rear end let go, and I’m lucky I’m safe.”
He commended the NHRA for its safety protocols. “Everything that the NHRA has done, and Force American Made to make these cars safer definitely helps. I got out lucky there. It could have been much worse,” said the eight-time Funny Car winner.
“We had a lot of work to do in between rounds,” he noted. “We got the racecar all bolted back together and everything was functioning properly, but we slowed it up, and it was just too much.”
1 – AB IS IN THE BALLGAME – Antron Brown believed last season that if he could get close to the leaders, he could definitely give his championship hopes a chance. The closest he got is when he passed them in the final session.
On Friday, Brown launched his Top Fuel title defense with a 3.685-second elapsed time at 334.24 mph. If Friday’s run holds, the 80-time event winner would pick up his 51st career No. 1 qualifying spot.
“We were very happy after the first run,” Brown said of a pass in which he shut off early. “The first run, we came back and we just had, we had tire shake. We didn’t give it enough. And we’re like, ‘Wow, man, this track’s got some teeth to it.’”
Brown understood that Friday’s initial challenge actually put his team in prime position to pull off what it did in the Q2 session.
“I tell you one thing is that we came up, Brian looked at Brad, Brian went into our Rolodex run from last year,” Brown said. “We swapped Pomona in similar conditions, like in one of our elimination rounds.
“He went up there, he goes, ‘I’m just going to put on this run. Let’s put everything exactly like that.”
Brown was running the dragster he exploded a tire on at Bradenton last month during the PRO Superstar Shootout, a chassis which had undergone a back-half repair.
“We weren’t trying to go out there and kill it,” Brown admitted. “We knew the track could hold like a .64, .65, .66 – anywhere in the mid-60 range. We just wanted to get high up in the field to be in the top half the field. That was our goal, because didn’t want to shoot ourself in the foot. And, lo and behold, it ran really strong out the back door. I said, ‘Oh man, that felt good.’”
2 – BECKMAN DOMINATES A FREAKY FRIDAY – Jack Beckman, in his first full season as John Force’s substitute driver, was the quickest runner of both Funny Car sessions. He lit up the Gainesville night with a stellar run of 3.832 at 334.65.
Beckman, who won the season-ending NHRA Finals, appeared to pick up where he left off in November.
“If you look, when John drove that car, two wins in 10 races,” Beckman explained. “And the 10th race is the one he crashed at, and another final. I got to race eight races, two wins, three final rounds. I mean the round wins. Everything mirrors itself.
“And you’d say, ‘Well, yeah, you just hopped into a great car, then plugged in the tune-up.’ That’s not true. I hopped into a completely different car that had never been down the drag strip. We drive very different. Some people would pooh-pooh that and say it doesn’t make a difference. It made all the difference in the world. They had to chase the primary weight to get the car to leave as aggressively with me driving as they did John, and they did it successfully and the results speak for themselves.”
When teammate and defending Funny Car champion Austin Prock struggled, ending the day in 15th, Beckman carried the torch.
“What I enjoy is we pit next to Prock,” Beckman said. “And Cunningham, Jimmy, Danny Fabrizzi, Nate, Tom Prock, they’ll walk back and forth, and sometimes they walk back and forth to say, ‘Do you see what the weather’s doing?’ Or sometimes, ‘Hey, there’s a golf deal on there.’
“Sometimes it’s just shooting the breeze. And other times they’ll come, ‘Yeah, my car was a pig the first 60 feet.’ Yeah, ours didn’t look that good either.”
“It’s an open-door policy. They’re not necessarily coming over and saying, ‘What’d you run for primary weight on that one?’
“Because [we are] two teams with fantastic data and smart people to make decisions, and it’s an open-door policy. The crazy thing is the cars aren’t even remotely close to the same cylinder heads. You can’t believe how much different they are, and the scoreboard results look pretty similar.”
3 – ANDERSON’S RECORD – Greg Anderson was the talk of Friday night Pro Stock qualifying. After carnage delays pushed the session into the night, the reigning series champion took advantage of incredible conditions to run the quickest elapsed time in class history, going 6.443 to set the Pro Stock world record. It even eclipsed any run made with carburetors under the hood.
If the record run holds, it will mark the No. 133rd time he’s started from the top spot.
