What a battle.

In a qualifying showdown to remember, Matt Hagan capped an extremely competitive four sessions with a chart-topping 3.822-second pass at a new track-record 336.32 mph to earn the first top qualifier award of the season Saturday at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com at Auto Club Raceway.

It can’t be stated enough the true size and scope of Clay Millican’s Top Fuel team.

In this day and age of super teams with multiple cars, dozens of tuners and hundreds of crew members, Millican and the Stringer Performance team plod along with a single car and a few brilliant minds making magic happen.

Advance Auto Parts Camaro driver Courtney Force was top qualifier seven times in 2017 but didn’t win a race. However, she had five runner-up finishes, including three in the Countdown, and improved in the playoffs from sixth to third. Even if she had won one event or more in the so-called “regular season,” it’s possible that might have done her much good. Had she converted a couple of those Countdown final-round appearances to victories, she might have given John Force Racing teammate and champion Robert Hight a fiercer challenge.

 John Force underwent a CT scan of his head, neck, chest, and abdomen and was completely cleared and released from the hospital in less than two hours following his car-destroying engine explosion during Friday qualifying.

He returned to the racetrack late Friday and consulted with his crew, who already was at work, preparing the back-up car for the final two qualifying sessions Saturday. Force anchors the provisional 16-car lineup with a 4.139-second, 265.38-mph performance.  

“I’ve got a young team with Jon Schaffer and Jason McCulloch. I’ve had some hiccups. We struggled at testing, but everyone is working to get it right,” Force said. “That run just showed you the proof that these race cars, my PEAK Chevrolet Camaro, are built to protect the driver. Anytime I can walk away from an explosion, I know these cars at John Force Racing and all our Simpson safety gear are doing their job.

Clay Millican powered to the Top Fuel No. 1 qualifying position with a national elapsed time record of 3.628-seconds at 322.04 mph in his Great Clips/Parts Plus dragster at the 58th annual Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

Matt Hagan (Funny Car) and Vincent Nobile (Pro Stock) are also No. 1 qualifiers in their respective categories at the first of 24 events on the 2018 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series schedule.

He may not have been in the championship picture late in 2017, but one of the quickest drivers in the field at the end of last season was Jack Beckman.

Beckman ended 2017 with a pair of top qualifier awards and a few deep runs on Sunday and looked like he hasn’t missed a beat on Friday to kick off the 2018 season with the provisional No. 1 spot at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com at Auto Club Raceway.

Well, that was unexpected.

After struggling throughout testing and failing to produce the kind of numbers expected of the current national record holder in Top Fuel in the days leading up to this weekend, Clay Millican and the Stringer Performance Top Fuel team surprised even themselves with the provisional No. 1 spot Friday at the season-opening Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com at Auto Club Raceway.

Before he made his first Funny Car pass in competition, class newcomer Rich Townsend called his Nitroholic Racing Toyota a “very happy car, very happy car, very pleasant to drive.” The Camry wasn’t perfect, but it produced a 4.242-second pass – not as quick as two of his three test passes at Phoenix last week - at 258.91 mph. That was good enough for the early No. 13 spot. So following his first run, the Oakdale, Calif., native could take pride in seeing his name ahead of John Force’s and Tommy Johnson Jr.’s on the time sheet.

Townsend made a few passes at Bakersfield to get acclimated to his former Tony Pedregon car, then went next door to Arizona and ran a 4.09-second elapsed time in its first appearance off the trailer at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park. He also clocked a 4.13 and a 4.30 – “but both of those passes had a hole out,” he said. He said that was a positive sign because “we didn’t hurt any parts, just scuffed a few pistons and so forth.”

Steve Torrence showed up at preseason testing at Phoenix and this weekend at Pomona with longer hair, and he said not to read anything into that.

“We’ve been so busy that I just haven’t had a chance to get a haircut. No, really, that’s all it is. We’ve been bidding jobs six days a week,” the Capco Contractors Dragster driver said, referring to the Kilgore, Texas-based family pipeline construction and maintenance business.  “It looks like it’s going to be one of those fly-in-on-Thursday, fly-out-on-Sunday seasons, but that’s good. That means we’re laying pipe.”

After 34 years of dedicated service, Graham Light, NHRA’s senior vice president of racing operations, announced today that he will retire at the end of 2018. Light will continue to serve on NHRA’s Board of Directors and as a consultant to the sport. 

Stepping up to fill Light’s role will be current NHRA vice president of racing administration Josh Peterson, whose role will expand; and former NHRA director of racing operations Ned Walliser, who will be named vice president of competition. Walliser will rejoin NHRA in May 2018 to work and train with Light. Current vice president of technical operations Glen Gray will round out the team.