Competition Plus’ Water-Cooler Topics From The Circle K Four-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, NC.

Competition Plus’ water-cooler topics from the Circle K Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway at Concord, N.C.

1. More hurrahs for Herrera - Vance & Hines newcomer Gaige Herrera’s Pro Stock Motorcycle record is untarnished this season.

Although the campaign is just two races old, Herrera clearly is the racer to beat. He has scored back-to-back No. 1 starts and victories aboard the Gen 3 Hayabusa Suzuki.

The bikes will be back in action, in conventional two-wide format along with the rest of the pro categories, at the May 19-21 Gerber Collision and Glass Route 66 Nationals at Joliet, Ill. 

 

 

 

 

2. Kramer the cream of the Pro Stock field - Deric Kramer held off the two hottest Pro Stock racers on the Camping World Drag Racing Series tour – top qualifier Matt Hartford and Dallas Glenn, winner of the past two races – as well as rising star Fernando Cuadra Jr. to win for the first time since the fall Charlotte event here in 2019.

“Once you win one of these,” five-time winner Kramer said, “there’s nothing more that you want to do than win another.”

Clutching his Wally trophy, the Colorado native said, “After you hoist one and you don’t hoist another for a long time, you think it might never come [again]. Finally we got it done today.”

He did so with a 17-inch margin of victory over Glenn.   

 

 

3. Well, Austin Prock can’t say that anymore - When Top Fuel driver Austin Prock reached the final round, he remarked, “I’ve never had any luck here, but maybe today’s my day.”

His hunch was correct. He outran Leah Pruett and Josh Hart and got no opposition from red-lighting Steve Torrence to claim his first victory of the year in his second final-round appearance in three races. Prock was runner-up to Justin Ashley at the Winternationals at Pomona, Calif.

Prock doubled up in the winner's circle with Funny Car victor Robert Hight, whose tuner and assistant crew chief happen to be Prock’s dad, Jimmy, and brother, Thomas, respectively.

 

 

4. Hight shakes off early season slump to win Funny Car trophy - When Robert Hight marched to victory at the Arizona Nationals, race No. 2 of the season, it appeared he was on his way to being one of the early rulers of the Funny Car class.

But the three-time champion with 63 victories in 401 races encountered a couple of uncharacteristic first-round exits at Pomona and Las Vegas. Two-wide or four-wide, that was something he didn’t want to repeat. So he and his John Force Racing team stayed behind at Las Vegas and did some testing.

Make that ... they did some changing. Both Hight and crew chief Jimmy Prock made no secret of it. And why should they? It paid off with a dramatic turnaround, as he used a holeshot to edge runner-up Alexis DeJoria (who entered the final round with the best average elapsed times in eliminations this year). John Force and Ron Capps were no threats in the final round.

Hight shared the winner's podium with Top Fuel colleague Austin Prock.  

5. ‘Cuadra Quad,’ or ‘The Quadras?’ - Fans at xMAX Dragway got to witness a quartet of Cuadras on the track at the same time this weekend.  All four of the Corral Boots Pro Stockers, driven by Fernando Cuadra Sr. and sons Fernando Jr., Cristian, and David, made historical four-abreast qualifying runs Saturday.

Seeing the family of luxury leathercrafters and bootmakers from Leόn, Guanajuato, Mexico, competing together at this final four-wide race of the year has been a dream for patriarch Fernando Cuadra Sr.  He had hoped to do it at the previous race, at Las Vegas, but Top Sportsman regular David Cuadra still needed to complete his Pro Stock licensing passes.

In the end father Fernando Sr. missed the cut for eliminations, but his three sons qualified.

Fernando Cuadra Jr., the No. 15 starter, advanced to the final round but red-lit away his chance for a first victory. Twins Cristian and David Cuadra dropped out in the first round Sunday.

"Making it to the first final round of my career at a four-wide race is really incredible," Cuadra Jr. said "I know that our first win is close, and we just keep getting better. This is a great [Elite Motorsports] team, and I'm proud of my brother David for doing so well in his Pro Stock debut."

5a. "Stop Forrest, Stop" - Well, it was a good argument for a while. When Pro Modified racer Rickie Smith stopped the clocks during the Q3 session at 5.669 seconds at 252.47 miles per hour. He was almost .05 quicker than No. 2 qualifier Justin Bond. 

“That was pretty badass,” Smith said. “I don’t know exactly where it come from, but I’ll take it.”

