Photos by: Alexis Owens, Adam Dobbs, NHRA
SATURDAY NOTEBOOK – SOLD OUT CROWD TREATED TO A GREAT DAY OF RUNS WHILE REMINICING ABOUT THE GOOD ‘OL DAYS
1 – SOLD THE JOINT OUT – NHRA took a chance on Rockingham (NC) Dragway. On Saturday, the fans answered.
NHRA officials announced a sellout for Saturday’s round of the inaugural NHRA Nationals at The Rock. Fans packed the grandstands for the second day of qualifying and delivered another strong attendance statement during the sanctioning body’s 75th anniversary season.
For Rockingham, though, this one carried a little more meaning.
The historic North Carolina drag strip underwent extensive work in preparation for NHRA’s return, including a new racing surface and facility upgrades. Throw in rain and the usual headaches that come with breaking in a new surface, and the weekend arrived with its share of unknowns.
By Saturday, there wasn’t much mystery left in the grandstands.
“This is just incredible,” Rockingham Dragway co-owner Dan VanHorn said. “These teams are just off the charts. All the weather, the rain, the brand-new facility, brand new surface, and they’re getting down and making us look good, and the NHRA is making us look good and we’re all just really proud.”
Rockingham was the fourth and final new stop added to the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series schedule during its 75th anniversary season, joining South Georgia Motorsports Park, Maryland International Raceway, and U.S. 131 Motorsports Park.
All four produced sellout days.
Saturday’s crowd at Rockingham also represented the 10th sellout day of the 2026 NHRA season, a list that began with the season-opening Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla.
2 – LEADERBOARD REMAINS UNCHANGED – They threw another full day of qualifying at Rockingham Dragway on Saturday, and nobody managed to move the four names sitting atop the professional leaderboards. Ron Capps, Doug Kalitta, Matt Hartford, and Angie Smith started the day as provisional No. 1 qualifiers and ended it the same way for the inaugural NHRA Nationals at The Rock.
Capps’ Friday run of 3.870 seconds at 330.40 mph survived every Funny Car shot Saturday, giving the three-time champion his fourth No. 1 qualifier of the season and 41st of his career. The payoff is a first-round bye Sunday, valuable real estate with the Countdown standings still packed tightly.
“We were praying that nobody would outdo us because that first-round bye is huge,” Capps said. “The points are still pretty bunched up. We gave up some ground in Martin. We’re just trying to forget about it, put it behind us.”
Alexis DeJoria qualified second at 3.892, 334.82, while reigning NHRA champion Austin Prock was third with a 3.892 at 326.80. Capps enters eliminations looking for his fourth victory of the season and 81st of his career.
Top Fuel competitors couldn’t match, much less better, Kalitta’s Friday 3.682 at 338.09, leaving the reigning class champion with his sixth No. 1 of 2026 and 72nd of his career. Tony Stewart’s 3.704 at 336.83 secured second, while points leader Shawn Langdon, Kalitta Motorsports’ other driver, qualified third at 3.732, 334.08.
Hartford made it three consecutive No. 1 qualifiers in Pro Stock when his Friday 6.476 at 212.87 held up Saturday. After consecutive runner-up finishes at Indianapolis and Martin, Hartford gets a first-round bye Sunday as he tries to convert another strong weekend into his fourth victory of the season.
Reigning NHRA Pro Stock titlist Dallas Glenn qualified second with a 6.478 at 212.06, followed by Matt Latino’s 6.479 at 211.67. Just three-thousandths separated the top three heading into eliminations.
Angie Smith completed the qualifying sweep when her 6.674 at 201.61 remained quickest in Pro Stock Motorcycle. It was Smith’s fourth No. 1 qualifier of the season, and also rewarded her with a first-round bye.
Gaige Herrera qualified second at 6.680, 202.07, with Matt Smith third at 6.681, 204.17.
3 – NOT THE SAME ROCKINGHAM – No one had to tell Ron Capps this was a different Rockingham Dragway than the one he last raced on in the 1998 NHRA Winston Invitational. The grandstands still crowd the racing surface and the memories remain, but what Capps felt through the seat of his Funny Car belonged to another Rockingham.
That was probably a good thing.
Capps reached the Funny Car final the last time NHRA raced here, driving
for Don Prudhomme. His current crew chief, Dean “Guido” Antonelli, was on John Force’s team back then, giving the two veterans different views of the same Rockingham era.
“I was there the last time NHRA raced here. I was in the final round, actually,” Capps said. “It’s funny because Guido and I, we’re like these two OG dogs.”
The memories started coming back before Capps ever staged.
“We were pulling up the first run, I said, ‘Man, I’m having flashbacks from this left lane because you have to pull up around the tower, a hard left and get it over in the left lane for the burnout,'” Capps said. “He was on John Force’s team back then and I was driving for Don Prudhomme, so we got great memories, just different ways we came about.”
