Photos by Mike Burghardt, Dave Kommel, Ron Lewis, NHRA
SUNDAY NOTEBOOK – RECORDS SET, MILESTONES REACHED, FUNNY CAR UPSETS, AND TONY STEWART GOING FOR HIS FIRST NHRA TOP FUEL VICTORY
1 – BECKMAN CEMENTS HIS PLACE IN JOHN FORCE RACING LORE – At six a.m. Monday, Jack Beckman will be back at his job in the Los Angeles area as an elevator repairman. That’s when he will discover how many people recognize him from his weekend gig as a drag racer, and Sunday he delivered Funny Car win No. 300 for John Force Racing.
“It’s about the team, the PEAK guys. This is about John Force. This is Funny Car win No. 300 for Team John Force Racing. Nine of us got 143, the boss man got 157. This is No. 300. This is a big deal. That is a milestone in drag racing,” Beckman said.
The PEAK Chevy Camaro driver beat first-time finalist Daniel Wilkerson to record his 36th Funny Car victory in 72 finals.
After banking a cool $10,000 Saturday for winning the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge bonus race, Beckman earned his second straight victory at Pomona; he captured the Finals in November.
Beckman has improved in each of the season’s three races. He exited in the second round at the season-opening Gatornationals, reached the semifinals at Phoenix last week, and won Sunday to inch closer to his 500th win in eliminations. The 2012 Funny Car champion is at 488.
2 – FEATS OF CLAY – Clay Millican, the six-time champion and winningest IHRA driver, blew the engine of his Mighty Fire Breaker/Parts Plus dragster at the finish line – “The Mighty Fire Breaker was on fire,” he said. Even so, he earned his eighth NHRA Wally.
After jumping up and down and clapping his hands, Millican said crew chief Jim Oberhofer told him before that final-round run, “‘I’ve got it loaded up. Two things are going to happen: We’re going to win or we’re going to blow it up, and if we lose, we’ll be a footnote in history as the ones to let Tony Stewart win his first race.’ Thank goodness we ain’t that footnote in history.
“Tony Stewart is going to win one of these things very soon. He wins everything. He’s won in everything he’s ever driven,” Millican said. “But look who won today. I knew it blowed up, but I kept my foot in it anyway.”
Millican’s feat completed a successful weekend for Rick Ware Racing (RWR), which swept the honors at a Georgia motorcycle event Saturday.’
Stewart advanced to the sixth final round of his drag-racing career in the Rinnai America Corporation dragster.
3 – DÉJÀ VU IN PRO STOCK FINAL – It’s starting to become routine, a Greg Anderson-Dallas Glenn Pro Stock final. The pair of KB Titan Racing drivers have faced each other in four straight showdowns, with Anderson winning three of the four. This time, the results put Anderson in the NHRA history book.
Anderson reset the track’s Pro Stock elapsed-time record for the second time Sunday en route to the Lucas Oil Winternationals event title and career victory No. 108. That broke a tie with sportsman great Dan Fletcher and moved Anderson to second only to John Force in NHRA national-event wins. Force’s perhaps untouchable record stands at 157.
The HendrickCars.com/Summit Racing Equipment Camaro owner-driver, a two-time winner in three events this year, said he was humbled by the company he keeps.
“Just to be mentioned with John Force is amazing. I’ll never catch that record. I’m proud to be second to that man,” Anderson said.
This was Anderson’s 186th final-round appearance. This run with Glenn marks the first time the same two racers have squared off in four straight final rounds since 1980, when Bob Glidden and Lee Shepard dominated. The last time Anderson was not in a final round was Sept. 29, 2024, at St. Louis, when Glenn and Aaron Stanfield took the spotlight.
Anderson has won the Winternationals seven times as part of his 16-victory history here.
Last Sunday, Anderson and Glenn admittedly put on an awful display in the Phoenix final. Despite red-lighting, Anderson won because Glenn left the starting line before the Christmas Tree was activated. Even though Anderson’s car died before he got past the 300-foot mark, the reigning class champion was credited with his 107th victory.
“I think we made up for last week and I apologize for last week. That wasn’t much of a final, but that one (today) was,” Anderson said. “That was pretty cool right there. We both did the best we possibly could do. It was just a great drag race. Thank the Lord, KB Titan has just absolutely come out of the gates smoking this year, and I hope it can last. I know, obviously, we’re not making friends out here, but that’s the name of the game. That’s what you come out to try to do. So far, so good. We’re looking good so far.”
4– STEWART TAKES RESULT IN STRIDE – After falling to Clay Millican in the Top Fuel final, Tony Stewart said, “The day I get upset with losing is the day I retire from racing. But the team is upset because they want to win. These TSR crew guys have done an awesome job and have been very consistent – especially this weekend, having three runs on Friday and four today. These guys busted their butts. There were no mistakes.
“For 20 minutes, we are going to be frustrated,” he said, “but, after 20 minutes, we have to pick our heads up. Same goes for me. My wife (Leah Pruett, a two-time Winternationals winner, in 2017 and ’21) is going to get on my case after 20 minutes, too.
“The last two races, the race car is making solid, competitive runs, and this weekend was better. My lights were better, and the car’s performance was better. We just didn’t get the last little bit. We took down three big guys in a row, all former Top Fuel champions (Antron Brown, Doug Kalitta, and Shawn Langdon). To be the best, you have to beat the best. We just have to stay the course,” Stewart said.
“I’m very proud of the whole team, and it just wasn’t our time yet. Everyone comes here to win, and one driver leaves as the winner, and we raced that guy in the final,” he said. “We are improving, and things are going in the right direction. It is taking a little longer than I had hoped. We didn’t have lane choice all day, and we were consistent in the right lane. So, there was no reason to change, and we had good data from that lane. Track didn’t bite us in the end. We just got a little too aggressive in the final. We have good data heading to Las Vegas now, too.”
