Rockingham (NC) Dragway spent years waiting for NHRA to come back, and Matt Hagan and Shawn Langdon spent Sunday making sure the return carried championship consequences. Both left The Rock with trophies, stronger points positions and four races separating them from their ultimate goal.
Hagan won Funny Car for the fourth time this season and stretched his points lead to 84. Langdon answered in Top Fuel with a 342.73-mph holeshot victory over teammate Doug Kalitta, giving him three consecutive victories and a 25-point advantage heading into the final four races.
Greg Stanfield left Rockingham with the Pro Stock trophy and points lead, while Richard Gadson did the same in Pro Stock Motorcycle. For the second race of the Countdown to the Championship, Sunday offered little opportunity for anyone to ease into the playoffs.
Hagan defeated Paul Lee with a 3.922-second pass at 327.75 mph after Lee lost traction, earning the four-time champion his 59th career victory. Hagan beat Dave Richards, Ron Capps, and J.R. Todd before reaching his fourth consecutive final round.
There was some Rockingham history waiting in the other lane, too. Hagan and Lee had raced in a Funny Car final at the same track 18 years earlier, when Hagan was a rookie trying to establish himself. Hagan won that one, too.
This victory carried considerably more weight, with Hagan leading Jordan Vandergriff by 84 points and Todd sitting third, 106 back. Hagan is chasing a fifth Funny Car championship, which would put him alongside John Force as the only drivers in NHRA history with at least a handful of Funny Car titles.
“The points chase is super competitive,” Hagan said. “There’s six cars that could just change the landscape at any given moment.
“As much as I’d love to sit here and say how great we’re doing, it takes one or two races of going out the first round and it changes it. We have to keep working hard and keep putting that foot forward.”
If Hagan left Rockingham with breathing room, Langdon left with momentum that has become increasingly difficult to ignore.
He beat Kalitta on a holeshot in the Top Fuel final, leaving with a .024-second reaction time and running 3.739 at a track-record 342.73 mph.
Kalitta was quicker at 3.722 but couldn’t erase what Langdon took at the starting line. It was Langdon’s third consecutive victory, following the U.S. Nationals and the Great Lakes Nationals, and his second three-race winning streak this season.
“We knew for the final round we had to make a picture-perfect run,” Langdon said. “AJ [Alan Johnson, Doug Kalitta’s crew chief] has been running really well. He’s got a great handle on that car.
“The Mac Tools guys have been doing a great job, and Doug’s been really lights-out this year. I knew going to the final, I had to figure out a way to find something on the starting line.”
Langdon owns a 25-point advantage over Kalitta, while Tony Stewart is 155 points behind in third. The Kalitta Motorsports teammates have created some separation from the field, but Langdon needed every bit of his starting-line advantage Sunday to keep his winning streak intact.
Stanfield played the same game in Pro Stock, cutting a .019 reaction time against rookie Cody Anderson and carrying that edge to the finish line. His 6.537 at 210.48 held off Anderson’s quicker 6.525 at 209.99 for Stanfield’s second victory this season and eighth of his career.
The veteran had already flashed his starting-line hand with a .005 reaction time against reigning NHRA champion Dallas Glenn in the semifinals. Stanfield also defeated his son Aaron and Matt Latino before taking out Anderson and leaving Rockingham 31 points ahead of Matt Hartford and 39 ahead of Glenn.
“Anybody can win in this class right now,” Stanfield said. “I mean, it’s incredible how tight it is. So, the points battle is going to go all the way to the end. I feel like it’s going to be that way.”
Anderson’s first final wasn’t gift-wrapped, either. The rookie eliminated Erica Enders, then his father, six-time champion Greg Anderson, and Hartford before Stanfield’s starting-line advantage ended his bid for a first victory.
Pro Stock Motorcycle followed the day’s starting-line theme when Gadson watched Vance & Hines teammate Gaige Herrera leave .018 of a second early. Gadson went 6.789 at 199.65 mph for his third victory this season and seventh of his career, but the number that carried the most weight was the green light beside his name.
After losing early at the Countdown opener, Gadson responded by defeating Geno Scali, Ryan Oehler, and Chase Van Sant before facing Herrera. The teammates are now 3-3 against each other in final rounds, while Gadson’s championship lead has grown to 64 points over Herrera with Matt Smith third, 81 points back.
“I feel like I got away with one here this weekend,” Gadson said. “It’s kind of been our M.O. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t headline-worthy, but you know, we’re here holding our third diamond Wally.”
Gadson admitted there was more happening against Herrera than what appeared on the time slip, and he wasn’t shy about acknowledging the mental games between the teammates.
“Gaige and I are extremely competitive with each other, sometimes to the point where the lines are blurry in our competitiveness because he’s a friend,” Gadson said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for the guy, but I’m playing mind games the whole time.
“He’s playing games the whole time, and you know I said, ‘It’s his race to lose,’ hoping that he would lose the race somehow.”
There’s no break for the competitors in the Countdown, with race three of six slated next weekend, Oct. 2-4, at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis.