Thursday’s rain forced NHRA’s Safety Safari into extensive track work, including an area roughly 200 to 400 feet down the left lane where getting rubber to adhere had been an issue. By Friday, Capps couldn’t tell from inside the car that anything had happened.
“Completely different track,” Capps said. “And it used to be pretty bumpy.”
Capps remembered having only one parachute deploy on a run at the old Rockingham, an experience he believes would have put him into the sand or possibly the net. This time, the shutdown area produced no drama.
“It’s a short shutdown, but very smooth,” Capps said. “They did a great job.”
Even one of Rockingham’s most unmistakable throwbacks remains — the concrete grandstand sitting almost on top of the left lane.
“If you sat in the first one or two rows, you for sure felt like your eyebrows were getting singed by the Top Fuel headers,” Capps said. “It is by far the coolest grandstand to sit in for a Top Fuel race.”
Capps came back looking at a place loaded with memories. He left Friday impressed by something he never remembered about the old Rockingham, just how smooth it was.
“I made my run in the left lane and we were No. 2 at the time, but smooth,” Capps said. “I couldn’t believe how smooth it was.”
4 – STILL THE SAME PAUL SMITH – Paul Smith is 80 years old, has been racing nitro cars at Rockingham Dragway since the days when tuners drove them, and already knows when he’ll finally retire – when he’s gone.
Smith returned to The Rock this weekend with longtime friend and former track owner Steve Earwood helping sponsor his Funny Car. Their relationship reaches back to the 1970s, when Smith was racing here and Earwood was working the other side of the guardwall as a promoter.
“I love racing with my family, and I love Rockingham, and we’re going to give it another shot this weekend,” Smith said.
Smith raced in AHRA, IHRA, and NHRA competition, winning three IHRA races in 11 final rounds. He finished runner-up for the 1974 NHRA Funny Car championship and later won NHRA national events as a team owner and tuner.
He’s also a holdover from another era, when a Funny Car driver often doubled as his own crew chief.
Smith pointed to Dale Armstrong and Ken Veney as examples of racers who drove, tuned, and worked on their own cars because independent teams didn’t have much choice. Smith’s operation remains a family affair with sons John “Bodie” Smith and Mike Smith involved, along with granddaughter Megan Hartman-Smith, an A/Fuel racer who holds a Top Fuel license.
Smith hasn’t ruled out eventually putting Megan in his Funny Car. He also provided a Smith-style explanation of why that transition shouldn’t be taken lightly.
“I mean a dragster, you treat it like a lady,” Smith said. “A funny car, you say some bad words to it and you make it happen.”
The sport Smith grew up in has changed considerably, particularly financially. He might run eight or 10 races annually while leading teams can spend heavily testing and servicing components at intervals an independent operation cannot match.
“I’m not crying poor,” Smith said. “We’re not poor or nothing, but I mean if you want to take two million dollars and turn it into one million, buy a funny car.”
That’s where Earwood enters the story. For Smith, his friend’s support isn’t another sponsorship transaction.
“When you know a guy like Steve Earwood, it ain’t about the money,” Smith said. “It’s about friendship.”
Smith still calls drag racers carnies — people who arrive, put up their show, race for their money and move to the next stop. He’s been doing it for more than half a century, and age hasn’t changed the plan.
“People say, ‘When are you going to quit or when are you going to retire?’” Smith said. “I say, ‘When I’m gone. If I can keep scraping up the money, I’m going to keep doing it.’”
5 – BACK WHERE IT ALL BEGAN – Justin Ashley can laugh about it now. Ten years ago at Rockingham Dragway, one of Top Fuel’s better starting-line launchers apparently had trouble finding the starting line.
Ashley was 21, the last car he’d driven was a Junior Dragster, and he was making his Barry Brown Top Dragster debut in conditions hardly suited for breaking in a rookie. The wind was howling across the racetrack, and Ashley remembers rolling through the staging beams on one of his first attempts.
“The first time I tried to stage, I’m pretty sure I rolled right through the beams,” Ashley said. “And it took us a little while. We got the license. We had a great weekend. We didn’t qualify, but I just had such a good experience racing with Barry Brown and his family at Top Dragster.”
A decade later, Ashley returned to Rockingham as a 19-time Top Fuel winner with a 193-111 round-win record. He graduated to Top Alcohol Dragster in 2017 and Top Fuel two years later.
None of that was on his radar at Rockingham.
“My thought process was, ‘Okay, Top Dragster. Let’s see how this goes and then we’ll go from there,’” Ashley said. “And one thing led to another, and it led to Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Fuel.”