5 – SETTING THE RECORD – FOR THE FIRST TIME – Pro Stock’s Greg Anderson set the quarter-mile track elapsed-time record at 6.477 seconds in defeating Mason McGaha in the first round of eliminations. That broke Erica Enders’ 11-year-old record (6.480) that she established at the Finals in Nov. 2014. Surprisingly, inactive driver Drew Skillman’s 213.84 track speed record from November 2015 remains intact.
6 – SON BEATS DAD IN FIRST COMPETITIVE PASS – Matt Latino, in his first professional appearance, trumped father Eric Latino in the opening round of Pro Stock action. And he did it on a holeshot, parlaying a better reaction time (.018 to his dad’s .058) into a victory with a slower elapsed time (6.535 seconds to 6.508).
“I knew the only way to win this race with his faster car and his more experienced driving was on the tree,” Matt said before losing in the second round to Deric Kramer.
Matt Latino debuted a week ago at Phoenix but failed to qualify.
7 – OH, THAT JIM – Just when everyone was giving Funny Car team owner Jim Head warm-and-fuzzy kudos for exemplary sportsmanship, Head gave them a huge laugh. His driver, class rookie Spencer Hyde, was sitting ready at the starting line, waiting for opponent Cruz Pedregon to show up. Pedregon, who at first wasn’t strapped into his car yet, was in the staging lanes as his crew scrambled to tighten the blower belt and deal with a last-minute short-block change. Head said the Snap-on team could take their time: “We’ll wait for as long as it takes.” He said he would not start his car until Pedregon was lined up next to him – a reminder that a drag race requires two cars. Deflecting praise for his kind gesture, Head then said, “If someone left without me, I’d knock him out.”
8 – FUNNY CAR STARTS WITH THREE UPSETS – Three upsets marked the first round of Funny Car eliminations. Despite lurching out of the groove and moving harrowingly close to the wall, Blake Alexander knocked off No. 1 qualifier and reigning NHRA champion Austin Prock.
Ron Capps, the No. 3 qualifier, was the next favored driver to be surprised. He lost traction and clicked off his engine early, as No. 14 Spencer Hyde went on to win the first competitive pass of his Funny Car career. But Hyde made the feat even more memorable, crossing the center line after the 1,000-foot finish line. He wasn’t disqualified because the move happened past the finish line, but was dinged 10 points because it occurred before 1,320 feet.
Seventh starter J.R. Todd also went down, ousted by No. 10 Daniel Wilkerson. Todd moved first when the green flashed, but lost traction and lifted – and had to watch Wilkerson coast to the win after his engine went silent toward the top end.
9 – PROCK LOOKING TO REGAIN FORM – Austin Prock, the reigning Funny Car champion who was so dominant in 2024 in his rookie season in that class, has not had a great start to this year. His performance at the Winternationals was disappointing to him, but he was candid – and optimistic.
“Let’s be honest, (the car) hasn’t been phenomenal. We have been working on it all weekend. We thought we were heading in the right direction. We changed some more things this morning, and it just didn’t do the job,” Prock said.
After Blake Alexander beat him with an off-pace 4.236-second elapsed time, Prock said, “Frustrated in myself. I should be able to run 4.20 pedaling it like that. I missed that first pedal, and that cost us the run. You win and lose as a team, but it’s frustrating. … We’ll regroup, we’ll go to the next one and try and get the job done for John Force.”
10 – SPORTSMAN WINNERS – Jerron Settles, of Waldorf, Maryland, normally races in the Super Comp class, but Sunday he won the Super Gas trophy in his first time ever driving in the class. He was a double-winner of sorts, earning Best Appearing Car honors. “It’s a fast car and a beautiful car,” he said. Joining Settles on the winners podium were: John Winslow, who won his first Wally statue in his first Super Stock final round; Jeff Adkinson (Stock); Bill Webber (Super Stock); Aaron Steinkey (Top Sportsman); Brian Hough (Top Alcohol Funny Car), and Anthony Troyer (Top Alcohol Dragster).
SATURDAY NOTEBOOK – BROWN’S BROTHER SHAPES TOP FUEL CHAMP’S COMPETITIVE NATURE; BRITTANY FORCE THANKFUL, EVEN FOR TOUGH TIMES
1 – BROWN CREDITS BROTHER FOR COMPETITIVE SPIRIT – Tony Pedregon has played basketball with Antron Brown, and the FOX Sports analyst has seen Brown’s competitive nature off the dragstrip. “He’s a wolf,” Pedregon declared. “A wolf.”
Hearing that, Brown giggled. But he knows it’s true. No matter what the contest, he knows he’s merciless in the moment.
“You could see me smiling, kissing babies, shaking hands, and when I put my helmet on, I’m like Gladiator because I’m trying to bring death to the competition. And that never changes, brother,” Brown said. “I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what kind of car we’re racing. We could race Big Wheels to the 60-foot clock cone, and you could be a little girl that’s seven years old – and I ain’t giving her no false hope – I’m taking her to the cleaners, brother.”
His Top Fuel competitors have been warned.
“I don’t care who it is,” Brown said. “It’s just one of those deals where I’m a true competitor by nature, and I tell people this all the time: The day that I feel like I don’t want to win, I will not be driving a race car no more. I don’t like to lose, and I go to the gym. I do all the necessary things – try to eat the right foods, keep myself in shape, and I try to come out in the best shape and mindset that I could be to win. And when I lose a race, I don’t go from a race and go, ‘Man, I wish I did this better.’ I have given it my all so I can honestly move to the next race and whatever I messed up on, I am going to work harder on what I messed up on and make that weakness my strength. So I’ll go in the next race to give it my all. And that’s how I carry the chip. I’m always hungry.”
And he can tell you exactly what shaped that mentality: “I’ve always been like that, and there’s a reason for it: “I’m the youngest sibling. I have one older sibling, my older brother, Carlos Albert, and he used to beat me down,” Brown said. “And I wanted to go play with him and his friends. He never wanted me to come. And his deal was if I cry, I had to go home. So he used to have his friends tackle me and push me down, do everything else. So when I used to play against kids my age, they never hurt me. I got beat up by kids that were six years older than me. So I’m like, ‘That’s all you got?’ I’m like, ‘You pushed like a child.’ I was getting pushed around by older teenagers.
