With a possible NHRA nitro Funny Car world championship within reach, Tommy Johnson Jr. and his Don Schumacher Racing team had a couple of costly hiccups at Dallas and Las Vegas.

Rather than dwell on a lost championship opportunity, Johnson Jr. and his team regrouped and won the season-ending NHRA Finals Sunday at Pomona, Calif.

Johnson Jr., on a slim holeshot, beat John Force in the final round. Johnson Jr. clocked a 3.918-second elapsed time at 320.51 mph, while Force had an identical ET.

The difference was Johnson Jr. had a .041 reaction time compared to Force’s .046 light.

That performance allowed Johnson Jr. to finish a career-best second place in the final world standing – 52 points behind world champion Ron Capps.

Johnson also had a career-best three wins this season and this was his first win at the World Finals in Pomona.

“You’re disappointed you didn’t win the championship and I let Ron win this one, so I can have the next one,” Johnson Jr. said. “His team did a great job this season and you have six races (in the Countdown to the Championship) to really make no mistakes. We had a bad race or two in there and it was really frustrating because we knew we were better than that. We had fallen back to third and we wanted to go back to second, we knew we could get that. You want to finish strong and show them you’re there to contend. The guys just did a great job. We tested after Vegas and knew we had a good race car coming in here and we ran really well all weekend. They are digging hard, so you have to dig hard as well. I’ve always wanted to win this race I’ve won the Winternationals, and now you get two-and-a-half months to celebrate this win and it kind of sets the tone for the offseason. It was just a great day and a great year, not only our team, but all the DSR teams.”

The DSR contingent of Capps, Johnson Jr., and Matt Hagan finished 1-2-3 in the points.

During the 2015 preseason testing Johnson made headlines with what was the fastest nitro Funny Car pass of 3.874 seconds.

“You look at that run we made in testing and it’s kind of ho-hum, the class has come so far this season,” Johnson Jr. said. “We look back on that pass and it was the quickest in the history at the time and now you almost have to run that to get in the top of the field.

The performance of the Funny Cars has been amazing. It is so tough that if you can finish second out of all these cars, you have had a really, really good year. Obviously Capps was the best this season, but to be right behind him and ahead of all those others, I don’t know how you could be disappointed. The way the Funny Cars are running really puts an emphasis on the drivers. Now it’s like Pro Stock, the driver has to be there along with the car if you are going to have any shot at this.”