That first Rockingham weekend was memorable for other reasons. Top Sportsman champion Ronnie Davis died following a crash, and photographer Ian Tocher was badly injured.
Ashley also remembers Top Dragster team owner Barry Brown making a run in the difficult conditions and refusing to move his car at the top end until word was sent back that Ashley shouldn’t make another pass.
“He didn’t feel like it was safe and it wasn’t safe for me, so for him to take a stand and do that was really neat,” Ashley said.
Ashley came to Rockingham trying to learn to race a Top Dragster. Ten years later, he returned knowing considerably more about the race car — and the sport.
“And to think about 10 years ago being here, and aside from Junior Dragsters, that was really the kickstart to my NHRA career, to where I am today and all the people that have helped along the way, it really is, it gives me a lot of gratitude,” Ashley said. “So nice to return to the place where it all started.”
6 – GREEN RIDING SOLO – Chad Green had already made his run last Monday at Michigan when son Hunter Green launched in the family’s second Funny Car. From the top end, the elder Green could only listen to the radio as an engine explosion turned Hunter’s run into something no racing father wants to witness.
Then came the message Chad needed most: Hunter was out of the car.
“I was listening to it on the radio right when he took off and heard he blew up, he was in the wall,” Green said. “I looked up and I could see him getting the car shut down, car hopping around. I saw that he got shut down.”
The damage was substantial enough to keep Hunter out of this weekend’s NHRA Nationals at the Rock at Rockingham Dragway. The Funny Car is undergoing front-half repairs, leaving Chad as the only CGM Funny Car in competition.
“Of course I was concerned, but I also heard on the radio that he’s out of the car,” Green said. “So once I heard that, I knew he was going to be alright.”
There was also a racer’s perspective once the father knew his son was safe. Nitro Funny Cars have a way of teaching lessons that cannot be duplicated in a classroom or explained during a team meeting.
“It was a rough weekend for him, but a lot of good experience comes from that, all that stuff that happened to him last weekend,” Green said.
“Not that you want that to happen, but if everything just always goes smoothly, you don’t gain much experience from that. It reminds him how much you’ve got to respect these cars because they can hurt you.”
Hunter had been scheduled to compete at Rockingham, but the damage to the car will also cause him to miss St. Louis. Chad said the team expects the repaired car back for Dallas, with Hunter also planning to race Las Vegas and Pomona.
Rockingham carries its own significance for the elder Green. Long before nitromethane became part of the family business, Green made his first Pro Modified licensing runs at the track.
“That’s really the only history I have,” he said, “but it’s still cool because that was in the beginning when I first got into Pro Mod, and now to be back here racing nitro Funny Car’s pretty cool.”
7 – ROCKINGHAM’S HISTORIC CONTRIBUTIONS – Rockingham Dragway has never needed a history lesson painted on the wall. The asphalt has done a pretty good job of keeping the receipts.
Long before NHRA returned to The Rock this weekend, Shirley Muldowney and Rickie Smith put their names into drag racing history at this place, nine years apart and in two completely different forms of race car.
Muldowney got there first.
On July 25, 1971, she drove her Mustang to victory at the IHRA Southern Nationals, becoming the first woman to win a national event in a nitro-burning Funny Car. Muldowney defeated Della Woods, Casey Powell, and Tom Hoover before beating Connie Kalitta in the final with a 7.39-second run when Kalitta lost an engine.
The car wasn’t exactly state-of-the-art, even by 1971 standards. Muldowney remembered it as a used Funny Car that didn’t fit her particularly well and required some creative engineering just to make it manageable.
“Had a round steering wheel,” she said. “It had an air slave cylinder in it so I could shift it. I tried using a hand shifter, and I couldn’t even pull it.”
Nine years later, Rockingham’s timing system spit out another piece of paper worth keeping.
During the April 1980 IHRA Pro-Am Nationals, Smith won his first-round race and became the first Pro Stock driver to officially break the seven-second barrier at a sanctioned event, stopping the clocks at 7.99 seconds. The performance came at a time when NHRA’s Pro Stock record remained in the 8.30s.
Smith didn’t initially realize what he had done. When an IHRA official came to retrieve him, Smith figured there might be bad news coming.
“I was happy that I had won, but the next thing I know, I had a race official coming over to me and telling me to follow him,” Smith said. “I didn’t know what was going on. I thought I was in trouble.”
Instead, IHRA President Larry Carrier stopped the race and presented Smith with the 7.99 time slip in front of the crowd.
It was the first in a series of highlights that eventually inspired NHRA to abandon their pounds-per-cubic-inch format and go to a variation of the mountain motor at 500 inches.
8 – THEY NEVER FORGOT HIM – Clay Millican barely had a break from the autograph seekers Saturday morning to squeeze in an interview. That’s to be expected when the good ol’ boy from Drummonds, Tenn., returns to the place where, for a stretch of IHRA history, he practically owned the joint.
