Photos by Alex Owens, Auto Imagery, Mike Burghardt, Jeff Burghardt
SATURDAY NOTEBOOK – KALITTA, TODD, GLENN WIN #2FAST2TASTY POINTS, CASH; LANGDON, HYDE, ANDERSON TO LEAD THEIR FIELDS IN RUNOFFS; PROCK IMPROVES
1 – MISSION FOOD #2FAST2TASTY – Doug Kalitta (Top Fuel), JR Todd (Funny Car), and Dallas Glenn (Pro Stock) kicked off the 2026 Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge schedule in style Saturday at Firebird Motorsports Park during the FMP Arizona Nationals.
Kalitta’s winning 3.924-second, 308.64-mph pass on the 1,000-foot suburban Phoenix racetrack against Antron Brown gave him not only the bonus-event Top Fuel victory but secured the No. 3 starting position for Sunday’s eliminations.
“It’s incredible,” Kalitta said after recording his eighth Challenge triumph in 21 tries in his Mac Tools dragster. “We’re fortunate enough to do all of these and glad we were able to keep it up. It’s fun to race on Saturday. It just brings an element to the fans to be able to see some racing. I hope everybody comes back out on Sunday after seeing some racing on Saturday.”
He added, “It’s definitely tricky out there. My guys, Alan Johnson and Mac [Savage], they did a heck of a job to have the lowest time in the session. Alan is a wizard with these things, and he and Mac are in there deciding what to run, but we’re always throwing down and trying to go low.”
The Funny Car final was a close race, but JR Todd gave Kalitta Motorsports a nitro double in #2Fast2Tasty competition, edging Jordan Vandergriff by less than half a car length (precisely .0223 of second). Todd’s 4.196-second elapsed time and 282.42-mph speed trumped Vandergriff’s 4.231, 271.73.
Afterward, Todd said, “Jordan, he’s doing a great job of that John Force Racing car. He’s going to be one to watch this season, but I feel like we got something for these guys this year. Let one get away last race there in Gainesville. So far it’s a good weekend for Kalitta Motorsports. It’s getting tricky out there the hotter it gets, especially for this #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. Thank you to Mission Foods. Our mission this year is to take all their money. They put it out there, we might as well take it.”
In Pro Stock, Dallas Glenn was fired up after using a 6.608-second, 207.62-mph run to defeat Erica Enders. “It feels really good. I feel a lot more relaxed this year than I did last year. Last year I kind of felt like I had a chip on my shoulder and a lot of pressure. And this year I kind of feel a lot more relaxed. I got the weight of the world off my shoulders,” the current class champion said. Now, he said after securing victory in the first of the season’s bonus races, he’s “out here having fun and doing what we know how to do. Today couldn’t be any better. And thank you to everybody, KB Titan. It shows that we got a lot of fight left in us and we’re not going down easy.”
2 – LANGDON BACK IN HIS PHOENIX GROOVE – Shawn Langdon shook off the heat and any doubts that the track could give him the elapsed time he needed to claim his 23rd career No. 1 qualifying position and first here since 2012.
“The run this morning, we knew the conditions were the best they’d been, and there was a chance to go to No. 1 and get that bye in the first round,” Langdon said. “
The Kalitta Air dragster driver covered the 1,000-foot course in 3.783 seconds at 331.36 mph in Saturday’s first qualifying session to capture the top position in the order. And he did it in arguably the most entertaining side-by-side run of the weekend. Leah Pruett, in the opposite lane, posted a 3.788, 325.92 to move into second place with one final session remaining.
They lined up opposite each other once again in the final session, and the result was the same – Langdon earned the No. 1 spot, and Pruett will start from second.
It was an all’s-well-that-ends-well qualifying wrap-up for Langdon, who started out with a safety box malfunction in his first trip to the starting line this weekend.
After Saturday’s feat, Langdon said, “Good job, Brian [crew chief Husen] and everybody at Kalitta Air and my whole team. They’ve given me a good car in qualifying. One thing that we’re trying to focus on this year is the little points. I legged it out there, and I knew it kind of had its tongue out. But I knew that a lot of people weren’t making it down. So we were able to still get two little points there. Everything matters at the end. You don’t think about it much in the beginning, but it all matters in the end. So good job to everybody. The whole Kalitta team, collectively – a great qualifier.”