“My brother to this day tells me, ‘Ant, I’m so sorry for what I did to you when you were young. He goes, ‘But you inflicted all that pain out on everyone. And I’m so sorry,’ because when I turned 16, my brother never beat me in another basketball game or any sport we played. Never let him.”
Brown said Pedregon “knows how I play. He said, ‘Oh, he’s a maniac out there.’ They can’t slow me down. I’m all over the place.”
So Brown said he figured his brother did him a huge favor.
“Oh, yes he did. Yes he did,” he said. “And I still play like that to this day, even at my age of being in my mid-40s.”
2 – THINGS GOING WELL FOR GRATEFUL FORCE – Brittany Force is back in dominating form, it appears. And she said she appreciates that, considering that she and her Dave Grubnic-led team struggled last season.
After securing her 53rd No. 1 starting position with Friday’s 3.646-second performance, Force said, “Toward the end of the season, when we barely made it into that Countdown, got in our car, really started to turn a corner and you could see us being more successful, not just during qualifying but on race day. And then we got that win in Las Vegas, which was a huge win for us. It was two years to the actual event that we finally won. So that was a big win for us. But we’d been chasing it all season long. And we finally just turned that corner right there at the end of the season when we needed to.
“Our game plan coming into this season was we’re going to pick up that same package and move right over. We had a great race car at end of the season, and there’s no need to change anything. Let’s just move forward with that. We all just fell right into a routine. Everyone picked it up really well. I’m really excited for this group of guys,” Force said.
She said that concern last season that she might not win again or for a long time has made her grateful this season.
“It gets really tough when you get beat weekend after weekend. Not just me, but the whole team. You definitely feel it,” Force said. “And you come into our pits and you try to stay positive weekend after weekend. We do a good job of that. But it really is tough to carry that over when you get beat again the next weekend. Really, you look at the last two seasons, and I always believe there’s a reason for everything. There’s a reason for our struggle. We’re going to come out better in the end. I truly, truly believe that.
“And then even with everything that happened last season – my dad’s wreck in Richmond, Virginia, when we sat out Norwalk, and then when we finally did return, it was – I wanted to win so bad. I knew he was in the hospital watching. I wanted to get in that winner circle, not just for our team, but for him as well. And then we continued to struggle, it felt like … (At) Dallas, we had a really great race car, and I just knew this is the weekend. Sometimes the driver pulls into a track, and you just know this is the weekend you’re going to win. And I felt that going into Dallas. And then it was an early day for us. I was so bummed that we had lost that event.
“I knew Vegas was the next event coming up,” she said, “and I knew my dad was going to be at Vegas. And I knew in that moment we’re going to win Vegas. There’s a reason why we didn’t win (at Dallas). We’re saving this win for when my dad comes back and meets us on the track and is standing there with all our teams. I just absolutely knew it. So sometimes there’s just those moments where you believe that somebody upstairs is helping you out and there’s a reason for it all. And for that whole tough season to finally get that win there and double up with Austin Prock, and my dad standing on the starting line, my whole family, it was just really big for all of us. So again, when you finally get to those moments, you do appreciate the entire season. You appreciate the struggles. They make you better.”
3 – PROCK UNSEATS LEE AS FUNNY CAR NO. 1 – Paul Lee appeared to be on a roll following his career-first Funny Car triumph less than a week ago at Phoenix. He was the leader Saturday after the third qualifying session. But John Force Racing’s Austin Prock, the class record-holder for his 15 No. 1 starts last season, saved his best for last. Prock clocked low elapsed time and top speed of the meet with his 3.816-second pass at 338.26 mph. Lee will start from the No. 2 slot, thanks to his career-best E.T. of 3.829 seconds at 331.45 mph. Lee reached the final round of the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge but lost to Jack Beckman. Prock shared a banner moment with JFR mates Brittany Force, who will lead the Top Fuel class in eliminations Sunday, and Beckman, who claimed the Funny Car trophy in the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge.
“Our race car hasn’t run bad all year long, it’s just things haven’t been really going our way like they did last year,” Prock said. “We’ve been trying to do that all weekend long and just been tickling the thing. I’m really proud of how diligent everybody’s been working and making progress each run and just getting it A to B.
“The boys were high-fiving before we even got in the water box, like they knew, it was either going to be hero or zero, and we ended up on the good end of it. I’m really proud of John Force Racing and John Force is so proud right now of the whole team.”
4 – ANDERSON ACES OUT HARTFORD FOR TOP PRO STOCK POSITION – The No. 1 Pro Stock qualifying position came down to one-tenth of a mile an hour. Greg Anderson and Matt Hartford – the finalists in the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge – had identical elapsed times (6.490 seconds). But Anderson’s 210.77-mph speed trumped 210.67. So they split the class’ spoils of the day.
“Running 6.40s seems to be the price of poker out here this weekend,” Anderson said. “You better run 6.40 or you’re probably going to go home. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of cars that can do it. I think only two of them didn’t today, but there’s a lot of them that can do it, and you’re going to see more of it tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it. It should be a hell of a race.
“You kind of need to have a lot of luck because there’s too many good cars, too many good drivers, and too many good race teams. You better not only have a fast race car, but you also better have some luck.”
5 – TASCA MISSES CUT – Perennial Funny Car championship contender Bob Tasca failed to qualify for the first time since the spring Las Vegas race in 2014.
“It’s hard to believe, leave Phoenix as No. 1 qualifier, going up and down the track,” Tasca said, after his Q-4 run. “It’s humbling, and this sport is tough. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Very disappointed in our team not making this round. One thing racing teaches you is you never give up. We will not give up.”
Tasca wasn’t alone. Also not qualifying were Funny Car’s Jason Rupert and Buddy Hull and Pro Stock racers Chris McGaha, Kenny Delco, and Joey Grose.