Such a moment might be the ultimate 'oops' moment for a drag racer who has long contended that the nitrous combination competes at a disadvantage. 

“I don’t know. I mean, it’s got the exact same tune-up it had here last year,” Smith said. “I changed one thing in the car, and I don’t know if it’s just getting more nitrous when I’ve done that or what I’ve done, but that’s the exact same jets in this car here last year.”

Depending on which run doorslammer fans give more credibility, at a Northeast Outlaw Pro Mod event at Maryland International event back in 2019, Dean Marinis ran 5.572 seconds at 255.19 mph in the Harry Pappas-owned, Pat Musi Racing Engine-powered Camaro. - Bobby Bennett

6. All in the family: Husband, wife finish weekend as runners-up - Top Fuel racer Leah Pruett recorded the 10th runner-up finish of her career a few minutes after husband Tony Stewart took his career-second runner-up result in the Top Alcohol Dragster class.

Going for her 11th victory, Pruett came in second to Austin Prock, the John Force Racing driver she has met in eliminations four times in five events this year.

Stewart’s McPhillips Racing teammate Mike Coughlin used a triple holeshot to gain the victory in the quad that also included Julie Nataas and Cody Krohn. At 5.260 seconds, Stewart, making his third final in his first five races, had the quickest quarter-mile elapsed time of that final quad but had to settle for second place.

“I’m very proud of our performance. Every single time I’m in that car, it’s a rush, and the thing I love most about racing is this team and working together. Those are my highs,” Pruett said. “I have a lot of grit and get mad about things. Watching Tony runner-up and knowing what he felt, I wanted to win even more but didn’t quite get it done. Leaving here in third is something to hold our head high on moving forward. There’s always a small downside to it, because you can taste the win and we weren’t able to chew on it right there. We’re hungry, and we’re going to be eating soon.”

 

 

7. Who says Pro Stock Motorcycles aren’t entertaining? - The first round of Pro Stock Motorcycle eliminations produced plenty of drama Sunday. Gaige Herrera, No. 1 qualifier for the second of the season’s only two bike-class appearances so far this year, kept his momentum rolling. The Gatornationals winner – who already owns four of the Pro Stock Bikes’ top-10 elapsed times – advanced to the semifinal, then the final round once again. But the wild action for that quad happened after Herrera won in Round 2. Kelly Clontz also advanced out of the first round for only the fifth time in her career.

As she and Herrera made the turnout from the top end of the track, debuting rider Marcus Hylton plowed between them and into the sand pit on his Blake Gann-owned Pirana Racing entry. 

Clontz – already wound up because she thought she lost, then learned she was moving on to the semifinal round – said of the near-collision, “I looked both ways. Mama taught me how to look both ways. I’m glad my buddy [Hylton] is all right. But he comes flyin’ by me, and I’m like, ‘Oh, my goodness!’”

Two quads earlier, John Hall timed out, as did an angry Jianna Evaristo. She contended that the lights on the Christmas Tree never came down.

But on another positive note, the finalists in this class were the top four qualifiers: Gaige Herrera, Eddie Krawiec, Matt Smith, and Steve Johnson.

So stay in your seats, folks, watch these racers, and go get your hot dogs some other time.     

8. Funny Car star Hagan’s relationship with zMAX hits another snag - For Matt Hagan, zMAX Dragway has been the site of some of his coolest memories and some of his most spectacularly frightening ones. His first qualifying attempt Friday fell into the latter category.

At the end of his 326-mph run, the parachutes on his Operation Healing Forces Dodge failed to deploy, and he bounced across the sand trap and nose-first into the first catch fence. The front end of his car was demolished, the carbon-fiber body ripped apart like scrap paper. Safety Safari workers lifted it up and off the chassis and carried it away in pallbearer fashion.

“We got Operation Healing Forces on the side of the car. It looks like we’re going to have Operation Heal That Body a little bit,” an uninjured Hagan said after exiting his car and surveying the damage. “The solenoid pulls broke off [and I was] trying to do it manually, as well ... just nothing there. All you can do is just grab some brake and hang on for the ride. I thought I could get her slowed down so I could nose her in the sand, but she wouldn’t slow down enough. I’m good. Everything’s good. I just hate that it happened. You run one of these things long enough, something’s going to happen.”

Plenty has happened to him here. In 2012, his breathtaking engine explosion caught the attention of media worldwide. The year before, Hagan was the first Funny Car driver to break the four-second barrier with his 3.995-second pass, which prompted zMAX Dragway officials to post a commemorative sign on the retaining wall near the starting line. Today that elapsed time isn’t even one of the class’ top 10.