Millican competed in 14 IHRA national events at Rockingham Dragway from 2000 through ’06, reached 12 final rounds and won 11. Six consecutive IHRA Top Fuel championships only strengthened his connection with a fan base that clearly hasn’t forgotten him.
“Oh, yeah. It’s bright and early, but the people in this area have not forgotten the kind of run that I had here at this place,” Millican said. “I’ve always credited it, I have a house because of this racetrack right here.”
Rockingham was more than just another stop during Millican’s IHRA domination. He won nine consecutive events here before Cory McClenathan finally stopped the streak at the 2006 Spring Nationals. Millican returned later that year and won again.
“I’ve had more success here, hands down, than any other place I’ve ever raced at,” Millican said. “This place has just been special to me.”
Some of the old information apparently remains useful.
Millican received a text this week from former crew chief Mike Kloeber telling him where to position the car in Rockingham’s left lane and where to drive it.
“He said, ‘Because that left lane’s won us a lot of money,’” Millican said.
Returning to Rockingham also brought back memories that predated the Top Fuel championships. Millican spent part of Thursday riding around the property remembering where he once parked among the pine trees while competing in Top Dragster and Modified Eliminator on the same weekend.
“It made me remember we had a nitrous solenoid stuck closed,” he said, “and I got my butt kicked first round.”
9 – KEEP GETTING PULLED BACK – Joey Gladstone smiles when someone notes that he cannot get away from Pro Stock Motorcycle before it drags him back in, most notably Matt Smith Racing.
Gladstone, who subbed earlier this year for Matt Smith, is racing this weekend as a substitute for Jianna Evaristo, who is recovering from a knee injury.
Gladstone came to Rockingham Dragway primarily to handle the clutch and transmission on Matt Latino’s Pro Stock car. Then came the short-notice call to ride Evaristo’s motorcycle, turning an already busy race weekend into a two-class juggling act.
“It’s not a bad problem to have, right?” Gladstone said. “I mean, it feels pretty good when somebody asks you to ride a caliber bike like Jianna’s. That thing’s nice and it’s an honor to be called upon to ride it.”
There was one complication: Nobody was standing around waiting to take over Gladstone’s KB Racing regular job.
“We didn’t really have anybody to replace me for what I do on the car,” Gladstone said. “So we’ve had to modify what I do a little bit, and I’ve had to lean on my guys and they’ve stepped up and some of the guys are learning, moving up and that’s been really cool.”
Gladstone’s Pro Stock duties aren’t ceremonial. He services Latino’s clutch and builds transmissions according to whatever ratios the crew chiefs want for changing atmospheric and track conditions.
Sometimes the call comes with a stopwatch attached.
“So you got to be ready at a moment’s notice to build a transmission pretty quick,” Gladstone said. “The goal is to do it in under 15 minutes.”
Gladstone figures his personal best on a complete five-speed build is somewhere around nine minutes. Changing only fifth gear can be handled considerably quicker, but the routine is built around being ready when the turnaround gets ugly.
“If it’s a lot of times between the semis and the finals, it’s a really tight turnaround, you got to hammer down,” Gladstone said. “But if you don’t have to do that, it’s good to practice going fast all the time, develop that routine.”
So Gladstone can ride the motorcycle, build the transmission, service the clutch and weld whatever needs welding.
There’s still one job he’d happily add to the résumé.
Asked what his answer would be if KB Titan Racing offered him a Pro Stock driving opportunity, Gladstone didn’t require nine minutes to assemble the response.
“Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. You don’t say no to that,” Gladstone said. “I’ve done a few burnouts in a Pro Stock car, but I don’t even have my license. So how do you go to somebody and say, ‘Hey, I want you to fund my whole next season in a Pro Stock car. Don’t worry, I’ll get my license soon’? But maybe one day. We’ll see.”
10 – ON TAP FOR SUNDAY – Eliminations begin at 11 a.m. EDT on Sunday at the NHRA Nationals at The Rock. Sunday’s television coverage from Rockingham Dragway begins at 3 p.m. Eastern on FS1.
FRIDAY NOTEBOOK – THE ROCK WAS ROARING LIKE IT USED TO
1 – A PIECE OF THE ROCK – Ron Capps didn’t need a luxury suite, acres of pavement, or polished amenities to understand what was happening Friday at Rockingham (NC) Dragway.
He needed only to look around to find the crowd abuzz on the opening day of NHRA’s first full-bore national event at the track.
Capps gave everybody something to look at, driving his NAPA Toyota to a 3.860-second run at 330.40 mph to take the provisional No. 1 Funny Car qualifying position at the NHRA Nationals at The Rock.