He said, “The track is a little tricky out here, but we were happy to make three good runs. We lost our first run Friday due to a safety-system malfunction, and that’s not ideal, but, like I’ve always said, if you surround yourself with good people you can do good things. I’ve got a great group behind me. Brian has been doing a fantastic job, and all the guys have been doing a great job putting the car together, so my confidence is as high as it’s ever been inside of a race car.”
With Top Fuel one car short of a full field this weekend, Langdon has a special opportunity Sunday to go for his third straight Phoenix victory via a first-round bye. He also was runner-up here to Justin Ashley in 2023.
3 – HYDE STAYS NO. 1 IN FUNNY CAR – Funny Car No. 1 qualifier Spencer Hyde retained his No. 1 qualifying spot in Funny Car from Friday. It will mark the second time in his young Funny Car career that he has led the field in eliminations and his first since the Countdown opener at Reading, Pa., last September.
“That’s kind of what I was expecting to be honest,” Hyde said. “I figured, looking at the weather and the schedule, we figured Q1 was going to be the fastest session. I was a little surprised Chad Green went 3.99 this morning. That was a good run they made. We are happy to make four good, solid runs in qualifying. We kicked the [supercharger] belt off there on Q4 about 700-800 feet. We didn’t make it quite to the finish line, but it was still on a decent run.
“For us to make four A to B trips during qualifying is really good,” he said. “We’re very happy. We haven’t been particularly good in the heat. We learned some stuff in Gainesville and some tricky track conditions there, so we found a good hot-track tune-up, going into Q4 in Gainesville. We made a big change, and it paid off. I’ve got a good race car underneath me. You can deal with whatever track conditions are thrown at the tuner. And Jim [team boss Jim Head] is doing a very good job. I’m happy with the boys and what the team’s done. We’ve got a good group of guys behind us, and I think if we can do that, four more runs tomorrow, should be able to put us in the winners circle.”
His journey will start against No. 16 starter Blake Alexander.
4 – ANDERSON ‘CRUSHES’ IT IN PRO STOCK – Greg Anderson already was leading the Pro Stock field Saturday morning with a 6.552-second pass (206.99 mph) from Friday. But, in the words of Anderson’s teammate Dallas Glenn, “Greg crushed it” during the first round of the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. Anderson red-lit on the launch, allowing his nemesis Erica Enders, to advance to the bonus-race final but tightening his grip on the No. 1 qualifier with his 6.532-second pass at 208.26 mph
“We’re just rubbing on it. It’s getting a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better,” Anderson said. “Apparently, it likes the heat out here. It likes the dry heat. So hopefully it’s a great combination. I got a little bit too amped up in the first round of the #2Fast2Tasty. Should have certainly had that one, but messed up and somehow red light and felt I hit it good, but somehow it said red, so I was red. But we’ll forget about that and come back at it tomorrow. I know I’ve got the horse. I just got to get up and ride that thing, and I feel pretty good.”
If he wins, that will be his 113th victory, best among active drivers in the NHRA.
5 – PROCK ENCOURAGED – Austin Prock is starting to head in the correct direction. After failing to qualify for the season-opening Gatornationals and pulling to the starting line Saturday unqualified for this second race of the year, the reigning and two-time Funny Car champion got safely into Sunday’s show in the middle of the order. Prock improved to No. 9 in his new Tasca Racing Ford Mustang with a 4.041-second elapsed time at 320.05 mph.
“There’s nobody here who needed that more than Jimmy Prock,” team owner Bob Tasca III said of the driver’s dad and crew chief. “Last night we learned a lot. He made the adjustments. That’s a great run.”
Austin Prock, managing a smile of relief for maybe the first time all season, said, “It felt good to get to the stripe and pull the laundry under power. I would’ve loved to see my boss Bob Tasca’s reaction. I’m sure his feet left the ground after that one. He’s been a great supporter, had our back this whole time, and that makes us feel good as a race team. So we’re heading in the right direction. I said yesterday that we’re getting closer. And after we smoked the tires at 600 feet, there was a little bit of a smirk on my dad’s face. And he said, ‘We can go A to B twice today. We’re going to have a shot to win this race on Sunday.’ And that’s got a chip on my shoulder. So I got some confidence back and happy to drive to this Ford Racing machine with Motorcraft. It’s going to be a good weekend.”
