With a clutch run in the second round on Sunday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Stevie “Fast” Jackson claimed his second straight world championship in the E3 Spark Plugs NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series presented by J&A Service.

Jackson faced off with Brandon Snider in a thrilling, winner-take-all quarterfinal matchup and he pulled out a dramatic victory with a pass of 5.776-seconds at 248.66 mph in his supercharged Bahrain 1 Racing Camaro. The run edged out Snider’s 5.787 at 246.71 by less than two feet, handing the championship to Jackson for the second consecutive year in exciting fashion.  

Jackson went on to finish his season in impressive style, beating teammate and No. 1 qualifier Khalid alBalooshi in the final round with a run of 5.789 at 247.47 to win for the second time this year and 11th time in his career. Jackson dominated a year ago to claim his first world title, clinching the championship before he even reached Las Vegas. It was a much more challenging year in 2020, as six different drivers claimed wins, but it was just as satisfying for the fan favorite.

Sunday's final Sportsman results from the 20th annual Dodge NHRA Finals presented by Pennzoil at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The race is the final of 11 in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series:

Point standings (top 10) following the 20th annual Dodge NHRA Finals presented by Pennzoil at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the final of 11 events in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series -

Final round-by-round results from the 20th annual Dodge NHRA Finals presented by Pennzoil at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the final of 11 events in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series:

Like father, like son.

And then like father again.

Don Schumacher said he is working on funding to keep his son, eight-time Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher, and the entire group of DSR racers on the track full-time in 2021. Moreover, he is talking about adding a fourth dragster.

The sport’s most successful team owner (with 356 trophies in hand) declined to name the racer to fill the fourth Top Fuel seat. Speculation is it could be Austin Prock, who earned rookie of the year honors with John Force Racing, or Larry Dixon, the 62-time winner and three-time champion who for about a decade was Tony Schumacher’s chief rival. Terry McMillen is looking for a new marketing partner, but would he consider not being his own boss? Would Jordan Vandergriff be a candidate, considering his uncle, Bob Vandergriff, helped guide his start in Top Fuel and blood might be thicker than nitromethane? Andrew Hines, the six-time Pro Stock Motorcycle champion, has expressed interest in driving a dragster one day, and what more might he feel he needs to prove on a bike? Could it be Matt Sackman, the cylinder-head specialist on Antron Brown’s team who earned his Top Fuel license here at Las Vegas last spring and has been racing successfully at the sportsman level? Is it none of the above?

Competition Plus’ best guess is that it likely is somebody who has at least a tentative sponsorship deal at this point. That’s because Don Schumacher has spoken about being focused on finding money to bring back his son and the two Funny Car racers – Jack Beckman and Tommy Johnson Jr. – whose funding will disappear Nov. 1. Schumacher indicated he has funding in place to ensure a 2021 season for Ron Capps, Matt Hagan, and Leah Pruett, while Brown will postpone his debut as a solely independent Top Fuel team owner for one more year. He didn’t express too much concern about having one more program for which to find funding.

It is safe to say that 2020 has been a bit of an odd year.

Race cancellations, shortened race weekends, a shrunken NHRA schedule, nothing has been as it seems. So with one race remaining before closing the book on an NHRA season unlike any other, Ron Capps desperately wanted to finish the year strong. More specifically, he wanted to top the Funny Car field - for the first time all year.

In a departure from tradition, the NHRA awarded the 2020 Rookie of the Year trophy to Top Fuel racer Justin Ashley during a break Saturday from qualifying for the Dodge Finals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Saying, he was “just really excited and going to cherish this moment,” Ashley, 25, Plainview, N.Y., insisted that “I'm fortunate enough to win rookie of the year, but it's far from an individual award. It's a team award. It's because of Aaron Brooks, Dustin Davis, all the team members, top to bottom, who contribute daily to get us out here doing this.

With one race to decide a championship, things couldn’t have been scripted any better for the KB Racing Pro Stock team to take a stab at the title.

Sitting third and fourth in the championship standings, the duo of Jason Line and Greg Anderson entered this weekend’s NHRA season finale needing great races - and a little luck - to contend with their rivals. On Saturday, they got both as Anderson and Line paced the field, while the top two drivers in the standings struggled, nudging the door open just a bit at the Dodge NHRA Finals presented by Pennzoil at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.