Competition Plus’ random water-cooler topics from the Stampede of Speed NHRA Texas Fall Nationals at Texas Motorplex
1 – KALITTA TOOK CARE OF BUSINESS HIMSELF – Shawn Langdon was the last domino to fall.
Doug Kalitta defeated Steve Torrence in Sunday’s final round of the NHRA’s Texas Fall Nationals “Stampede of Speed”, to record his third triumph at Texas Motorplex and his 59th overall. But arguably his semifinal triumph over Langdon was the more significant accomplishment of the weekend. The eyes of Texas were on that match-up.
With five of his six closest Top Fuel challengers already eliminated from the event by the semifinal round, Kalitta only had to worry about how sizable a dent teammate and No. 3-ranked driver Shawn Langdon could put in his championship plans. The positive news for Kalitta was that he had the chance to stop Langdon himself, to control his own destiny. The two found themselves in a semifinal showdown.
The points leader and Kalitta Motorsports headliner ran away from a tire-smoking Langdon to extend his advantage from 86 points to 141, with just the Las Vegas event and the points-and-a-half-awarding season finale at Pomona, Calif., remaining. The Nos. 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7 drivers – Justin Ashley, Tony Stewart, Clay Millican, Brittany Force, and Antron Brown – were out of contention.
“We’re trying to go rounds and stay ahead of these guys. Everybody’s hungry right now,” Kalitta said after scoring back-to-back victories in the playoffs. He won two weeks ago at St. Louis. “[It’s] a huge relief to get this win here in Ennis. Really big deal for us.”
2 – PROCK CONTINUES HIS ROLL – After claiming his ninth victory of the season and his second of four Countdown to the Championship events in hand, Funny Car winner Austin Prock said, “I just want to be the best all the time.” He’s well on his way to that lofty goal after beating Ron Capps in the final for his 21st win and first at Dallas.
Referring to his Chevrolet Camaro that’s commonly called “The Prock Rocket,” he said, “This thing was lights-out all weekend. We took home all the money – and a cowboy hat [Texas Motorplex’s gift to winners]. I love driving this car – this car’s bad-fast.” Prock will head to Las Vegas, the penultimate race in the Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season, with a 112-point lead over closest rival Matt Hagan. That represents a 92-point swing, as Hagan trailed by only 20 points entering the event. Hagan lost in the opening round Sunday. However, Prock isn’t complacent. He said, “The job’s not finished. The tables could turn at Las Vegas. That 92-point swing could swing the other way.”
Thrilled with his winner’s cowboy hat, Prock said Bobby Lane Jr., one of his crew members, is getting married soon. Lane and fiancée Krista Baldwin, the Top Fuel team owner and racer, are planning a December wedding. “All my boys are getting cowboy hats, and everybody’s wearing cowboy hats at the wedding,” Prock said.
3 – ROUGH ROUND 1 FOR DRAGSTERS – A lot of smoke, fire, upsets, swearing, hurt parts, hurt feelings, and damaged championship hopes marked the opening round of Top Fuel eliminations. The carnage began with the day’s first pairing, between Tony Stewart and Clay Millican. Millican won, but crew chief Jim Oberhofer was peeved. Oberhofer said, “We got it, all right. But it pisses me off that we blew the damn thing up again. Getting tired of that crap.” Millican, the No. 5-ranked driver who had just taken out No. 4 Stewart, said at the other end of the track, “I ain’t even thinkin’ about the championship. I’m thinkin’ about that cowboy hat [presented to the winner of the meet].”
Kyle Satenstein made things exciting at the hit of the throttle in the third pairing. It didn’t take more than a second or two for his car to blow up and cross the center line. Bouncing and trailing fire, the dragster darted well behind Shawn Reed. And Satenstein, a rookie from Thornwood, N.Y., was a blend of puzzled and perturbed afterward. “I don’t know what the hell happened,” he said. “As soon as I stepped on it, it just didn’t feel right. I tried to stay in it, and it just felt like it was smoking the tires. By the time I lifted, that bitch was up on two wheels. I just tried not to hit the wall or hit anybody else. I’m a little pissed. We didn’t come to Texas to do that. It’s a little disheartening.”