6 – RACY MACIE – Macie Gordon, younger sister of Top Fuel phenom Maddi Gordon and her “partner in grime” all along with the family-owned Top Alcohol Funny Car, won her first-round race Saturday against Don London. Maddi Gordon slipped from the tentative first-place slot in Top Fuel early Saturday as Doug Kalitta bumped her back to fourth in the order when he eliminated her from #2Fast2Tasty Challenge contention during the Q3 session.
7 – TRACK RECORDS INTACT – For as skillfully as drivers navigated the extremely hot surface both Friday and Saturday, Firebird Motorsports Park records haven’t changed – amazingly, some since 2013. The top elapsed times of the weekend belong to Shawn Langdon (Top Fuel, 3.783 seconds), Spencer Hyde (Funny Car, 3.979), and Greg Anderson (Pro Stock, 6.532). That means the current track marks never were in danger.
Not every NHRA visit to Phoenix has been as scorching as this one. Nevertheless, Brittany Force’s 3.643 seconds from February 2020 in Top Fuel, Matt Hagan’s 3.823 from February 2022, and Mike Edwards’ 6.498 from February 2013. It’s status quo for the speed records here, as well: Top Fuel – 337.92 mph (Brittany Force, 2020); 337.16 mph Funny Car – (Courtney Force, 2018); Feb. ’18; and Pro Stock – 213.77 mph (Mike Edwards, 2013).
8 – ‘HEY, MAN, STAY SAFE’ – Shawn Langdon, Top Fuel’s No. 1 qualifier, spent much of the winter racing in the Arabian Drag Racing League in the local Qatar series. Despite the fact the program was canceled because of the multinational conflict in the Middle East, Langdon told Autoweek’s Deb Williams that has spoken daily with Sheik Khalid Al Thani, whose family owns Qatar, and that he has “ been in communication with a couple of the other people that I’ve met – kind of a, ‘Hey, man, stay safe’ [greeting].” He has stayed in touch with Khalid alBalooshi, his former NHRA teammate at Al Anabi Racing. Balooshi lives in Dubai, and Langdon helps set up the race cars for Balooshi’s two sons.
“They absolutely love drag racing,” Langdon told Williams. “They don’t have just individual teams. They have racing clubs and the racing clubs represent the countries. So, the governments allow people that are on the racing team … paid time off of work to represent the country in the racing league. They also get paid by the government. The government pays the racing clubs as [the] representative of the country. So, there’s a lot of country pride that goes on over there. It has a little bit of an Olympic vibe to it.”
9 – OOPS – Funny Car’s Jack Beckman crossed the center line past the finish line in Q3 and lost 10 points. But the John Force Racing driver responded in Q4 with a strong run and preserved his No. 2 starting spot for Sunday’s eliminations, which begin at 10 a.m. PDT.
10 – MOOSE ON LOOSE – Central Arizona native Dylan “Nitro Moose” Winefsky reset his career-best performance records in the third overall qualifying session. He did it with a 4.159-second elapsed time and 299.93-mph speed. He qualified 14th on the 16-car grid.
FRIDAY NOTEBOOK – GORDON CONTINUES TO IMPRESS IN TOP FUEL, FUNNY CAR’S HYDE OFFICIALLY IS A BIG DEAL, ANDERSON OVERCOMES PRO STOCK PRESSURE TO ‘GET IT RIGHT’ FIRST TIME, PRUETT AND STEWART NEUTRALIZE BUZZ ABOUT THEIR PAIRING ON TRACK
1 – GORDON GRABS PROVISIONAL TOP FUEL NO. 1 – As soon as Maddi Gordon hopped out of the cockpit of her Carlyle Tools dragster following her first qualifying attempt for the FMP Arizona Nationals, she said, “How cool was that?!”
The Top Fuel rookie, the only one in the class to complete a full pass in the morning session, grabbed the early lead Friday with a 3.844-second elapsed time and 329.42-mph speed. “I am so stoked! I’m just absolutely pumped up,” she said. “I’m so thankful to be with our team. I think that was pretty dang cool.”
And despite cutting her engine off early in her second-session run (“That was just me learning,” she said), Gordon held onto her place. That put her in excellent position for Saturday’s final two sessions, which include the first Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge of 2026. And that has her extra-excited.