Between two-wide victories in 2011 and 2014, Hagan earned a four-wide trophy in 2013. He has raced in five final quads at this event (2010, 2013, 2016, 2017 and 2019).

But he said, maybe prophetically, even before the event started, “You still have to stay humble. These cars are a handful. They’re a handful to drive, and they’re a handful for the tuner. There is nothing easy about it. You can win a race and then roll to the next one and unload the car and not even go down the track. I’ve been there and done that, so as much as you think you have it figured out, these Funny Cars are funny.”

Hagan said, “We’re going to test our old back-up car on Tuesday, which will give us more confidence, as well, in case we need to pull it out.” Too late. The team had to press it into service, starting in Q2. Hagan lost in Sunday’s opening Funny Car foursome.

9. Hartford team motivated by missed details, substandard dinner - Matt Hartford and his Total Seal, CIP1, GETTRX Chevy team were perturbed enough by the shock of having the rear end of their Pro Stock Camaro lock up at the starting line during Friday night qualifying for the Circle K NHRA Four-Wide Nationals.

He said, “We went to bed last night really disappointed in the fact that we knew we had a car last night that could go to the pole.”

Maybe more distasteful was the fact that staying late at the track caused them to miss out on a decent dinner.

“Last night, getting out of here late and stopping at the wing place for dinner, none of us were in a good mood, even with the food we had to eat,” he said.

Saturday’s results were much easier to digest. Hartford rebounded early Saturday with a 6.538-second, 208.52-mph blast down the zMAX Dragway quarter-mile that earned him his second straight No. 1 qualifying position and second career No. 1 start.

“I think luck was on our side last night,” Hartford said, “because had we had that failure at 1,000 foot or even past the finish line last night, I think it'd be a whole different outcome today. And I'm not sure the car would be in one piece. So it was lucky for us that the car broke right here before we fired it up.

“We just regrouped and said, ‘OK, that run’s over. Come out here and we're first car out – which means we got to be pulled back some because the lane's not going to be as good – and let's just go up there and make a good run. We know we have enough to probably get into the top five, and if we make a great run, we'll go No. 1.’ And that's what we did,” he said.

“We have a great team. The Total Seal, CIP1, GETTRX Camaro is a rocket ship right now. It's the best car I've ever had. It's the best team I've ever had. And we're just going to see if we can start trying to capitalize on it,” Hartford said.

The team had a pep talk Friday night, and Hartford said, “The message was ‘Let's not try to overlook some of these details, because obviously there was a detail that we had overlooked. That is what cost us not to run last night. Overlooking these details makes us end up leaving the track really late and having to eat at places we don't want to eat.’ And that was really the message. It's like, if we do our job right, we can get out of here on time and have an enjoyable evening. Just focus on the details. We're all going to make mistakes. That was a complete team miss why we failed last night. There was not one individual – it was our entire team could have recognized that problem at some point in time, and we didn't. So it's on our checklist of ‘Here's another one of the million ways to losing in drag racing,’ and we'll not have that one again.”

Neither will they tolerate an unappetizing plate of yucky chicken wings.

10. Quotes: They said what?! - “You said the reason you wanted to interview me was so we didn’t have to listen to that anymore.  ... No, I really wouldn’t.”

Tony Stewart to Hannah Rickards, referring to schlock-jockey Jason Logan’s “singing” and declining to participate in karaoke

“I’ve never experienced as much joy [as] I did being there for Tony and the McPhillips Racing’s team win. My heart was about to explode on the line, being so full of happiness for him. When it is something you work hard at and dedicate a great deal of time to and you watch someone do the same and have a contributing role in it, the enjoyment factor achieves a new height. Most specifically, Tony is a racer. And that tiger was very much starving for a win since getting out of the seat of the sprint car and NASCAR Cup cars.”

Top Fuel racer Leah Pruett, regarding husband Tony Stewart’s first NHRA victory earlier this month, at Las Vegas

“These things are cyclical, you know? You go through excellent winning streaks, and then you go through some difficult times. In the end, the teams that become championship teams and worthy of being champions in the fans’ eyes, are the ones that get through adversity. We don’t point fingers. We don’t get mad at each other. We gather information. We work hard. We test – and go out and win. We’ll find that place. We’re getting closer every day.”

Tony Schumacher, Top Fuel driver of the SCAG Power Equipment dragster