6 – #2FAST2TASTY CHALLENGE WINNERS – Shawn Langdon (Top Fuel), Jack Beckman (Funny Car), and Matt Hartford (Pro Stock) won the second Mission Foods-sponsored bonus race Saturday.
After winning the $80,000 Right Trailers All-Star Callout during Friday qualifying and advancing to the final round of Saturday’s Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge, Doug Kalitta said he hoped he could beat teammate Shawn Langdon in the final round and get some revenge for Langdon knocking him off in last Sunday’s Arizona Nationals final round. But Saturday was Langdon’s day – although neither he nor Kalitta took the No. 1 starting berth, as that honor went to Brittany Force.
But Langdon used his trademark lightning-quick reaction time (.038 of a second to Kalitta’s .055) to lead from start to finish against Kalitta to record his second victory in as many Mission Foods bonus races.
“This Kalitta Air Careers Toyota team is just rolling right now. The way this car was running in Phoenix carried right over to this weekend,” Langdon said. “It’s honestly a great feeling to come back from a run and see the smile on Connie’s (team owner Kalitta’s) face and the smiles on the guy’s faces. All their hard work is paying off. We had a rough couple of years, brought Brian (crew chief Husen) on board last year, and started to see some good results initially. And then we were in the thick of it for the majority of the year, but kind of just missed the championship. We came out this year on fire again, and it feels like … between Doug’s team and our team, one or the other’s getting there. It’s a great time to be a part of Team Kalitta.”
Citing “Disneyland for conditions,” Jack Beckman powered to the victory in the Funny Car portion of Saturday’s #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. He defeated the hot-streaking Paul Lee in the showdown, as Lee drove into tire smoke. Beckman said he appreciated NASCAR Cup Series team owner Rick Hendrick and NTT IndyCar Series regular Graham Rahal – “guys who are huge in other forms of racing” – for the fact they “bring their dollars over here” to drag racing.
In the Pro Stock class, Greg Anderson keeps getting breaks. He won last week’s Phoenix race when he red-lit but opponent and KB Titan Racing teammate Dallas Glenn left the starting line before the Christmas Tree was activated. And even though Anderson’s car died before he got past the 300-foot mark, the reigning class champion was credited with his 107th victory. His fortune continued Saturday at Pomona. Again, Anderson had a foul start by .001 of a second in the first round of the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge and lost to Aaron Stanfield. However, Stanfield was disqualified after the run because his car was too light at the scales. Anderson was granted the final-round berth against Matt Hartford. But that’s where his luck ended. Hartford won by 34/1,000ths of a second, or about 11 feet, in the Challenge final.
6B – IT’S NO COINCIDENCE – Paul Lee’s meteoric rise into competitiveness shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who have been paying attention to his performance long before his monumental NHRA Arizona Nationals Funny Car last weekend.
Lee is getting better first-round draws largely in part to better-starting positions dating back to last year’s Ford Performance Nationals in Las Vegas. He’s had a 4.4 average qualifying performance since last October, with the best being Saturday’s No. 2 qualifying effort.
7 – BUDDY HULL SHARES TECH INFO WITH FANS – Funny Car racer Buddy Hull ticked off the parts on his Moon Eyes Dodge and recited how many runs each will last for his Jim Dunn Racing team. Fans hung onto every word as they absorbed the numbers:
“Optimal runs out of a crankshaft, 15 to 20.
“Optimal runs out of a set of rods, 14 to 20.
“Piston, one to three runs, maybe four if you’re lucky.
“A camshaft 40, 50 a block. It’s an item that really just holds those race-car parts. So even when we hurt the blocks by throwing the rods and pistons out of ’em, they get welded up, they get machined, and then we just continue to use them. So there’s very few scenarios where we can’t find a way to reuse a block, but sometimes we do.
“All of it’s very subjective. How hard you run your race car has a big impact on the attrition of your race-car parts. So, the faster, the quicker you run, the less they’re going to last because they’re taking more abuse. It’s highly variable.
“Spark plugs, one run and done. Oil, one run and done. Blower belt, one run and done.”
Another fan asked about Hull’s routine as a driver.
And the former Top Fuel driver said, “I have a super-specific program, and that program starts as soon as the car starts. But before that, really, I try not to create too much of a routine, because then if something happens and derails me from that, then I’m in trouble. But I do (have an order to his preparation). The gear goes on the same way every time. It only goes on one way, the correct way. I get in the car the same way every single time. There’s only one way to get in. That’s the correct way. I’m all about safety. We’re big on safety around here. We keep up on it like nobody else. So I like to be in the car a certain way. I don’t like my head touching anything because my head takes the vibration of the car and then I can’t see where I’m going. So tie my head down. But other than that, I try not to have too much specific stuff before the car starts, because if anything goes awry, then your head’s in the wrong place. And I don’t like that.”
And on it went this weekend at the Jim Dunn Racing pit, Buddy Hull pulling back the curtain on his life as a Funny Car driver and the logistics about the parts and pieces with which his crew works. The team is pitted beside the Top Eliminator Club with a literal red carpet providing fans unprecedented viewing access to the Mooneyes Funny Car operation. Hull led Q&A sessions, describing the tear-down process. He signed autographs while the team serviced the car. Jim Dunn Racing’s 50th anniversary Funny Car was on display so fans could pose beside it for photos.
Team owner Dunn celebrated his 91st birthday Friday.
And that was where the fun ended for Hull this weekend. He ended up in the sand trap at the end of his final qualifying run and wound up 19th of 19 that attempted to make the field.
8 – ENDERS LOOKING FOR BOOST – This just hasn’t been Erica Enders’ weekend. The six-time champion and 49-time Pro Stock winner qualified 10th in the starting lineup for Sunday’s eliminations (one-thousandth of a second behind Stephen Bell). But her car betrayed her in the final qualifying session Saturday, denying her even the chance to improve. The car developed a mechanical problem during the burnout, and when the green light flashed, the car didn’t move. So the crew backed her off the starting line.