“We get to start our racing mojo on Saturday,” Gordon said. “It’s a whole different mindset – way different. I’m excited to start that early.”
For Gordon, “it was a lot of firsts going on,” she said. “A month and a half ago, I had never warmed up a dragster with a blower before. I learn every single pass down the track something new. The more I know, I can be a better driver. I have so much to learn, but I got the best teachers.” Besides team owner Ron Capps, Gordon’s tutors are crew chiefs Rob Flynn and Troy Fasching.
“I love their can-do attitude,” she said. “A problem is never a problem. I was never raised around ‘I can’t.’ It’s ‘How do I figure it out?’ And they’re the same way. They’ve got a way of figuring out how to walk you down a warm racetrack – walking you down at 320-some miles an hour. So it’s a brisk walk.”
Her younger sister, Macie Gordon, qualified 14th in the 28-car Top Dragster field in Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series action Friday.
2 – HYDE OFFICIALLY IS A BIG DEAL – Although he was honored and grateful to be recognized, Funny Car racer Spencer Hyde said he didn’t at first comprehend that the NHRA Rookie of the Year award was so prestigious.
“I think I downplayed it a little bit. I didn’t realize it was quite as big a deal as it is, as it’s turned out to be,” the Jim Head Racing driver said. “You look at the list of past recipients of that, and it’s a pretty great list of people. Some guys and girls that have gone on to have very successful careers in drag racing, and I hope to be able to do the same, following their footsteps.”
Demonstrating a huge improvement from his double-DNQ start of 2025, Hyde is on his way to proving he deserved the votes last fall.
Relying on his 3.979-second, 317.64-mph performance from Friday’s first session, Hyde earned the provisional No. 1 qualifying berth. If he can maintain that through two more sessions on a murderously molten racetrack, he’ll have his second career No. 1 start and his first since the Countdown kickoff at Reading, Pa., last September.
So in one year, Hyde has gone from questioning “if I was the right guy for the job” to feeling comfortable and confident about what he and boss Jim Head can accomplish together.
Hyde said he doesn’t know how much the Rookie of the Year honor has changed his life.
“I guess just lots of people reaching out and congratulating us on our success,” he said. “But it’s definitely opened up some new opportunities. Actually, a couple of people texted me, looking to help out on the car [this] year, sponsorship-wise, right after we won that thing. So, it’s gone very well.”
And it produced something a little bit rare – a smile on team owner Head’s face.
“He was happy for sure,” Hyde said. “Jim’s not a guy that gets excited about too much, but he was very supportive and congratulative, and we’re very much looking forward to carrying on.”
It’s no secret that Head hasn’t been all that keen on chasing points or chasing a lot of money.
Hyde said, “He told me when I first started, ‘Whatever [money] you can bring is great. I’m not much good at dealing with sponsors,’ but he said, ‘Whatever you need from me, let me know.’ And he’s been great. It [was] an awesome rookie season. I’m very blessed I got to start my career with him, and I’m very excited to carry it on and see what we can do. Hopefully we can put this thing in the winners circle.”
The driver from Stratford, Ontario, began in the pro ranks in Top Fuel, working with fellow Canadian Todd Paton and his family. So it was a surprising twist to his career when he wound up in a Funny Car.
“I wasn’t looking for a ride,” Hyde said. “I was actually looking for funding to run with Paton’s [organization] six or eight times. This was in ’23. I was looking for ’24, and it didn’t really come to fruition. And then I was still hunting money at the end of ’24 to try and do it in ’25. The Top Fuel thing kind of started just being at the racetrack when the Patons were there, doing match races up in Canada and getting to know those guys. And it was always something I aspired to do, drive a Top Fuel car ever since I started racing Jr. Dragsters. So I decided to dip my feet into Top Fuel. And honestly, that was the path I was kind of headed down.
“And Jim’s son, Chad, had called me in November of, I guess it would’ve been late October of ’24, and said, ‘Hey, you ever thought of driving a Funny Car?’ And I said, ‘Wow, I thought about it lots of times. Never really had an opportunity.’ He said, ‘Well, Dad needs a driver, and I told him to call you.’
“So, Jim called, and we talked for half an hour on the phone,” he said, “and we didn’t talk but five minutes of drag racing. We talked 25 minutes about construction and work and other interests.”
