Competition Plus’ Water-Cooler Topics From The NHRA's Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tenn.

 

1. The Three-Ring Circus Was A Hit - The Thunder Valley Nationals had to share its thunder with the New England Nationals, combining the rained-out Epping, N.H., event with the regularly scheduled one at Bristol, Tenn.

Kudos to the NHRA for pulling off the three-ring circus at Bristol Dragway, as the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge/NHRA Challenges were added to the show. But Mother Nature deserves another huge “Boo!” for Sunday’s early rain delay during eliminations.

Under the Bristol Big Top (or is it “Rocky Top”?), here were some of the more entertaining acts:

Justin Ashley wins his third and fourth Top Fuel events this year, as well as the Mission Foods Challenge for the third time.
 
“I think I might need a nap. It has been a long week to get to this race,” said Ashley. “I feel so, so grateful and so, so happy. Anytime there is an opportunity to win, it is special – but when you have the opportunity to win three races in one weekend, especially at a historic facility like Bristol, it just makes it that much more special.”

His Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge victory yielded $10,000 and three prized Countdown bonus points. That total payout eclipsed Josh Hart’s $80,000 Pep Boys All-Star Call-Out haul from back in March at Gainesville, Fla., as the season’s biggest jackpot.

Ashley rocketed from fourth place to first, regaining the points lead he earned after winning in April at Pomona. Ashley also won the March event at Phoenix.

Incidentally, Top Fuel’s Tony Schumacher had been the most recent racer to win two Wally statues in the same weekend – and his crew chief that day in September 2014, at Dallas, was Mike Green, now Ashley’s tuner. (Green’s assistant, Tommy DeLago, said immediately afterward of Green, “He’s a bad mo-fo, ain’t he?”)

2. An emotional Bob Tasca III wins in Funny Car at his “home-track” race – 850 miles to the south of it - They both were seeking their first victory of the season, and Rhode Island native Bob Tasca III denied 155-time winner John Force in Saturday’s make-up from rain-postponed New England Nationals. He also claimed the winner’s $10,000 and three Countdown bonus points in the simultaneous Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge.

“I would have gone to Alaska to get this trophy,” Tasca said. “It's a win that I've always dreamed about, winning at a racetrack I grew up at. It's the first track I ever went down. But we just felt like this whole season was building for us. I’m just so impressed with [crew chiefs] Todd Okuhara and Aaron Brooks and the team.

“I went up to Force before I got in the car, and I said, ‘Force, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you.’ To race John Force in the finals, at his age [74] to do what he does out here, it'll never be done by anybody. I have so much respect for John. There's no one I get up for like that. If I have to win a race in the final round and have John Force alongside me for the New England Nationals trophy, it's going to be a long time before I forget that win.” Tasca was making his 27th final. It was Force’s 265th.

3. Erica Enders beginning to get back in her winning groove - As cathartic as it was Friday, before racing started, to grind on her couch-potato, Cheetos-chomping, “Internet idiot” critics, winning the Thunder Valley Nationals Pro Stock final Sunday afternoon, for victory No. 44 overall and the first of this season, was even more so.

The five-time and reigning champion claimed her first No. 1 qualifying performance of the season and 30th of her career Saturday. She said, “We don't really have to say anything. Our scoreboard will do the talking, as it always has in the past. We’ve made big strides in the right direction for our whole organization.” Indeed, her Elite Motorsports team swept the top three qualifying positions, and teammate Aaron Stanfield won Saturday in the NHRA Pro Stock Challenge over class steamroller Dallas Glenn in the final. He gained cash for Elite Motorsports and precious Countdown points that he’ll receive once the regular season ends.

“I didn’t forget how to drive. Jake Hairston and Kyle Bates didn’t forget how to build horsepower. Richard Freeman did not forget how to run a team,” Enders said with the confident authority that had been waiting to show up all season. “Pro Stock has been this way for the 20 years I’ve been driving and the 20 years prior that I watched. The pendulum swings, and when it’s not swinging in your direction, it’s extremely painful. But it always comes back.”

So does Enders, who said, “It’s peaks and valleys. What we’ve been through together would tear most teams apart. And it’s what’s so coveted about our team. You can’t buy what we have,” she said.

Before qualifying started, she said, “I’m not worried. I’m really not. I have full confidence that everything will turn around. And if it doesn’t, it’s not going to change my life. We’re not curing cancer. This isn’t the end-all, be-all.” She said Sunday as she admired her trophy that it means “more than most people will understand.”