Enders said, “I don’t know what the hell is happening at Elite Motorsports, but it’s super-disheartening.” That said, she added, “I’ve got the best group of guys, and I’ll go to the grave saying that.”
Elite boss Richard Freeman wasn’t pleased, either, and he said, “I have no idea” why her Camaro behaved the way it did. “Didn’t really change nothin’ (from Q3). Made a good run awhile ago, came back, and do this s—. I don’t know.”
Enders lamented Friday that improving in Q2 wasn’t that difficult, because “it’s hard to do worse than Q1. So, no, we were first out in the right lane and obviously you got to kind of detune these things to get ’em to go down there. We lobbed it down there. So we’re in the field and we’ll be in the middle of the pack tomorrow, and we’ll be able to get after it a little bit.” That didn’t happen the way she had envisioned.
However, she said she’s committed to staying in the Pro Stock class right now, despite talk by Freeman last summer that she will switch to a Top Fuel dragster.
When he did, “my sister’s and my phone blew up,” Enders said. “My dad called me. He’s like, ‘What the hell are you thinking?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know. How do I not know about this?’ Anyway, Richard loves this sport, and he wants to see it do well. He sees lower car counts and kind of just wanted to put something out there and expand the Elite brand. So it’s definitely something that we’re dabbling in. I went and got fitted for a car when we were in Indy last year, and it’s just one of those things – if the sponsorship and marketing partners come together, it’s something that we’ll do. But I will preface that by saying I’m not leaving Pro Stock to go race nitro.”
9 – GORDON FORGING AHEAD – Top Alcohol driver Maddi Gordon has one more season to complete before she embarks on her Top Fuel career with the expanded Ron Capps Motorsports team in 2026.
That’s by design. Capps, a three-time NHRA Funny Car champion who’s in his fourth campaign of team ownership, said he planned Gordon’s pro debut for 2026 to “give us time,” with “us” being him, crew chief Dean “Guido” Antonelli, and Gordon.
“I always had Maddi in mind, and I talked to Doug and Christina, her mom and dad, and I knew I didn’t want to interfere with anything we’re doing on our team. But even more so is to give her time to run for a championship with their team and with their car,” Capps said. “I didn’t want to rush things. I also understood, being around Don Prudhomme, being around Don Schumacher and really around a lot of the people in our sport, it could go very badly if you rush things.”
Right now, Capps hasn’t ironed out sponsorship. He doesn’t have all the necessary equipment, and he doesn’t have a crew assembled, but he said, “We have the luxury of having time. We don’t have trucks and trailers right now.” As for the second crew, he said Antonelli will select the new hires when the timing is right. “It’s his call to do. It’s going to be his team to pick. It’s his people to work with. He’s going to run it, and he will decide who the crew chief and all that will be. But that’s way down the road. We’ve got some partners that are interested, but I keep checking with (Gordon’s parents). I don’t want to take anything away (from her current focus) and cause any distraction. That’s my biggest thing.”
Gordon said, “We really haven’t gotten too far into detail just because it is still a ways away, but I’m sure he’s got some ideas and things he wants me to try. I’m game for whatever he says to do. He’s obviously the man, so he knows what he’s doing. It’s hard not to think about it, but with the way that Ron handles everything, he’s so respectful with it, just like, ‘Hey, don’t worry about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t stress on this. You do your thing. You run for your championship. We’ll handle it over here.’ Ron’s just such a genuinely nice person, just somebody that we feel so comfortable with.
“But I think about it all the time – seriously, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And it’s so hard to fathom. It’s just surreal to think that I really – hopefully – I’m really going to drive a Top Fuel dragster next year. And it’s just like once it gets closer, I’ll start getting more nervous. But right now, I’m just kind of in awe,” she said.
Gordon, daughter of three-time Top Alcohol Funny Car champion Doug Gordon, qualified fourth in the eight-car field this weekend at the Winternationals and will face Ray Martin when eliminations begin Sunday morning.
But in a few months, she’ll transition from a 3,500-horsepower, full-bodied, 120- to 125-inch-wheelbase, front-engine race car that covers the quarter-mile in five seconds at about 280 mph to a 12,000-horsepower, 300-inch-long, rear-engine beast that’s the quickest-accelerating vehicle on the planet at zero to 100 mph in less than a second. By the time anyone finishes reading this sentence, Gordon will be past the finish line with her parachutes fluttering behind her to whoa her down.
“I’m sure there’s going to be learning curves, absolutely. Before I ran the Funny Car, I watched hundreds of in-car videos of my dad, just to learn the basic procedures. I would literally sit in my room and watch a video and just (recite) ‘Clutch, pedal, throttle, brake,’ just trying to understand the procedures. And I feel like that really helped me in this car, just to get the basic routine down. So I’ll talk to Ron and whatever he says to do is what I’m going to do as far as preparing,” Gordon said. “I want to be good, and I want to be successful. But I know that doesn’t come right away. I know that’s not an expectation. But I’m going to a hundred percent put in the work to hopefully be the best I can as soon as possible.
“I’ve been so fortunate to been blessed with the family that I do and the team that I have and surrounded by the people that I’m surrounded with. And my sister and I definitely put in the effort and put in the time. We didn’t just get handed everything. If it wasn’t for my family, I would not be where I am. Absolutely not. There’s no way.”
Just as Roger Primm Capps had a hunch about Capps when he put him in a dragster in 1995 and Don Prudhomme saw Capps’ potential and hired him to drive a Funny Car in 1997, Capps discovered a kinship with Gordon.
“I just love that she grew up like I did, where she builds the cars, she works on ’em, she works with her family (at the racetrack and at her grandparents’ Morro Bay Cabinets). She’s very involved in the mechanical side. I knew she would be great at it, but I came up in a sport and never having to luckily bring any sponsor money to any of my rides, I was lucky. They hired me because they thought I’d do a good job. And that doesn’t happen anymore,” Capps said.