Hyde and his family operate Hyde Construction Limited, which specializes in commercial, industrial, and residential and multi-residential projects.
“So I think we just kind of hit it off right away. And a couple phone calls later, he was flying up to my place to meet me and my dad, and we put a deal together. And here we are. When Jim called, it just kind of changed things and I’m very grateful for the opportunity. It’s been great,” Hyde said.
“Jim and I can talk about anything. We have similar interests. We both like golf. We both like flying airplanes. He’s a longtime pilot. I’m a student pilot. I’m working on my license right now. Just about finished, actually. So he kind of rekindled my interest for flying. He’s nice enough to, if I get to Columbus, he’ll fly me to the races on his plane. He lets me fly up front with him. It’s been really cool,” he said. “And, obviously, construction. We’re both in the construction industry, and he used to build buildings back in the ’70s and ’80s, but we still build apartment buildings and houses and car dealerships and medical centers and that kind of stuff. We do everything but mostly multi-res now.”
Hyde said Jim Head is “such an easy guy to talk to. He’s smart as hell, and he’s hilarious. There’s so many people that read him the wrong way. And listen, he is what he is. He gets excited and he flies off the handle and whatnot, but he is really just a genuine guy. He’s very opinionated, and some people get turned off on that, but a lot of times he’s right. Just happy to be able to hang out with him and get to know him. And his wife, Tammy’s been great. And my mom and her get along really well. My dad gets along with Jim. The whole thing’s really, really good.”
3 – VETERANS TOP OPENING-DAY PRO STOCK FIELD – By six-thousandths of a second quicker than Greg Stanfield, six-time series champion Greg Anderson was hottest on the 131-degree racetrack Friday. Jeg Coughlin was third and Gainesville winner Matt Hartford fourth heading into one final scorching day of qualifying Saturday.
Anderson is seeking his 141st top-qualifying position, but he was just glad Friday to be solidly in the field. “We just about DNQd at Gainesville,” he said, reminding himself that on this blistering surface in the Arizona desert, he had to take advantage of a rare 9:30 a.m. start.
He said he knew “without a doubt it’s going to be the best qualifying run of the weekend. That pretty much makes it kind of a one-shot deal. You’d better get it right on that first run. A lot of pressure. You can’t go up there [to the starting line] and shoot for the moon, because if you don’t make it down there [to the finish line under power], you may not qualify – because the next three sessions are going to be tough.”
His 6.552-second, 206.99-mph effort was the first run off the trailer, so Anderson hit his mark. He’ll be competing in Saturday’s Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge.
4 – PROS IN BONUS MODE AGAIN – Back for the fourth season, the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge will launch Saturday with pro-class semifinalists from the Gatornationals doing a bit of grudge racing and contending for Countdown bonus points and stacks of cash.
The Challenge is a two-round race within a race that takes place during Saturday qualifying.
In the Top Fuel class, it’ll be “the kid versus the king” – rookie Maddi Gordon hoping to beat two-time and reigning class champion Doug Kalitta, a 59-time race winner. Kalitta earned the most victories and the most Countdown bonus points in the #2Fast2Tasty Challenge last year. But Gordon obviously made some cagey moves in her pro debut at Gainesville, eliminating veterans and champions Shawn Langdon and Tony Schumacher two weeks ago. In the other dragster match-up, season-opening winner Josh Hart will try to hold off Antron Brown again.
It’s Trivia Time in the Funny Car class: Which of the four bonus racers this weekend is the only one to capture a series championship? Answer: J.R. Todd. He’ll take on Alexis DeJoria, who beat him in Florida. DeJoria’s John Force Racing mate Jordan Vandergriff will face Chad Green, who not only defeated him at Gainesville but went on to win the event.
It’s almost inescapable: The Pro Stock class bonus race will feature a Greg Anderson vs. Erica Enders match-up. Anderson won in Gainesville. The winner of that one will face either current champion Dallas Glenn or Gatornationals winner Matt Hartford.