As for those anonymous know-it-alls, Enders said Friday, “I’ve deleted all my social-media apps off my phone because I want to strangle idiots on the Internet that have no clue what they’re talking about. They sit on their couch and eat Cheetos and they watch us race, and they think they can be a Monday-morning quarterback when we’re doing all that we can. At the same time, it’s part of living in a fishbowl, right? The human aspect is it’s not always easy. It sucks to suck. It’s awful, because you spend the same amount of money and work just as hard. Some mornings you wake up and have to talk yourself into it.”

She’s not having that problem now.

 

 

4. It turns out that Gaige Herrera really is beatable - Steve Johnson laughed after racing his way into the final round against Vance & Hines juggernaut Gaige Herrera and said, “You need a lot more than motivation to beat Gaige. We all know he has an awesome bike, but we do, too.”

He said, “I said I was going to throw the kitchen sink at it,” he said of his effort to be the first to stop the dominating young Mission Foods Suzuki phenom – “but we didn’t have a kitchen sink.”

Whatever Johnson had, it was enough Sunday. And it didn’t hurt that Herrera made one of his rare mistakes in that fourth final-round appearance of the season, jumping off the starting line .011 of a second too early and disqualifying himself.

Johnson, who entered the weekend with a 2-3 race-day record, capitalized for his 12th triumph in 31 final rounds.

5. Snap-on’s Nick Pinchuk wows with speech - The Chairman and CEO of the American-proud tool company gave a rousing patriotic pep talk Saturday that was worthy of any U.S. Presidential campaign.

“I travel all over the world, and I just got back from London. And I can say this: That this is the greatest country in the world. Historians will tell you that it is because we know how to create things – from sea to shining sea, from the very beginning,” Pinchuk said in an interview with track announcer Joe Castello.

“And if you want further evidence of this, you can go back to the pandemic ... when one-third of America was sheltering in place but the people of work were standing firm, keeping society from disintegrating. Mechanics and factory workers and truck drivers, they are the soul of America. They were yesterday. They are today. And they will be tomorrow. And what better place to show it off than right here?”

He said, “I have to thank the NHRA for giving us the opportunity to send this message to the nation, because it’s an important one.”

Snap-on, a longtime supporter of Funny Car two-time champion Cruz Pedregon, is celebrating its 103th year in business. He didn’t hesitate to answer when asked to tell the secret of the firm’s longevity.

“We know who we are,” Pinchuk said. “We help the people of work, enable them to do the most difficult tasks. We put out a product they can be proud of and display to the world that they know they are professionals. And we keep doing that over and over again. We are a people who know we make a difference. We keep doing that, and it’s the secret to 100 years. And it’ll be the secret to 200 years.”

Competition Plus quoted Pinchuk as saying in a Q&A session for the crowd, “There’s no more American sport than NHRA. It’s got the qualities: Power, ingenuity, teamwork, and other things that have made America great. So we invest in this [sport]. Power’s rolling down the strip – 11,000 horsepower.

“You can go in the pits, and you can see ingenuity and teamwork with Snap-on, fixing and rebuilding engines. And we enable courage by investing 27 years with Cruz Pedregon, one of the most courageous drivers. We feel really privileged to be here,” he said. “I encourage everybody to come out here every time they get near an NHRA event, because it’s a great event. I wouldn’t miss it.”

Snap-on’s Fixers just might be the ones Pedregon calls after he experienced trouble on his first-round burnout. What he called a “high-speed wobble” made his car lurch to the right immediately. After he shut the car off and it was pushed off the line, Pedregon was seen shaking his hands, indicating he might have been hurt a bit. He covered his eyes and shut his visor, as well. Later Pedregon said that the car’s unexpected move “ripped” the steering wheel from his hands and he worried for a minute or two about injured fingers. He said he thought about not only himself but also opponent Alexis DeJoria and decided to cut off the engine for safety’s sake.

6. Ron Capps becomes Bristol Dragway’s No. 1 pro winner - It would be no surprise if Bristol Dragway honored Ron Capps as a Legend of Thunder Valley when the Camping World Drag Racing Series comes back to this historic East Tennessee dragstrip. He would have earned it.

The second-year Funny Car team owner secured his second straight and seventh overall victory here with his 30-foot winning margin against Alexis DeJoria. This year’s Wally trophy goes with the ones from here from the 2001, 2006, 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2022 events.

Borrowing a line from Top Fuel’s Bristol-loving Mike Salinas, Capps said in his post-race celebration that he ought to buy a home in the area because “this place loves me.”