The three-time champion has watched NHRA venture into different territory this season with stops at South Georgia Motorsports Park, U.S. 131 Motorsports Park and now Rockingham. These places might lack the conveniences of more modern facilities, but Capps believes they are delivering something difficult to manufacture, and that’s an innate excitement.
“The reward was, I can’t tell you how many of our partners and sponsors, people came today that would have probably not gone to Charlotte on Friday,” Capps said. “In fact, they probably wouldn’t – a lot of them.”
Capps wasn’t taking a shot at Charlotte. His point was Rockingham gave people a reason to make the trip on a Friday.
“It’s just this place has had a buzz about it,” Capps said. “I mean, I was surprised that some of them showed up today and here all weekend, but not today and they drove hours to get here.”
Capps has history here. He raced at Rockingham when NHRA last visited in 1998, reaching the Funny Car final of the non-points Winston Invitational while driving for Don Prudhomme.
Twenty-eight years later, much has changed.
The racetrack Capps remembered as rough was anything but that Friday, despite Thursday rain that forced NHRA’s Safety Safari to remove compromised rubber and rebuild portions of the racing surface. Capps praised the work after running near the front in both sessions.
“This is a completely different track,” Capps said. “It used to be pretty bumpy, but now it’s very smooth. They did a great job.”
There are still pieces of the old Rockingham that haven’t been sanitized out of existence. The concrete grandstands remain perched close enough to the left lane that Capps remembers fans getting a full dose of nitro fumes.
“It is, by, far the coolest grandstand to sit in for a Top Fuel race,” Capps said. “It’s just legendary.”
Capps could use some Rockingham magic beyond qualifying.
After leading the Funny Car standings through much of the regular season, he arrived fourth in points, 63 behind leader Matt Hagan. Austin Prock ended Friday second at 3.893, followed by Jack Beckman at 3.911, while Hagan was sixth at 3.935.
2 – HE GETS THE POINT(S) – Doug Kalitta will tell you the 20-point swings on Sundays are the ones worth sweating.
He’ll also take every qualifying point somebody wants to hand him.
The defending NHRA Top Fuel champion collected a few more Friday at Rockingham Dragway, driving his Mac Tools dragster to a 3.682-second run at 338.09 mph and the provisional No. 1 position at the NHRA Nationals at The Rock.
Kalitta was the only driver into the 3.60s, knocking Tony Stewart’s 3.720 at 336.32 from the top spot. Leah Pruett followed at 3.734, while Top Fuel points leader and Kalitta Motorsports teammate Shawn Langdon finished Friday seventh.
With five races remaining, nobody needs to explain the math to Kalitta.
“It’s really all about, in my opinion, just Sunday – the 20-point swings are the real thing there,” Kalitta said. “Every point counts. We’ve all lost on close point-race things and, yeah, it’s super important.
“I hate to try to focus too much on it, but … you’re down to five races, so you have to. It’s definitely not something that I’m personally too wrapped around the axle about.”
Maybe not. But Kalitta certainly isn’t leaving anything laying around.
If his 3.682 survives Saturday’s final two sessions, Kalitta will earn his sixth No. 1 qualifier of the season to open the Countdown to the Championship. He is also chasing his fifth victory of 2026.
There’s another wrinkle to this championship fight. The guy Kalitta is chasing parks about 40 feet away.
Langdon has won the past two races, leaving Alan Johnson and Mac Savage on Kalitta’s side of the Kalitta Motorsports operation trying to keep pace with Brian Husen and Langdon on the other.
“Brian, he’s definitely going to be a tough character for Alan through the end of the year,” Kalitta said. “There’s just so many good cars here and anything can happen. So it’s like just keep your head down, one round at a time. Just try to get through the field and just get close to the final, the semis – get to there, get a shot at the win.”
Friday also came with a $1,000 bonus and an ASUS laptop for Kalitta as the session’s low qualifier. He already has plans for the computer.
“I’ll end up giving this laptop to somebody because that’s just kind of the way I roll here,” Kalitta said.
3 – TAKING NOTES – Matt Hartford came to Rockingham Dragway without the notebook his engine supplier, KB Titan Racing, had accumulated from hundreds of runs at The Rock.
He didn’t need to borrow it Friday.
Hartford drove his GETTRX Chevrolet Camaro to a 6.476-second run in the opening session, then watched it survive the second session to secure the provisional No. 1 spot in Pro Stock. His 6.49 in Q2 wasn’t what Hartford wanted, but nobody managed to knock him off the top.
“We knew it was going to be really tight when we rolled up there,” Hartford said. “The air was basically four or five thousandths worse, but we figured the track would be close to a hundredth better.”
There is an interesting wrinkle to Hartford’s Rockingham success. With horsepower supplied from KB Titan, an organization with extensive testing experience at the track, Hartford said the information stays on the KB side of the fence.