“I didn’t expect it,” Anderson admitted. “I honest-to-God did not expect it. When I was getting buckled in my car and I watched a couple of my team cars, Eric Latino and Derek Kramer, go out there and run 6.46, I was like, ‘Wow, is it really that fast out here? Can I do that? Can I run .46 or even .45?’ And I don’t know. We surpassed them both and we went 6.44. So it’s been a long eight or nine years since we started this fuel-injection journey, and it’s taken us that long to get back to the national record we set back in 2015.”
Anderson admits he’s surprised it has taken this long for the EFI combination to surpass the performance standards set by carbureted cars almost a decade ago.
“I got to ask myself, ‘What have we been doing for the last eight years?’” Anderson said. “I thought we’ve been working hard at this, but obviously we finally got it together, got it done. So, it’s a good day. But yeah, I’m surprised it took this long, but it’s here now. Thank God it’s here, and that was fun. That was a lot of fun.”
4 – MASTER OF ILLUSION – With a new spec fuel introduced to the class ahead of the 2025 NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle season and advancements made by Matt Smith Racing, there was the impression that Gaige Herrera might have to fight tooth and nail from the start to keep his No. 1 ranking.
That’s not the case … not yet, anyway.
Herrera drove around Matt Smith’s 6.679 from Q1 to secure the provisional No. 1 qualifier Friday with a 6.670 elapsed time at 202.97 mph. If his run stands through Saturday’s pair of qualifying sessions, it will mark his 24th career No. 1 qualifier in NHRA competition.
“I have a lot of fun here at Gainesville,” Herrera said. “This is where I picked up my first win in ’23 and where I made the debut with Vance & Hines, so it holds a special place in my heart. And to get the No. 1 qualifier provisional, No. 1 qualifier in Q2, Andrew basically looked at me and said, ‘This is all we got, so I hope it sticks.’”
In Herrera’s words, Vance & Hines did very little to the bike over the offseason.
“Honestly, we pulled my bike out of the trailer really and there was still a piece of confetti when Matt celebrated for his win,” Herrera admitted. “So it was in the belly pan. They changed a little bit of stuff for the fuel but they also ran this fuel, I believe, a decade ago. And the fuel really hasn’t changed much, so they have a lot of data from back then, even though now we’re the four-valve compared to the two-valve. The fuel is still very similar to what it was back then … And between Andrew and Byron going over notes and stuff, he basically had a game plan and said, ‘As long as we get to test on Wednesday, I think we’ll be right.’”
5 – PAIN IN THE REAR – In what has been an issue over the last two seasons, another broken pinion gear led to an exploded housing and a lengthy delay. Austin Prock’s Camaro Funny Car experienced the catastrophe this time, and qualifying was put on hold for over an hour.
Prock made a short pass in Friday’s Q2 session, and coasted to the 15th quickest run of the day.
NHRA confirmed manufacturers are creating a ballistic blanket to contain this kind of catastrophe in the future.
7 – UNSUCCESSFUL TEST STANDS AS MAJOR SUCCESS – Business commitments kept Paul Lee out of last month’s PRO Superstar Shootout testing at Bradenton (Fla.) Motorsports Park.
Lee chose to test in what has become the traditional pre-Gators session at Gainesville Raceway, and in five attempts went 0-for-5. Despite the setbacks, Lee found a silver lining in the team’s efforts.
“We have a brand new car, we didn’t figure it out in five runs, but they did figure it out after we made five runs and changed the stuff, and [crew chief] Johnny [Lindberg] found out exactly what the problem was.” Lee explained. “We went back to this old setup that we had the last year on one of the parts, and I went right down the track.”
Lee’s success is a continuation of a 2024 season in which he won a career-best 12 rounds and twice reached the finals. He won the NHRA’s All-Star Callout event at the U.S. Nationals.
Lee, who was miffed at the NHRA’s Countdown procedures that rewarded drivers with a spot in the playoffs based on event attendance, is calling this season the Vengeance Tour ’25.
“I knew that run was fast,” Lee admitted after his first-round pass of 3.895. “I didn’t know it was an .89. You can’t really tell between .89, .91. I knew it was a low .90 or something like that. It was pretty fast, especially in the first half of the track. Thing left really hard.
“It is gratifying to start the season this way since last year when we didn’t get the participation trophy and got moved back to 14th. We’re on a mission this year.”
7B – WHOA, NELLIE – In the Funny Car Q1 session, the top end got a little sporty when Bobby Bode, driving for Del Worsham this weekend, lost his brakes. He passed Paul Lee, who had just run the second-quickest lap of the session, a 3.895.