“And in today’s day and age, there are so many social-media influencers who are girls and women who are working on cars. And it’s really fun. And that just goes right into our sport: We don’t just have girls who compete. We’ve got girls who win championships and races and are very good from Jr. Dragster on up,” he said. (NHRA women have won races 387 times, and on the pro level have earned 14 championships.) “So I just felt like it was the perfect opportunity. You could certainly build a team around somebody like her easily. But for me also, the first thing was my partners – I know that my partners would love (that).”
It all has been mind-boggling for Gordon. “The way that he just chose me is, I mean, seriously, I am picking my jaw off the floor. It’s just a dream come true. We’re super-fortunate to have the backing that we have for our Funny Car. We have so many great sponsors that help us to be successful like we are, but we don’t have the funding to go (pro). And I’ve known that. We don’t have the funding for that. It’s not something that we can afford,” she said.
“But with Ron, he’s just like, ‘I want to choose you because of who you are and how you drive and all that stuff, not because you have the money to do it.’ Seriously, I’m at a loss for words. It’s just an honor. And that doesn’t happen in drag racing. That opportunity is unheard of. And so the fact that he chose me and saw something in me is, I don’t know. I don’t even have the right words for it. It’s just, it’s amazing.”
10 – IN-N-OUT BURGER POMONA DRAGSTRIP ADDS EVENT – In celebration of NHRA’s upcoming 75th anniversary in 2026, officials at In-N-Out Burger and NHRA announced the scheduling of a special Division 7 Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event March 12-15, 2026, at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip.
The event, which will be the first time that a Lucas Oil Series event has taken place at the legendary track since 2002 and just the second time in more than 50 years, will be billed as the Snyder Family’s Salute to NHRA’s standout sportsman racers.
“The sportsman racers have been wanting and begging for a divisional race in Pomona for a very long time, so I think I can say – on behalf of all sportsman competitors – this is a dream come true,” said In-N-Out Burger owner and president Lynsi Snyder-Ellingson, who also races in the Top Sportsman ranks.
“I have no doubt the 2026 race will have a high entry attendance and fill up quickly. It is an honor to have my family’s name and legacy associated with it, as In-N-Out Burger and cars have always gone together like burgers and fries. My hope is this divisional race further fuels the passion for drag racing among both racers and loyal NHRA fans.”
The Snyder family that owns In-N-Out Burger has been involved in NHRA drag racing for decades, dating back to company founder Harry Snyder’s part-ownership of iconic Southern California dragstrip Irwindale Raceway and continuing with his son Guy’s participation as a racer.
“Having a Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip is absolutely incredible,” Division 7 Director Matt DeYoung said. “Our racers and division crew love this track and the amazing history it holds. The tremendous support of NHRA drag racing from the Snyder family has always been strong, but taking this additional step with a great race like this for the Sportsman racers during our 75th anniversary celebration isn’t taken lightly.”
The announcement of the special event took place Saturday before the third round of qualifying. Snyder-Ellingson also received a trophy from Phil Burgess, editor of the NHRA’s National Dragster magazine, celebrating the facility’s selection as “Track of the Year” in last year’s fan voting for the National Dragster All-Star Team.
Since In-N-Out Burger became the title sponsor of the iconic Southern California track – as well as the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals to close out the season – in late 2022, the track has undergone a number of major upgrades and improvements as it continues to celebrate a rich history.
“I want to congratulate Lynsi Snyder-Ellingson and the local NHRA team for the In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip being awarded Track of the Year. Fairplex is proud to be home of this legendary speedway,” said Walter Marquez, President & CEO of Fairplex. “And we are thrilled to see a third event coming to Pomona in 2026, with the Snyder Family’s Salute to NHRA’s standout sportsman racers. It’s a great way to celebrate the track’s 65th year of racing as well as NHRA’s 75th anniversary.”
“The Pomona Dragstrip is an iconic track with a long record of legacy moments in drag racing history,” Snyder-Ellingson said. “Drag racing has deep roots in both Southern California and In-N-Out Burger. For seven years starting in 1965, my grandfather Harry was a part-owner of the original Irwindale Raceway. To once again have the In-N-Out name associated with racing in Pomona and have the track recognized as the 2024 National Dragster All-Star Team ‘Track of the Year’ is beyond special to my family and me.”
Details regarding the next year’s Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event in Pomona – as well as the NHRA’s year-long 75th anniversary celebration in 2026 – will be announced in the coming months.
FRIDAY NOTEBOOK – CAPPS REBOUNDS FROM ARIZONA ACCIDENT IN TOP-QUALIFYING STYLE, KALITTA WINS $80,000 ALL-STAR CALLOUT
1 – CAPPS, TEAM REBOUNDING FROM PHOENIX CRASH – Ron Capps made a stunning comeback Friday from his Arizona Nationals crash last Sunday that shook him up, destroyed a brand-new Funny Car, and put his crew into overdrive for the past five days. He zoomed to the top of the opening qualifying session order at the Lucas Oil Winternationals at Pomona, California, with his 3.852-second elapsed time at 330.47 mph in a back-up that was his 2022 championship car.
He conceded at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip that at Phoenix, after his shocking first-round wreck that “mentally I was not good … a lot of emotions.” He immediately gave credit to his crew, saying they “have worked tirelessly. They built two cars in two days …. like it was no big deal,” to “take that pressure off me.”
But perhaps the most significant part of Ron Capps’ 2025 journey was an offseason mandatory Zoom-call meeting the NHRA called for team owners, drivers, and crew chiefs. “They talked about some of the safety things that they learned from John Force’s accident (last June 23 at Virginia Motorsports Park, near Richmond) and some ideas of how maybe our teams could be proactive a little more in certain spots. We were already upgraded, and many teams out here are already at that point.”
Trevor Ashline, owner of Mooresville, N.C.-headquartered Engineered Safety Systems and a leader in racing safety who Capps has trusted for many years, took the lead in the Zoom call, and, Capps remembered, “talked quite a bit about the safety and his knowledge.”