“They give us great power,” Hartford said. “That’s the one thing about KB is you can rest assured any engine that you roll out underneath the bench is going to be as good as they can give you. Outside of that, there’s zero cross-communication between our teams.”
Hartford said his team’s slower second run wasn’t a track issue. The data showed areas in the 60-foot portion and through the car’s travel where the setup missed, giving the team something it didn’t have when Friday began — Rockingham data of its own.
Hartford isn’t acting like Friday’s qualifying lead gives him an advantage over KB Titan. He knows exactly what he’s racing against.
“They’re the best of the best,” Hartford said. “I think we’re a thorn in their side right now. We’re using their power and running with them, and sometimes running a little bit better.”
While the provisional No. 1 is nice, Hartford has something larger in mind.
“We want to win the championship,” Hartford said. “We’re dug in, doing everything we can to try to run with these mega teams out here and, hopefully, at the end of the year we can have a big trophy.”
4 – NO DIRECTIONS NEEDED – Angie Smith didn’t need directions around Rockingham Dragway on Friday. She has about 60 runs worth of notes telling her exactly where to go.
Smith turned all that testing homework into a career-best 6.674-second pass at 201.61 mph aboard her Denso Auto Parts Buell, grabbing the provisional No. 1 qualifying position in Pro Stock Motorcycle after two sessions.
And she had to knock her husband out of the top spot to get it.
Matt Smith opened with a 6.68 while Angie countered with a 6.69, which apparently qualified as sufficient grounds for some marital trash talk. Matt responded by telling her he was going to put more tune-up into her motorcycle.
That worked – maybe a little too well.
“Matt went 6.68 in the first session and I went 6.69, so I gave him some crap about it because us racers, we’re greedy,” Smith said. “We always want to go fast. I knew my bike had a little bit more left in it and he said, ‘Well, I’m going to tune you up, so you better be ready.’ Well, I was ready, and then after the run, he was like, ‘I guess I tuned you up too much.’”
Smith’s familiarity with Rockingham is a home-track advantage. The Matt Smith Racing operation routinely tests at the facility, giving the team a notebook considerably thicker than what most arrived with for NHRA’s return to The Rock. The Smiths raced there extensively in their pre-NHRA careers.
“I really do think that us testing here gives us good data, good starting-line data,” Smith said. “We know what the track will hold, we know what it likes. So, I really do think that it helps us really get a hold of the starting line, and it does translate down the track.”
The timing couldn’t be better for Smith.
She entered Rockingham fourth in the championship standings. A second-round exit in the Countdown opener at Martin, Mich., last weekend left her feeling an opportunity had escaped. Friday offered a considerably better start, particularly on a day when four motorcycles dipped into the 6.60s.
Matt Smith sits second at 6.681, 204.17, with Michigan No. 1 qualifier Ryan Oehler third at 6.681, 202.25. Points leader and reigning champion Richard Gadson is fourth at 6.683, 202.41.
For Angie Smith, Rockingham might be an NHRA national event this weekend, but the surroundings are hardly unfamiliar.
“To do it here, a lot of our hometown fans are here, and we know the starting-line guys, and we know the people that own this track,” Smith said. “So, to do it here and to give them kudos, that’s really just icing on the cake for us.”
5 – THE OVERNIGHT TRACK FIX – You didn’t need to be a track-prep expert to see where Rockingham Dragway had received some extra attention Thursday.
Even through the steady rain, a section of asphalt in the left lane carried the unmistakable marks of a grinder. During pre-event preparation, roughly 200 to 400 feet of the racing surface reportedly refused to take rubber, regardless of what the track crew threw at it.
That’s not something anybody wants to discover with 11,000-horsepower nitro cars coming to town.
NHRA reportedly brought out its grinder, took the top layer off the troublesome section and followed the work with a scrubber. The objective was straightforward: get down to a surface that would accept rubber and give the track-prep crew something it could work with.
By the time qualifying began Friday, the evidence was displayed on the scoreboard for all to see.
There was no obvious visual indication from the grandstands that a section of the left lane had required additional work. More importantly, the race cars weren’t providing any evidence that the repaired area was an issue.
Doug Kalitta supplied the best example in the opening Top Fuel session.
Kalitta went straight down the left lane in 3.747 seconds at 338.86 mph to take the provisional No. 1 qualifying position. Funny Car provided another indication, as Ron Capps made his opening run in the left lane and emerged second quickest in the session.
6 – GRAY TOPS WILSON TO LEAD PRO MOD FRIDAY – J.R. Gray took over the No. 1 position in Pro Modified qualifying with a 5.635-second pass at 255.68 mph, edging Tony Wilson by one-thousandth of a second after two sessions.