Justin Ashley and Shawn Langdon, the Nos. 2 and 3 racers in the standings made it down the 1,000-foot course without incident before Ida Zetterström won in a ball of fire against Antron Brown. After losing in the quarterfinals to Doug Kalitta in a rematch of the St. Louis final two weeks ago, Zetterström said she was “embarrassed for that first round” and called herself “an a—hole” for staying on the throttle too long. She said, “I’m still a new driver. I don’t have thousands of runs like everybody else here. The way the car smoked the tires down-track, I’ve never had that exact experience. I was scrambling to find a page in my playbook that does not exist. I know I’m a way better driver than that. Unfortunately, you’ve got to experience everything once to know how it feels. It’s not like any other sport – we do it right here in front of everybody. And sometimes you look like an idiot, especially on race day, when you want to win and you don’t see the car in the other lane and sometimes you stay in it for too long.”
Round 1 of Funny Car eliminations wasn’t much tamer. Dan Wilkerson upset higher-qualified Alexis DeJoria, and Spencer Hyde eliminated Bob Tasca III, who was trying desperately to break back into the top 10. And No. 4-ranked Ron Capps – who got a break three pairings later when third-place Matt Hagan lost, and another one in Round 2 when second-place Jack Beckman lost – blew up another engine. Like Zetterström, he admitted he stayed on the gas too long. “I stayed in it later than I normally would, and it just backfired. All my fault, 100 percent.” Then Capps, who’s also the team owner, quipped, “The owner should fire the driver.” J.R. Todd’s engine let go right off the starting line, as well.
4 – DALLAS DOES DALLAS IN PRO STOCK – As part of a weekend sweep by points leaders in all four pro categories, Pro Stock’s Dallas Glenn stretched his advantage over KB Titan Racing teammate Greg Anderson from 20 points to 60 with his narrow victory over Aaron Stanfield, of rival Elite Motorsports, in the final round. Glenn’s margin of victory was seven-thousandths of a second, as he picked up his 20th victory in the Pro Stock class. He’ll take a three-round edge over Anderson into the Las Vegas event in two weeks.
5 – GADSON OVERCOMES DREADFUL TEXAS INITIATION – Referring to himself as a “Philly Boy,” Pro Stock Motorcycle winner Richard Gadson loved the cowboy hat that’s a traditional gift from Texas Motorplex for its winners – but he reminded that he’s a Philadelphia Eagles fan and that “growing up in my household, the word ‘cowboy’ is not a good word.” The Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys are bitter NFL rivals. But he even gave an obligatory “Yee-hah!” to the fans and media, a small price to pay for his fourth victory and second in this Countdown to the Championship. And it’s no wonder his memories and word association with Texas is less-than-enthusiastic.
Gadson said he arrived at Texas Motorplex two years ago with a helmet and a hope, trying out for a coveted spot with the elite-caliber Vance & Hines Pro Stock Motorcycle team. And his debut was not the stuff dreams are made of – he never made it past the water box. And team boss Terry Vance bluntly asked him, “Are you going to get this thing down the racetrack or are you going to keep sh—— the bed?” Gadson said, “That’s the first thing he ever said to me.” The conversation is much different today, now that Gadson is a successful member of the team and the leader in the standings by 72 points with only the Las Vegas race and the Pomona, Calif., finale to go.
Still, Gadson said he and crew chief Eddie Krawiec – a four-time champion who has nothing left to prove – believe he has something to justify himself. He said he feels “extremely motivated,” even after he beat the newest Vance & Hine protégé, Brayen Davis, in Sunday’s final round. Gadson said, “People keep congratulating me, and I keep saying it’s [the championship race is] not over yet.” He’s not tentative, though. He has faith in his abilities: “I got a good horse. But ‘good’ isn’t good enough for us.” For Gadson, the belief that he could be in this position was always there. “We knew it, even if it didn’t look like it,” he said.
