No one will win the Western Swing this season. Leah Pritchett lost her bid to become the sixth Top Fuel racer to do so when she fouled out in the opening round at Sonoma. John Force (Funny Car) and Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) both had hoped to win again last week and keep their hopes alive to become the first to win the Western Swing twice, but both lost in the Sonoma semifinals.

"We've had a lot of success racing at Pacific Raceways, been going there for a long time and it's been good to us,” Force said. “The whole Western Swing has been good to John Force Racing, hopefully that will continue. If one our teams can't sweep the Swing by themselves, Robert [Hight] with Auto Club, Courtney with Advance Auto Parts, Brittany with Monster and PEAK (in Top Fuel) and me with PEAK, well then the next best thing is to sweep it as a team. We've done it before."

It took three JFR Funny Cars to pull that off, but they did in 2014. Hight won at Denver, Courtney Force did so at Sonoma, and John Force completed the “team sweep” at Seattle.

(Don Schumacher Racing had a tag-team sweep in Funny Car in the only other nitro combo to “sweep” with different drivers. In 2015, Jack Beckman won the first two legs and Tommy Johnson took the Seattle trophy. Drew Skillman was using Gray Motorsports power when he won in Pro Stock at Denver and Seattle last year, sandwiching Tanner Gray’s Sonoma victory.)    

Despite no true sweeps this weekend, plenty is at stake during the Cat Spot NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways, near Seattle. And plenty of eyebrow-raising incidents marked the opening day of qualifying Friday.

Cruz Pedregon had a jarring engine explosion in the early Funny Car session and sat out the evening run. Bill Litton was surprised by uncooperative parachutes that failed to deploy in his initial Top Fuel pass, and he opted not to appear in his second opportunity.

John Force didn’t attempt a first-session Funny Car run – well, he did and he didn’t. He was set to line up against Tommy Johnson Jr. but because of a computer glitch in the tower, the Timing and Scoring folks ordered the racers to cut off their engines. That turned out to be blessing for Force, because his crew discovered that a head had broken off an exhaust valve. So the Peak Chevy Camaro team pushed Force from the starting line, and they went back to the pits. They came out for the second call, but Force lost traction early and wound up 15th in the 16-car field overnight. Johnson went on to grab the tentative No. 7 spot.

Steve Torrence was quickest and fastest in the Top Fuel class with a 3.723-second run at 331.61 mph. That speed reset his own two-year-old track record of 330.47. A 3.913-second elapsed time earned Matt Hagan the provisional No. 1 qualifying position in Funny Car action. Robert Hight was fastest on the 1,000-foot course for nitro cars. Erica Enders was fastest among the Pro Stock racers at 212.66 mph, but Jeg Coughlin covered the quarter-mile quickest at 6.501 seconds (212.16 mph).

Locked into the Countdown by the conclusion of the Sonoma event were Top Fuel racers Steve Torrence, Tony Schumacher, Clay Millican, Doug Kalitta, and Leah Pritchett. That leaves just five spots left in the dragster class. Antron Brown possibly could clinch at Seattle but probably would need to win the race.

In Funny Car, berths are secure for Courtney Force, Ron Capps, Robert Hight, and Matt Hagan. So two John Force Racing and two Don Schumacher Racing drivers are in the playoffs, and six slots still are up for grabs. Jack Beckman has a chance to nail down a spot simply by qualifying.

Greg Anderson became the first driver in the Pro Stock class to clinch a Countdown spot. Tanner Gray, Erica Enders, Jeg Coughlin, and Vincent Nobile each have a chance to capture spots, but they would have to last for at least a couple of rounds Sunday.

Such calculations depend on possible oildown penalties, centerline penalties, plus the performances of their race-day opponents.