Wilson put the nitrous-injected “Son of Barney” 1941 Willys into the No. 2 position with a 5.636, 253.24, leading a tightly packed group behind Gray.
Justin Bond is third at 5.637, 257.58, followed by Steve Jackson, who ran 5.638, 255.97. Veteran Rickie Smith rounds out the top five with a 5.640, 252.10.
That leaves the first five qualifiers separated by just .005 seconds.
Gray made the biggest move near the top of the sheet during the second session. He entered the session qualified eighth following a 5.673, 254.09 before improving by nearly .04 and jumping seven positions.
Mike Stavrinos sits sixth with a 5.642, 255.39, and Derek Menholt seventh at 5.645, 254.81. Nick Januik holds the eighth position, clocking a 5.655, 255.68. Chip King is ninth after running 5.662, 251.96, while Billy Banaka completes the top 10 at 5.676, 256.26.
The numbers leave little margin heading into the remaining qualifying sessions. Only .041 separates Gray at No. 1 from Banaka in the 10th position.
At the other end of the 16-car field, Lyle Barnett occupies the final qualifying position with a 5.751, 250.42 mph in his 1968 Camaro.
7 – THE PRO STOCKERS AND THE MICHIGAN TREE – The tour moved from U.S. 131 Motorsports Park last weekend to Rockingham Dragway, but that doesn’t mean the grumblings about the Christmas tree from the previous race remained behind.
The Christmas tree at the NHRA Great Lakes Nationals didn’t just look different to Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle racers. It reacted differently enough that some competitors accustomed to chasing thousandths suddenly found themselves trying to manufacture ways to slow down.
U.S. 131 Motorsports Park uses an Accutime Timing System rather than NHRA’s traditional CompuLink system. The CompuLink tree wasn’t compatible with Accutime, and racers quickly discovered the track’s setup reacted quicker than what they’d been seeing all season.
Matt Latino knew immediately. On his first run, without trying to cut a light, he went .0000.
“I like that I can be consistent on it and dial in those zeroes, but I’ve got to soften the heck out of my clutch pedal and lengthen the throw on it just to not go red,” Latino said.
He eventually fouled in the opening round. Troy Coughlin Jr. went the opposite direction. He adapted, recorded three consecutive .00 reaction times during eliminations, and won the Pro Stock event at Martin.
“They’re a little bit tighter, meaning faster to react,” Coughlin said. “And, yeah, it’s consistent. I mean, it’s like Compulink in that note. It’s not giving wild numbers. It’s just a little bit quicker upfront on react.”
The motorcycle riders faced an even trickier proposition.
Richard Gadson fouled in the second round, his first race-day red light in more than two seasons. He said an exceptional starting line combined with the different timing characteristics created a “perfect storm.”
“But our situation was you could actually shallow stage, see yellow, and calmly leave and be .015 red,” Gadson said. “So, to get to the side of 30 or 40 required a whole ‘nother world of an approach to the start line, and I couldn’t figure that out.”
Gadson said Pro Stock Motorcycle racers weren’t included when competitors were consulted about potentially changing the tree.
“I wish that we had gotten asked,” Gadson said. “I guarantee you in our class it would’ve been 16 to zero on changing it.”
Matt Smith said he raised concerns with NHRA Saturday morning after his Friday reaction times were considerably quicker than expected. Then he watched Gadson foul.
“And second round, when I saw Richard red light, I was like, ‘Don’t do that. Don’t do it,’” Smith said. “And I just gripped a little harder, and hesitated a little bit, and was .70, and that’s what cost me the round.”
At least the riders have gotten somewhat accustomed to it now – Accutime is in use at Rockingham.
8 – HAGAN, LEE MAKE THEIR OWN HISTORY – For Paul Lee, there was no doubt about the last Funny Car driver he raced down Rockingham Dragway before NHRA returned. It was 2008, and Lee was in the IHRA World Finals against a Funny Car rookie named Matt Hagan.
Hagan won the race – his first nitro victory. Lee had qualified No.1, and was leading when a broken throw-out bearing ended his chances and allowed Hagan to drive past near the finish line. The interesting thing was that Hagan’s car wasn’t ablaze.
“We didn’t have too many races that we weren’t on fire in IHRA days,” Hagan said when initially asked if he was ablaze when he passed Lee. “Paul’s the one that reminded me about it. He says, ‘Hey, me and you got to run in the finals.’ He said, ‘You beat me.’ And I said, ‘No.’”
Hagan led IHRA Funny Car racers that season with three victories, yet finished third in points. Fires, broken parts, and the resulting oildown penalties took their toll, helping Terry Haddock claim the championship. “Won more races in IHRA than anybody [that season], but had more oildown points and penalties than anybody, too,” Hagan said. “So, lost the championship to Terry Haddock basically on being-on-fire-points.”
