Jasmine Salinas will return to Top Fuel competition in 2026 with a limited NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series schedule and select IHRA appearances, reuniting with veteran crew chief Todd Okuhara as she works to rebuild toward a full-time championship campaign.
The Valley Services/Scrappers Racing driver plans to compete in approximately 10 NHRA events while adding IHRA Top Fuel races as funding allows. The team will open its season March 6-8 at the AMALIE Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida.
The comeback follows a difficult 2025 season in which Salinas and her family parked their Top Fuel dragster while sitting fifth in NHRA points. The move halted a year that had restored confidence after a challenging rookie campaign.
Okuhara, whose career spans more than three decades tuning Top Fuel and Funny Car entries for championship-caliber teams, will direct the program. His résumé includes leadership roles within one of the largest nitro operations in modern drag racing history.
For Salinas, the partnership represents more than a strategic hire. It closes a circle that began long before she entered Top Fuel.
“Well, actually, I’ve known Todd for a long time now, which is really nice,” Salinas said. “My dad and him are actually very close. I remember before I even started racing Top Alcohol Dragster, I told my dad, I was like, ‘I love Todd a lot. I want him to be my crew chief someday.’ It was always something that we would joke and say to each other. And then I think now that it’s finally coming full circle after all these years, it’s pretty exciting.”
After months of uncertainty, the 2026 schedule signals forward momentum, even if it is not yet full-time.
“We have added about 10 NHRA races to our schedule for the 2026 season. We’re also going to add some IHRA stuff as well..”
The foundation of the return is preparation. Salinas and Okuhara have already begun reviewing performance data from the previous two seasons.
“I’ve gotten to go over a lot of my runs, and the data that we were looking over from 2025 and 2024,” she said. “And then he’s been going over some things, and we have a game plan. My ultimate goal, obviously, is to come out and race full-time, get a full-time sponsor, compete for a championship.”
The partial schedule does not change her internal expectations. She intends to approach each event as if she were in a championship points fight.
“In the process of working on that, there’s a lot of things that as a driver I want to work on and develop,” she said. “With all of my crew chiefs that I’ve been able to work with, I’ve always said that any feedback, anything that you can do to help me become a better driver in the seat, outside of the seat as well, let me know.”
“We’re working on a lot of fine-tuning this year,” she added. “As far as, I think, routine-wise, there’s a lot of things that I want to clean up. Even if I’m not racing full time consistently, I want to come out every single time, and look like I’m a consistent full-time driver.”
The pause in 2025 remains fresh. The weight of that decision did not settle immediately.
“Oh, absolutely. Absolutely,” Salinas said. “I think when it actually kind of fully happened, and I woke up the next morning and realized that, ‘This is it,’ it definitely felt kind of like you had somebody pull the rug out from underneath your feet.”
The shutdown forced an identity shift that extended beyond competition. For a driver immersed in racing culture, stepping away left unfamiliar silence.
“I think a lot of racers can say that you take them out of their race cars, they don’t know who they are,” Salinas said. “It was a very humbling experience.”
Her rookie season had already tested her resolve. Mechanical inconsistency and aborted runs made confidence difficult to maintain.
“I think my rookie season I was really challenging,” she said. “The car struggled a lot. We didn’t make it down the track 70% of the time. I think that 100% really played into my overall confidence in myself as a driver.”
The 2025 rebound made the interruption harder to accept. The team remained in the Top 10 until just before the U.S. Nationals.
“Going from that into then my 2025 season last year, where we ended up having to step out when we were fifth in points, and we didn’t drop out of the top 10 until right before the U.S. Nationals,” she said. “And so, I think we were so close, and there was definitely this sense of feeling that I was so close to being able to just scratch the surface of showing people what our team is capable of, what I’m capable of.”
“And then to have to backtrack and take a step back is really hard, but you’re kind of at the mercy of… No matter how much you want something, especially in racing, it doesn’t matter,” she added. “There’s always going to be other elements to it. And that’s part of it, I think, that I’ve had to accept.”
The decision to step away was shared within the Salinas family. The lesson, she said, was one her parents had repeated for years.
“Definitely,” she said. “One of the things that my parents taught us when we were growing up … and it’s one of those things that as you get older, you surface and then realize why they preached this to you … but they always said they sacrifice now so that you can have what you want later in life, and I never really understood that.”
Participating in the choice gave those words context.
“And it wasn’t until we made the decision, and I am grateful that I got to be a part of that decision too, so in stepping away was something that I’m grateful that my dad allowed me to be a part of and have that conversation with him,” she said. “And when we did that, I was like, ‘This is exactly what they’re talking about.’”
The months away from competition tested patience and perspective. She leaned into resilience rather than frustration.
“Definitely having the patience and having the resilience to take a step back sometimes, and not let it deter you from what you’re trying to achieve and give up,” she said. “It just, it’s not working now. Figure out how to go around it, figure out how to go over it, figure out how to go through it, whatever it is.”
“It’s not fun, but I think you have to be,” she added. “I think you have to be.”
Nearly five years ago, Salinas relocated from California to Indiana to immerse herself in professional drag racing. That move erased any separation between racing and personal life.
“I think for the past several years, for me, this has been my life, and I haven’t really had any sort of separation,” she said. “I think really when I moved to Indiana.”
Leaving comfort behind clarified her priorities.
“But it wasn’t until I realized that I want racing more than everything that makes me comfortable and happy, and I knew that racing was the ultimate goal for me,” she said. “That’s I think when there was no separation between racing and real life. For me, this is my real life.”
When competition was removed, the adjustment proved unsettling. Purpose had to be reexamined.
“And it is kind of scary now then, when you’ve had it taken away from you and you have to step back,” she said. “And there was definitely for a couple months I didn’t know who I was and I didn’t know what my purpose was in life.”
The 2026 return restores direction, even if the calendar remains limited. The ambition remains unchanged.
“And if you don’t believe in yourself, then nobody else is going to believe in yourself,” Salinas said. “And so, yeah, there hasn’t been a separation. This is what I want, and this is what I want to be for as long as possible.”