“Guido (crew chief Dean Antonelli) went to work and went above and beyond on the head padding more than we had before. Had he not, it would be a different story with me right now,” Capps said. “I was worried about my head touching the padding during runs. They really brought the head padding in and different padding and more of it. And Trevor had told me I needed to really shorten up my head and neck device tethers more than I even thought I had them shortened up.”
The team took care of that at Bradenton, Florida, in the preseason trip that ended with Capps’ victory. “And so those things that we learned from John Force’s accident and the NHRA being proactive and having Trevor get up and talk sent my guys right to work,” Capps said. “When I flew out (last December to Indianapolis from his Carlsbad, Calif., home) for the PRI Show, I sat in the car, they poured me a new seat with more advancements on lower-back (protection) and some other things.”
He said all that is why “I’m walking around and I’m fine. And I don’t think I would’ve been, had we not made those changes.”
With major-league sports being extra-diligent about concussion prevention and treatment, elevating awareness of long-term effects of concussions, is Capps worried that down the road he’ll feel those after-effects of wall-bangers and engine blow-ups that have dotted his career?
“Yeah,” Capps said with a “well, yes, and no” kind of tone. “Yeah, but this is my 31st year driving professionally, so it’s pretty crazy,” he said. “If you think about it. I’ve got Don Prudhomme calling me all the time (and) Richard Tharp (and Kenny) Bernstein, guys like that that you’ve watched for years. I’ve been blessed to be around really good crew chiefs to take care of more than being a crew chief; the safety side of things. You go down and look at the guys I’ve driven for: Roland Leong and Don Prudhomme and Don Schumacher. But the crew chiefs that have always looked at the cockpit as much as they do their tune-up, if not more … Ed McCulloch, Rahn Tobler, who was very much into safety.
“So huge, huge thank-you to Guido and those guys. I’ve said it over and over to ’em. So all that together. My point is, who knows? I started driving before there were head-and-neck devices, so I’ve got neck issues, but it’s from (years of racing).”
Capps said, “One of the many great things about our team is that we’re very well prepared. Had we won that round (at Phoenix) and had to get back up for second round with the quick turnaround for live TV, we had a backup car that was ready to go. They’re now preparing a third car, so it’s been busy with three West Coast races, including this back-to-back one after Phoenix.
“We’re hoping to have a great ending to a busy and hectic week after destroying one car. What was really cool was the number of calls and notes and messages that we received from our partners and sponsors who were wanting to help, beyond what they already do to support our team. An incident like this happens, and as a single-car team, it’s not easy. But to get the amount of support we got during the week with people offering to help, you can’t explain how cool that is.”
2 – KALITTA GLAD TO BE BACK – Mac Tools dragster driver Doug Kalitta already had a terrific relationship with the Los Angeles County Fairplex. The most significant of his seven victories here came in November 2023 against Leah Pruett in a winner-take-all final round to clinch the Top Fuel championship, his long-awaited first.
Even before he took to the track for Friday’s opening-day action at the Winternationals, he said, “Pomona has been a really good track for us over the years, and we’d like to make more memories there this weekend. We’ve done well there, but so has Alan (crew chief Johnson). So that’s a lot of track knowledge that is an added bonus for our team. Hopefully, things will line up well for us, and we can have a shot at a win this weekend.”
He was referring to the Winternationals. But he got his wish early.
Kalitta is $80,000 richer for his Friday victory over Brittany Force in the Right Trailers Top Fuel All-Star Callout. He defeated Clay Millican and Antron Brown for the right to face Force.
The event was washed out at the season-opening Gatornationals at Gainesville, Florida, and Kalitta said, “There’s no better place to bring it than here. It was a fun day for sure.”
The Winternationals, he said, “ is a race with so much incredible history. It’s at one of the NHRA’s most historic tracks, and you could call it the birthplace of the NHRA, so it’s always fun to race there. Southern California race fans are passionate, and they know their drag racing. We always have great crowds there, and that only adds to the excitement of racing at Pomona.”
3 – BRITTANY FORCE SETS TOP FUEL PACE – Two-time series champion Brittany Force is home – literally and figuratively. The Yorba Linda native is at her home track, and she’s where she’s comfortable on the racetrack – the No. 1 position. She led both qualifying sessions Friday, and she’s hoping her 3.646-second elapsed time, 334.82 mph holds up through two Saturday sessions to give her the 53rd top-starting spot of her career and first of the year. She was runner-up to Doug Kalitta in the final round of the Right Trailers Top Fuel All-Star Callout and conceded the $80,000 top prize to him. But his 3.657-second pass wasn’t enough to overtake Force.
4 – WILL ASHLEY GIVE ‘EM ‘WHAT FOUR’? – Top Fuel’s Doug Kalitta and Pro Stock’s Greg Anderson have won the Winternationals three consecutive times. So has Justin Ashley. But the driver of the SCAG Power Equipment dragster has a chance to become only the second driver in the event’s 65-year history to win in four straight years. Ashley could match Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, who dominated in the traditional season-opener in the Funny Car class from 1975-78.
Ashley has advanced to four final rounds in a row. Ashley also raced in Friday’s rain-postponed Right Trailers Top Fuel All-Star Callout from the Gatornationals. He lost in the opening round of the bonus race to home-area favorite Brittany Force.
“We have the opportunity to do something very special in Pomona,” Ashley said. “The NHRA Winternationals are always prestigious, but this one certainly has more juice to it, given the circumstances. I am incredibly proud of our SCAG racing team for earning the right to be in this position. They deserve it. We know what needs to be done. Now it’s ‘go’ time.”
5 – JON CAPPS SHARES DRIVER’S PERSPECTIVE – He saw the fly. Funny Car driver Jon Capps recalled that “my second run in my first race weekend in Paul Smith’s car, I hit the throttle, and there was a fly inside the cockpit. And I watched this fly come across the cockpit and I saw it. I go, ‘Huh. That’s weird.’”