5 – THEY GOT IT OUT OF THE WAY – Although it truly doesn’t mean anything to either of them, the husband-wife tandem Tony Stewart and Leah Pruett lined up against one another in Friday’s opening qualifying session. And for Those Who Are Keeping Track, Pruett’s performance was better, but they were respectable third and fourth in the lineup, despite the fact both lost traction. Pruett took third place behind leader Maddi Gordon and No. 2 Billy Torrence with a 4.148-second elapsed time at 216.65. Stewart clocked a 4.191, 213.23. Pruett had the edge on the Christmas Tree, as well. The track announcer laid it out: “She got there first. She left first.” And Don Prudhomme, who had been providing commentary for the session, added, “And she’s better-looking.”
Pruett wasn’t gloating over Stewart. “None of that,” she said. She didn’t need to criticize her husband, as he did that for himself. He downplayed the dynamics of competing alongside his wife, as he always has done when everyone wanted to hype the scenario. “Just got to do our jobs. Obviously, I didn’t do very good at mine. It doesn’t matter who’s in the other lane. You just got to hit the pedal and go when it’s time to go and worry about what you’re supposed to do.”
Pruett finished the day with the third-quickest E.T. of the session, good for fourth place. Stewart is eighth overnight.
6 – LANGDON, FIREBIRD BACK IN SYNCH – For Shawn Langdon, Firebird Motorsports Park has been a friendly venue. The Kalitta Motorsports driver and 2013 series champion has won the past two Top Fuel trophies here and said last time, “There are some tracks that just seem to work well with what you have, and there’s some tracks that just doesn’t seem to work well, and Phoenix, fortunately, is one of those that seem to work well.” But his good fortune turned on him Friday in the first qualifying session. Lined up against Tony Schumacher, Langdon hit the gas and the car didn’t move. The team rebounded from the mishap, and Langdon leaped to second on the leaderboard with a 3.925-second pass at 307.30 mph.
7 – REED RECALCULATING – Unless somebody hands Shawn Reed a massive pile of money to spend on racing in the next few months, the Top Fuel owner-driver will be making some radical changes. He already has collaborated with Ida Zetterström and has planned to compete in IHRA races this year. But he is planning a major business move away from the dragstrip.
“I’m selling 49 percent of my company to an employee at the end of ’26,” Reed said of his Tacoma, Wash.-based trucking and excavating business. “And I’ve got to position myself to where I can afford to do that. I can’t just steal all the damn money out of the company and then expect some big sale to go through. The problem I’m running into is I make about two and a half-million dollars a year, and I spend three. The math don’t work.
“And next year, if I’m selling 49 percent of the company, I can’t run a full-time dragster on my 51 percent,” he said, especially “at the current rate of me getting sponsors, which is very little. Maybe like a few hundred thousand dollars a year in help is all I get, other than Reed Trucking and Excavating, my company. If I’m going to sell that company, I vow not to use any of that money for drag racing. That’s my money that goes back in my retirement account. I live off interest and stuff with that kind of money, and I’m not going to go racing for three years and spend 49 percent of my money.”
As for his arrangement with Zetterström, Reed said, “The whole thing with bringing Ida on was she needed a place to go. She’s very marketable, and if she can do five races, six races, seven races, or whatever and get her in a good car, getting some rounds, going some rounds, doing some good things, and I can afford to go racing all by myself this year. I still got all my money from my company, but I’m trying to step out of the seat, let her get some traction. So she could either find a full-time sponsor or she could find a guy or a company that would just give her 10 races or 12 races, and then I’ll just do the other ones on my 51 percent of my money.”
What happens this year will factor into Reed’s agenda for 2027.
“If she can’t find money,” he said, “then I’m probably going to have to either go run the IHRA or go to a limited schedule and lay off a lot of people and go to a part-time crew.”
And he said he really isn’t sure how everything will play out.
“I don’t know yet, but I know January 1st of ’27, I only own 51 percent of Reed Trucking and Excavating,” he said. “Then 51 percent of two and a half million is about 1.2 million. And 1.2 million don’t get you through an NHRA season.”
That’s why his exit strategy becomes even more critical.
“In a nutshell, this is my third full-time year. It’s really all I ever wanted,” Reed said. “But now I’ve got to look to the exit strategy. And the exit strategy is to get someone in here to run my car and to maybe take over running my car, like to make this a business, not where I make a lot of money, but where I break even or make just a little bit. I mean, I need to get somebody like Ida over here to get some traction on getting some money for Shawn Reed Racing.