Lee’s Rockingham history didn’t end with Hagan. When IHRA dropped Funny Car after 2008, he moved to Top Fuel in 2009 with the Lagana brothers and became the first driver outside the family to drive one of their dragsters. Lee returned to Rockingham that season, beating Haddock in the opening round before losing to Bruce Litton.
For Hagan, Rockingham became the starting point for something much larger. Pro Mod led to nitro, with stints with Don Schumacher and eventually Tony Stewart Racing. Along the way, he collected four NHRA Funny Car titles.
Now he’s back at Rockingham chasing championship No. 5.
“To think from going from out there being on fire and blowing stuff up and burning bodies up and IHRA days to here we are now leading the points in NHRA and trying to win our fifth championship within this next five races,” Hagan said. “If you’d have told me that, I’d have laughed at you, man. I’d have been like, ‘You’re full of s***.’ But here we are.”
9 – WELCOME TO TOP GUN – Tony Stewart doesn’t necessarily see himself as instructor material, but on a hot afternoon in Indianapolis ahead of the NHRA Brainerd Nationals, there he was, killing it.
Stewart, along with wife Leah Pruett, was at the test for Erica Enders and Aaron Stanfield, helping the Pro Stock veterans turned Top Fuel license candidates get a handle on an assignment where 12,000 horsepower has a way of changing the lesson plan.
The irony wasn’t lost on Stewart because a year earlier, Enders and Stanfield had been his teachers when Stewart climbed into Richard Freeman’s Pro Stock car at Tulsa. This time, the classroom had changed considerably, and Stewart was the guy with the answers.
“Erica worked with me in the car, and Aaron worked with me in the lounge on the computer and looking at shift points and everything there,” Stewart said. “To have two great world champions there to help teach you how to drive a car, it was an honor for me to be able to flip the tides and be able to try to help teach them how to drive a Top Fuel car.
“I was probably more nervous about that than I was driving the Pro Stock car in all reality because I wanted to make sure that I gave them the same attention to detail that they gave me.”
Stewart understood exactly what Enders and Stanfield were experiencing because his introduction to Top Fuel wasn’t ancient history. The intimidation factor doesn’t disappear just because someone already owns a stack of championships.
“The experience with them was amazing and I wanted to make sure, obviously doing something drastically different like that, they were just as nervous about it as I was when I got in the first time,” Stewart said. “But it was really fun working with them. Aaron and Erica are both awesome people to work with.
“They’re great teammates, obviously, but to get to take my side of it and help those guys get acclimated and get them their first laps in a Top Fuel car was pretty cool for me.”
Don’t start calling Professor Stewart a Top Fuel elder just yet.
“I don’t know. I just still feel like there’s a lot of things that haven’t happened yet in a Top Fuel car that you hear other drivers talk about that it just takes time,” Stewart said.
“I mean, you look at reaction times from 10 years ago, and you look at reaction times now, and part of that’s the car, but part of that’s the drivers, too. So I think we got a good start at it. I don’t think I’m a rookie anymore, but I don’t think I’m a veteran quite yet.”
10 – JUST A HOMETOWN BOY – Matt Smith has raced Pro Stock Motorcycles just about everywhere worth racing one, but there are certain places where unloading the bike feels a little different.
Rockingham Dragway is one of them. For the North Carolina native, the NHRA’s return to The Rock isn’t another stop on the schedule as much as it is a home game.
“I like being at home,” Smith said. “We hadn’t raced here at Rockingham in a long time, but we’ve tested a lot, so I think we’ll be pretty good here.
“I don’t know if it’d give us an edge, but one thing about it is just being home. We got a lot of North Carolina fans here, and hopefully we got a good turnout, and I’m sure they’ll be pulling for us.”
There is another reason Smith doesn’t exactly arrive at Rockingham as a stranger.
His father, Rickie Smith, has been part of the fabric of drag racing in the Carolinas since the 1970s, and his history at Rockingham runs deep. Around these parts, the Smith name doesn’t require an introduction.
“My dad’s done a lot here at this track and no different than Bristol,” Smith said. “So, all in all, I think we’ll do good, and hopefully me and him can put it in the winners circle together.”
For Matt Smith, that’s the potential payoff of NHRA returning to Rockingham. There are championship points to chase and a race to win, but there is also an opportunity to do it with family and plenty of familiar faces watching.
The six-time NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champion has accumulated enough trophies during his career that he doesn’t need the hometown treatment to validate anything. Still, adding a 75th anniversary Wally at The Rock would carry a different flavor.
Asked if a victory might officially make him Rockingham royalty, Smith didn’t require much time to consider it.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
10 – ON TAP – Qualifying continues at noon, EDT on Saturday at the NHRA Nationals at Rockingham Dragway.