He remembered another novelty – one that would scare the starch out of the average automobile driver: “I had a huge explosion here in Pomona in a Funny Car, and as soon as it blew up, I’m like, ‘Man, I’m not going to qualify.’ And the flames came in and then swirled around and stayed. Normally they kind of swirl around and leave, but when they stayed, I go, ‘Man, I can see through fire. This is kind of cool.’”
He was making the point that “unless you’ve been at that level of intensity, it’s really hard to understand how many things go through your mind. There’s so many things that your mind thinks about that we can’t even explain to you.” He said, “There are things that go through your mind so fast, although you’re completely focused on the task at hand – driving the race car safely.
“And,” he said, “it’ll take me five minutes to describe what happened in half a second.”
So the psychology, the mentality, of a race-car driver is complicated and sometimes impossible to explain.
What triggered the conversation was Jon Capps’ reaction to older brother Ron Capps’ frightening engine explosion at last Sunday’s Arizona Nationals that sent him hard at more than 230 mph into the opposite guard wall. Ron Capps said one thing that flashed through his mind during the ordeal was John Force’s disturbing wreck exactly nine months to the day earlier – last June 23 – at the Virginia Nationals. That accident has pushed Force, the 16-time champion and 157-time winner, to the sidelines as he recovers from a traumatic brain injury.
“Your brain operates so fast when you walk around every day that when you’re going over 300 miles an hour, it’s hard to process the sensations you’ve just experienced,” he added.
“It’s like slow motion in a movie. It records it really fast, then plays it back really slow,” he said. “So there’s things that go through your mind, and then when someone sticks a camera or a microphone in front of your face, you say things that might come out sounding odd.”
He said it isn’t his place to speak for his brother. But, he said, “So, for a driver that has an accident, and for him to say, ‘I was thinking about somebody else’s accident,’ there’s things that go through your mind and that’s there to remind you, right? Fear is healthy, for one thing. And there’s things that go through your mind for a reason. It’s fight or flight. So, when you think about these things, it gives you that quick (reminder). It’s not that there’s a past incident that’s going to change how you drive, but there’s things that go through your mind. It’s human nature, right? It’s going to happen.”
He reassured Ron Capps’ legion of fans, “Trust me, his crew chief’s not going to let him get in the car that he’s not ready to drive. No. He’s got the best crew chief out here (Dean ‘Guido’ Antonelli), and that’s the biggest thing. He’s so concerned over what happened and what he sees that they go through and they dissect everything. They spent all Sunday night (after the Phoenix race) dissecting everything’s going on. So he knows, before he gets in the car, they know exactly what happened and what they can do to prevent it” from recurring.
6 – ANDERSON KEEPS MOMENTUM – Greg Anderson, who won the Arizona Nationals in a very odd manner last Sunday, proved Friday that his 2025 successes are no fluke. Cory Reed was the early leader, but Anderson moved into the tentative No. 1 berth in Friday’s evening session with a 6.495-second, 210.01-mph pass on the In-N-Out Burger quarter-mile in his KB Titan Racing Chevy Camaro.
7 – SEASON’S SECOND #2FAST2TASTY CHALLENGE SET – Shawn Langdon, in Top Fuel, has the chance to become the year’s first two-time winner of the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. He’s the lone returnee to the $10,000-to-win, Countdown-points-paying bonus race in the nitro ranks. Doug Kalitta, Jasmine Salinas, and Brittany Force are competing for the first time this season in Top Fuel.
The Funny Car class has four new contestants: Phoenix winner Paul Lee, Bob Tasca III, Jack Beckman, and Austin Prock.
Greg Anderson and Dallas Glenn will be looking to put on a better show in the Pro Stock segment of Saturday’s Challenge than they did in the Arizona Nationals final round. Both red-lit, Anderson won his 107th, while going no farther than 300 feet down the track. Anderson’s motor died. “The car … made it one foot and shut right off. I was dead in the water. Absolutely my lucky day, without a doubt. They say there’s no such thing as an ugly win. That was an ugly win. We both blew it. We wanted to put on a good show, and that wasn’t much of a show.” Joining Anderson and Glenn in the Challenge for Pro Stockers will be Matt Hartford and Aaron Stanfield.
8 – GOAL IN SIGHT – Josh Hart has been hoping his new combo gets new results. Weather has messed with Top Fuel team owner-driver Josh Hart’s plans to get off to a strong start this season with a newly assembled trio of tuners.
“Mother Nature wasn’t very kind to any of the teams in Florida for the Gatornationals, and then last weekend in Arizona, it was our first hot race of the season. The good news is we tried three different tune-ups and came away with one we think will keep us on track moving forward,” he said. During the offseason, Hart added crew chiefs Jason McCulloch and Joe Barlam to work with long-time crew chief Ron Douglas.
After two rounds of qualifying Friday, Hart and the tuners he dubbed “The Three Musketeers” are beginning to get some traction. He’s third in the provisional lineup, following Brittany Force and Doug Kalitta, the two finalists in Friday’s Right Trailers All-Star Callout.
Hart said that last season “we got our butts handed to us all the time” and that when he started to see a glimmer of hope, “you got smacked down again.”
He said, “The grass isn’t always greener. The grass is greener where you water it.”
9 – HE’S BACK – Top Fuel racer Steve Torrence opted to skip the Arizona Nationals but is returning to action this weekend. He competed in the Right Trailers All-Star Callout, and lost to Tony Stewart in Round 1. Ironically, Stewart replaced the absent Torrence last week in the first Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge of the season.
10 – 300th FUNNY CAR VICTORY AWAITS – The John Force Racing Funny Car duo of Jack Beckman and Austin Prock are competing against more than the rest of the Funny Car field. They’re contending, at least a little bit, with each other about who will score the organization’s 300th Funny Car victory.
BOBBY BENNETT: AND THAT’S THE WAY IT IS … APRIL 29, 2025