“I would love Shawn Reed Racing to be around for many, many, many years. I just need the money to come in,” he said, “because I’m not going to put my personal money in. I’m 60 years old, and I want to retire and I don’t want to have to work. So if I could bring in two and a half million dollars and I could spend two and a half million dollars, I can keep that afloat over there and make it work and get drivers and be a team. That’s what I want.”
7B – CRAZY MOMENT -There was a wild moment in Friday’s Top Sportsman qualifying when Gerald Bucklin left the starting line and seemingly spun out an impacted the wall.
8 – ENDERS AIMING FOR TWO TROPHIES – Six-time Pro Stock champion Erica Enders has shaken off any PTSD she might have had from a fiery Pro Mod scare at Norwalk a few years ago and has given it another go. She has been running the Pro Mod car in the non-sanctioned winter series, but is making her NHRA debut with it this weekend, competing in both Pro Mod and Pro Stock. “We saw it was a short field so we went ahead and entered,” Enders said about driving this car. “It’s a handful. She went out there, kind of tried to take the tire off before it shifted and it started to labor. So I just threw the ’chutes. I don’t want to hurt anything on the first run while we’re out here messing around. So all in good fun. Glad to be out here in Phoenix.”
In Pro Mod, Enders closed the day in the provisional 11th place in a 16-car field. In Pro Stock, she is 10th in the line-up.
9 – HOT TOPIC – The John Force Racing Funny Car trio shared their take on the extreme heat this weekend. Tentative No. 4 starter Jordan Vandergriff said, “It plays a factor, but the key is to not let it play as much of a factor as it wants to.”
The first-year Funny Car driver said, “It was a different scenario today with Q1 being the hero run, I guess you could say, and ending with Q3 tomorrow looking like that, as well. You have to be ready to stomp on the pedal pretty early in the day. It’s different, but it’s the same idea, right? The heat definitely is getting to me a little bit. Just trying to stay hydrated is the most important part, but you definitely feel it in the car, and down track when you get out.”
Jack Beckman, who led the Force contingent with the provisional second spot, said, “Except for Richmond, that only runs a two-day race and starts earlier in the day, there’s never an event you go to where the expectation is the first run might have the best conditions for the quickest run. But when NHRA shifted the schedule due to the heat forecast, I think that was a prudent move. We knew runs one and three will probably be our best track conditions. But you don’t want to go to bed Friday night sweating if you’re not the one in the show. That’s a tough position to be in. We were there one race ago at Gainesville, going into the last session not qualified. So, to unload with the 3.98 takes so much pressure off the Peak Squad, and now it allows us to try some things with the tuneup. So, we pushed a little bit hard on Q2, and that’s okay. That will tell us what we need to do in Q4 and when we go into later rounds on Sunday.”
Alexis DeJoria said, “The conditions are super-hot. I mean, it’s ridiculous. Lanny (Miglizzi), our track specialist, said the track temp would probably get to about 150. John Force came over before Q1 and said, ‘Just get it down there any way you can. Obviously, it gets too crazy, you know, shut it off, and we’ll race another time. Uh, but you know what you’re doing. Just be careful.’ I said,’ OK, deal.’ I was on a good run but I guess it dropped a cylinder early and started to spin the tires at the top end. I was legging it out because, if it’s at the top end, you still have momentum and I could still handle it. All of a sudden, it just shot to the left because of the dropped cylinder but I stayed in it just to get it down to the top end and that got us in the show. We have two more runs tomorrow and the conditions will still be super-hot but I’ve got mad faith in this team.”
10 – TOUGH TIME FOR RACING – The NTT IndyCar Series moved its race-day schedule ahead last Sunday at the Java House Grand Prix of Arlington because of a forecast for “elevated winds.” The NHRA adjusted its schedule for this weekend to minimize the effects of 100-plus-degree temperatures. And the Formula 1 April grands prix at Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were canceled because of war. So it has been a bit of a tough stretch for motorsports.
The Saturday pro schedule for the FMP Arizona Nationals begins with Round 3 of qualifying and the first round of the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge at 10 a.m. PDT. The final qualifying session and the finals of the bonus race are expected to start at 12:30. Race day Sunday will see the track walk and opening ceremonies set for 9 a.m. Final eliminations will start at 10 a.m.