Gadson didn’t earn his first victory until this June, but now he has four, most notably two in the playoffs.
6 – FORCE DEALT ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT – Brittany Force registered her second 340-plus-mph speed of the meet at 340.14 in her Round 1 victory over Tony Schumacher. She ran a track-record 340.57 mph in Friday qualifying. But once again, her car would not cooperate when it came to going late rounds. After she drove out on her burnout in the semifinal, ready to take on Steve Torrence, the car experienced what the team thought was an ignition problem of some description. It simply quit on her. She opened the cockpit canopy, climbed out right there on the track, and went straight to her tow vehicle, supremely disappointed.
7 – IS THIS A CLUE? – Maybe it isn’t a clue at all. But did Ron Capps drop hints about the 2026 partner/sponsor for his Top Fuel dragster that Maddi Gordon will be driving? Following his second-round pass, in which he beat Cruz Pedregon but crossed the center line following the finish line, Capps said in a top-end interview that his daughter Taylor was in attendance, as were the Formula One McLaren team. “We have [Oscar] Piastri and Team McLaren here as guest of NHRA. They’re in our pit area.” He said his daughter “is a big Lando [Norris] fan. I’m a big Piastri fan. It was cool to have them. They’re at the starting line right now. Maddi’s down here. Big announcement at SEMA opening day. Can’t wait.” Perhaps the comments that flowed together aren’t related, but pretty soon Capps will share his news.
8 – HAGAN FRUSTRATED BY PARTS ATTRITION – Matt Hagan, looking to overtake Funny Car dominator Austin Prock, entered this weekend with just a 20-point gap to close. He left with a 112-point margin to overcome, thanks in part to an engine concussion in Friday qualifying and to a first-round loss Sunday to Paul Lee by six-thousandths of a second. Hagan had beaten Lee in all eight of their first-round meetings and had won all 14 of their total match-ups. Now he knows he needs to win the remaining two races if he is to earn a fifth title.
“This was a really challenging weekend and obviously not what we set out to do, losing first round,” Hagan said. “It all started with Friday night, when we missed it because we had a big explosion in the first session. It wasn’t a tune-up issue or parts being put on wrong, but just a parts failure. It’s hard to swallow when we keep having part failures from manufacturers, but it’s the hand we’re dealt.
“In the second session on Friday night, we had all new parts on the car. It was an unrealistic challenge to think we could go up there and row low (ET). We had cylinders out and had to shut the car off, so we didn’t qualify well. On Saturday in the heat of the day, we were making half-track pulls because we’re out of parts and pieces. We don’t have any more blowers, so we were trying to salvage the two we have to get through race day. That’s challenging because you’re going up there at kind of half-go. We’ve blown up six times this year. We had a close drag race today against Paul [Lee]. We did the best we could in the right lane. I got him a little on the tree [in reaction time], but he had more for the racetrack. That’s how it goes sometimes, and I’m not mad. I know it’s easy for my guys to put their heads down, but we have two races to go. No matter how the points hunt shakes out, we can still win two more races, so that’s what we’re focused on.”
9 – ROCKY ROAD AHEAD – Tony Stewart isn’t giving up, but he knows his path toward a Top Fuel championship is going to be uphill from here on out. “This wasn’t the weekend we were looking for at the FallNationals,” he said. “We were able to qualify the Mobil 1 machine in the top half of the field during Friday’s night session. We knew Clay [Millican] was going to be a tough opponent in Round 1 today. We just didn’t have enough for him. We have two races left to try and capitalize on points and try to bring home a couple more wins.”
10 – POST SCRIPTS – Buddy Hull, whose hand was injured in July at Sonoma, said he plans to return for the final two races of the season, at Las Vegas and Pomona, Calif. … Veteran Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Steve Johnson rode into the sand trap at the end of his Round 1 victory and was not able to prep the bike for his Round 2. That gave Gaige Herrera a free pass into the semifinal round.