 

 

 

7. STRUT = Steve Torrence Racing with Undeniable Temerity - Four-time Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence is racing with confidence again. He has led the standings for much of the season, has started in the top half of the field at every race and had two runner-up finishes and final-quad appearances at the two four-wide events. But now that seven races are in hand, Torrence approaches his 300th start (likely at the end of the Western Swing, at Denver) with renewed chutzpah. This weekend he said, “We’ve got to establish that dominance we once had. We let it slip. We let these guys catch their breath, and we’re here to choke ‘em now.” Torrence lost Sunday in Round 2 to Doug Kalitta.

“It was just a matter of time before Doug started making noise,” Torrence said. “I just wish he hadn’t made it against us. The big thing is we’ve got our race car back. We qualified solid (third, at 3.753 seconds on the 1,000-foot course), we were the only car in the [3.]60s, and in that second round, we ran exactly what we wanted to run.  We thought it would be good enough.”

He said, “Losing the point lead to Justin?  I’ve got to admit, that stung a little bit. But like I’ve said before, the only time it’s really important to be No. 1 is in November after the last run at the In-N-Out Finals.  We’ll just keep doing what we do.”

 

9. Tony Schumacher follows father into Legends of Thunder Valley hall of fame - Tony Schumacher, the most successful Top Fuel driver in NHRA history, became the 22nd inductee into Bristol Dragway’s Legends of Thunder Valley, the historic track’s official hall of fame, Saturday. Six of his 86 victories have come at this racetrack in the hills of east Tennessee. He also advanced to the finals of Saturday’s conclusion of the rain-delayed New England Nationals.

“Whenever that U.S. Army dragster pulled into the staging lanes at Bristol Dragway, you had a pretty good feeling that it was going to win,” said Jerry Caldwell, president and general manager of Bristol Motor Speedway & Dragway. “Tony Schumacher was dominating at Thunder Valley in the 2000s, and his success here mirrored his success on the NHRA national circuit as he raced to 86 career victories and eight championship[s]. We are so pleased to induct him this weekend, and for all of his great accomplishments here, he is well-deserving of the honor to be forever known as a Legend of Thunder Valley.”

Schumacher is only the third member to be inducted while he is still an active racer, joining 2016 inductee John Force and 2007 honoree Rickie Smith. Both Force and Smith competed here this weekend.

“I just love this track. I’ve always loved racing here,” Schumacher said. “This recognition means a lot. It’s the first hall of fame for me. This is a great track and such a beautiful facility, and I love the people here. It’s also a challenging track. You have to be on your game to race here with the changing weather conditions.

“When you look up there and see all the great names up there [on the Legends of Thunder Valley sign above the grandstands], it’s such an honor to join them. Bristol has always been a great racetrack for me, and I’ve had great success and won here with several different crew chiefs. I’ve been blessed to have great people behind me, and that’s what makes it all go.”   

Toyota dominates in the nitro ranks Sunday, fielding both Top Fuel finalists and both Funny Car finalists

 

 

10. Justin Ashley’s historic Top Fuel double-up as both the New England Nationals on Saturday and Thunder Valley Nationals on Sunday highlighted the all-Toyota nitro showdowns. - Ashley defeated Toyota partner Antron Brown, who scored his 800th career round-win Sunday. Brown is the sixth driver in NHRA history to earn 800 elimination-round victories.

In the Funny Car class, Ron Capps celebrated the anniversary of his first Toyota triumph by taking his Toyota Gazoo Racing Supra back to the Bristol Dragway winners circle for the second consecutive and seventh total time in his career. In notching his 74th Funny Car victory, Capps defeated fellow Toyota Supra driver Alexis DeJoria in the final round.

Ashley’s feat Sunday marked Toyota’s 199th victory in the NHRA. So it has a chance to hit the No. 200 milestone at the next race, at Norwalk, Ohio.

Ashley said his gratitude for the Toyota support “is very, very deep – the talent pool that we have. I am so grateful that we have Toyota Gazoo Racing North America and Slugger [Labbe] and Paul [Flynn] and all of the people from that team that not only provide us with the data and information that we need, but treat us like family. When you are part of Toyota Racing, you are part of the Toyota family, and we all have each other and we all work together. Going into that final round, against our Toyota teammate, and knowing, no matter what happened in front of us it was going to be a Toyota double-up and we are inching closer to a 200th win for Toyota is really amazing. It speaks volumes on Toyota – to be able to put all of the time, energy, effort, and commitment that have into the sport of NHRA drag racing – really is beyond measure.”