“That was probably the craziest run I’ve ever experienced,” Bode said. “No brakes … the rod broke for the brakes. Paul Lee got there first, and they told him to make the turn. I said, ‘I’m not running into the back of Paul Lee. I cranked the wheel to the right and hoped I could get through [the opening]. The chute’s better than the car. I got it stopped, and we are going to take it back and fix it.”
The situation could have been much worse, with Lee’s car suffering wickerbill damage and Bode a damaged parachute.
Lee ended up second in Q1, and Bode ran a 3.925 for fourth quickest.
8 – REMEMBERING LEE SHEPHERD – In four days, it will be 40 years since drag racing lost one of its brightest stars. Pro Stock’s winningest driver would just as soon forget that day as well as one two years earlier.
Greg Anderson was a crew member and protege of John Hagen when his mentor was killed on August 19, 1983, while making a run at the NHRA Northstar Nationals. Hagen’s death leveled Anderson’s passion for the sport. No sooner had Anderson gotten to the point where Hagen’s loss was bearable than on March 11, 1985, Shepherd was killed while testing at a small track in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
“It knocked me out of the sport,” Anderson recalled. “It flat knocked me out of the sport for about four years. It knocked the wind out of my sails, and I really could not have cared less about the sport. Those two hits, it just changes your life. It absolutely changes your life. I needed a few years to recover from that.”
Anderson said Shepherd was one of those people an impressionable teenager could look up to because not only was he a great drag racer, but an even better person.
“Not many of the younger drag racing generation know who he was,” Anderson said. “I certainly do. I was a crew guy working back then. I certainly wasn’t driving a car, but that guy could drive the wheels off a race car. I think we all kind of nicknamed him the Iceman. He was so cool and collected when he got up there. He was absolutely deadly as a driver, and I very much looked up to him. I got to know him well, and I really appreciated what he did and how he acted. He was probably the best guy at the time, best driver at the time. We’ve had some good ones come and go since then. But he was probably the first just flat badass driver that I ever remember in my racing career.”
The late announcer Steve Evans described Shepherd as the kind of driver who wanted to win every single round, but also had compassion for those he had beaten.
“A great person, and that’s how we all have to be,” Anderson said. “When we roll up to that starting line, you can’t worry about hurting feelings or making somebody mad. You have to go try to cut their throat out because that’s what they’re trying to do to you. So that’s just the way it is when you’re all up there. There’s absolutely no reason that once you get out of that race car, we all can’t be civil; we all can’t be friends. And I think we as a pretty big group out here, we do that just fine. Don’t get me wrong, every person that races one of these race cars, they’re so competitive and these race cars are so hard to race and win with, the competition’s so great.
“You better have that killer mentality. Lee Shepherd absolutely had it. The great thing was once he got out of that race car, he could be your best buddy.”
Hagen and Shepherd raced each other in one final round, the 1981 NHRA World Finals Shepherd not only won, he also clinched his first series championship.
9 – BEARD IS BACK – Lee Beard is back with Cruz Pedregon Racing this weekend and for the season.
“Lee Beard, a member of the International Motorsports Hall of Fame and known in the drag racing world as a world championship-winning crew chief, has joined the team as a consultant for this upcoming season,” team owner Cruz Pedregon said. “He’ll be working alongside Jason Bunker (crew chief) and Matt Archer (assistant crew chief). Jason and Matt really enjoy learning from Lee and building our ‘playbook’ of runs for this season.”
Pedregon describes his team as having strong chemistry and, additionally, is young.
“The chemistry is very good among the team,” Pedregon said. “We have a young, but very talented, crew in 2025. We brought on Elliott Banker as a clutch assistant. He started his NHRA career with me in 2018, and has returned to the team with added racing experience. We also brought on experienced motor builder, Jason Ayala.”
10 – CALLOUT PAIRINGS ESTABLISHED – The pairing’s are set for Saturday’s Top Fuel All-Star Callout.
Steve Torrence, a four-time Top Fuel world champion, had the first pick and chose Tony Stewart, who is entering his second full season in the class. Stewart was a late addition to the lineup after Tony Schumacher withdrew to prepare for a stint with Rick Ware Racing.
Doug Kalitta, the 2023 world champion, opted to challenge Schumacher’s future teammate, Clay Millican, with the second pick. The match-up promises to be a highlight as both drivers vie for an edge.
Shawn Langdon, the 2024 Gatornationals winner, called out reigning world champion and defending Callout champion Antron Brown.
The final pairing was determined by default, with Justin Ashley set to take on Brittany Force, a two-time Callout runner-up.
