Antron Brown claimed his second straight playoff victory at the NHRA Carolina Nationals on Sunday, moving into the Top Fuel points lead for the first time since 2017. Brown defeated Doug Foley in the final round at zMAX Dragway with a run of 3.848 seconds at 319.90 mph, earning his fifth win of the season and 79th career victory.
Austin Prock (Funny Car), Dallas Glenn (Pro Stock), and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also secured victories at the 16th of 20 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series races this season.
Driving his Matco Tools/Toyota dragster, Brown surpassed Larry Dixon for the second-most Top Fuel wins in NHRA history with his 63rd career win. The three-time world champion, who qualified 10th, defeated Steve Torrence, Billy Torrence, and reigning champion Doug Kalitta before besting Foley in the final.
“When you race somebody like Doug Foley, you don’t falter and say, ‘Well, I can’t mess up.’ That’s when you set yourself up for failure,” Brown said. “We go out there and run what we can run, and give it all we got, and it fell our way. We just keep working hard and digging, no matter what. You’ve got to show up on raceday and we have that mindset to stay humble and stay hungry.
“We still have four races left. Drag racing’s math. There’s 16 rounds left on table to win and our goal is go out there wins many of those rounds as possible. We won the first eight, so we’ve got a third of them.”
Prock extended his dominant run in Funny Car, capturing his third straight win by defeating Matt Hagan in the final with a 3.924-second pass at 326.48 mph.
Prock, driving his Cornwell Tools Chevrolet Camaro SS, has now opened a 129-point lead in the Funny Car standings through the first two playoff races. Hagan, who qualified No. 1, reached his fifth final of the season but was unable to hold off Prock’s late charge.
“We left the door open to get beat today a couple times and then my team made wholesale changes going into the semifinals, stuff I would say 95 percent of the crew chiefs wouldn’t change going into a round, and it went up there and flew,” Prock said. “It stuck. It was on a mission, and I did the same thing in the final round.
“I’m just trying to take it one moment at a time, one round at a time. And if you do that, you don’t get caught up in being the leader, being the chaser, just go up there and do the best that you can do, because each person on the team has a specific job to do, and they have to do it perfect to have the success. We’ll celebrate tonight and then get my head back in the game and go and try again, one run at a time.”
Hagan, who qualified No. 1, reached the finals for the ffith time this year and 92nd time in his career with round wins against Dave Richards and Bob Tasca III. Hagan was looking for a sweep of both Charlotte races this year. Tasca is second in points, while Beckman trails his teammate by 136 points.
In Pro Stock, Glenn regained the points lead with a 6.626-second run at 207.18 mph to edge Aaron Stanfield in the final. Glenn’s fourth win of the season puts him eight points ahead of Stanfield with four races remaining.
“Aaron has a fast car and he’s a great driver and doesn’t make mistakes,” Glenn said. “So, it’s a deal where you can’t make a mistake against him. The crew chiefs have to do their job and give me the best car they can. I’m glad that Aaron and I put on a good show for the fans in the final. I hate not having a close race against him.
“In the Countdown, every lap I go up there in eliminations, I’m on kill. I’m trying to do everything I can. I can’t make any mistakes. I’ve got to try to make sure I get every last bit in case it does shake a little bit and I lose whatever performance advantage I have. I’m on kill 100 percent of the time.”
Stanfield, who had won back-to-back races, knocked off Chris McGaha, Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Greg Anderson to reach the finals for the eighth time in 2024 and 23rd time overall. Enders is 53 points back in third, while Anderson trails his KB Titan Racing teammate Glenn by 74 points.
Smith took a crucial step toward a potential seventh Pro Stock Motorcycle championship, defeating rookie Richard Gadson in the final after Gadson red-lighted. Smith’s second win of the year gives him a 25-point lead over Gaige Herrera in the standings.
“I was just trying to stay good and tough against Richard and when I went through the lights, I didn’t see my win light and I didn’t know if I won or not,” Smith said. “It’s never a good feeling when you can’t see a win light because you thought you had a good deal, but you don’t ever know. But all in all, what a weekend, what a day.
“I like being under pressure. It doesn’t matter what you do in the regular season. You always have to be good the last six races, and I’ve always been pretty good last six races, and that’s how I won my championships, and that’s how we’re going to continue to race.”
The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series continues Sept. 27-29 at the NHRA Midwest Nationals in St. Louis.
