Bill Bader Jr. was announcing the first round of eliminations for Top Sportsman when the prospects of a dry evening were slim at best. A 75-percent chance of rain was expected to hit Summit Motorsports Park, effectively washing out a year’s worth of preparation in one fell swoop.
“We have moved the start time up to 6 PM, because we have rain expected to hit us; if the good Lord can give us until 10,” Bader said while standing in the tower high above the racetrack. “I had already prepared by press announcement expecting it to hit us. But we have decided to forge ahead.”
Then God showed favor, and a bit of grace. Save for one rain delay ahead of the show, the precipitation held off until 20 minutes after the massive fireworks show.
Until then, Bader and his team did their part to help facilitate the miracle.
Multi-time NHRA world champion Ron Capps proved to be the beneficiary of the atmospheric miracle as he drove to not only the inaugural King of Nitro title, but also a nitro clean sweep of the 49th annual Night Under Fire as a team owner.
Capps ran a 3.843-second pass to hold off his hired driver, Maddi Gordon, who ran a 3.733-second pass at 338.09 mph in her Carlyle Tools Top Fuel dragster. As has been the case in specialty races between Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragsters, Capps’ Funny Car received a .18-second head start.
Capps used a .045 reaction time to take a starting line advantage over Gordon, and despite her 338.09-mph run, the NAPA Auto Parts driver took the stripe.
It was the second time Capps and Gordon stole the show at Summit Motorsports Park as, just one month prior, the two sealed the first Ron Capps Motorsports nitro double-up at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals. Gordon earned her first career Top Fuel victory, and Capps scored his 80th national event win.
“You can’t even dream up something like this,” said Capps, the current NHRA Mission Foods Series Funny Car points leader with three wins this season. “We thought we had the disadvantage with the stagger. Guido wanted to test something since we got here and we didn’t get a chance to do that with the weather today, so he leaned in and said, ‘We’re testing it right now in the final against Maddi,’ and I was like, ‘Oh no.’ But I stepped on the gas and around 300 feet out, this thing put me in the trunk and just took off. I was looking for Maddi’s little wheel out the side the whole way down, then all of a sudden my scoreboard came on.
“What a great night,” Capps continued. “It’s a win-win, obviously, and I would have been just as happy if Maddi had won, but I would have also heard about it for a year from Maddi about beating me. There’s no doubt about it. But it’s a pretty cool win for everybody. We had all of our people watching on FloRacing with NAPA and Carlyle, and our Monster people were here. It was just a great event. The weather was a threat all day, but you roll around from the staging lanes to the starting line and look up into the grandstands and the place is completely packed. These fans are unbelievable.”
To reach the final round, Capps stopped rookie Jordan Vandergriff in the opening round and then 2025 NHRA Rookie of the Year Spencer Hyde.
Gordon advanced by beating Norwalk’s favorite son, Clay Millican, who went long when his parachutes deployed late. She then left on and outran defending NHRA World Champion Doug Kalitta.
Gordon, who added a first-time Night Under Fire appearance to her whirlwind rookie season, also counted the performance as a collective victory for Ron Capps Motorsports in its first year as a two-car operation.
“It’s one thing to be invited to this race as a performer — because we are way more than drag racers right now, we are performers at this event,” said Gordon, currently ranked sixth in the Top Fuel points standings. “But to get past Clay Millican and Doug Kalitta to then get to race the boss man in the final, it does not get any better than that. Well, it would’ve been really cool if we won. But that was one of the coolest runs of my entire career. To have NAPA, Carlyle Tools, Monster Energy, and all of our other partners represented in the final was awesome. We are two cars, one team, so we all won no matter what. Thank you, Bill Bader Jr. , track president, for having us, and thank you, FloRacing, for streaming it so my whole family could watch at home. Man, what a weekend.”
A special 16-car Mountain Motor Pro Stock race presented by Ross Environmental Services was captured by Alan Drinkwater, who defeated multi-time world champion John DeFlorian.
“It’s incredible,” said Drinkwater, who took home $50,000 for the win. “I can’t thank the Ross Corporation enough, the Ross family. You guys have been great for the class. Keith Kellen, thank you for putting this on. It’s just been great all weekend. The place is packed. The energy is great. And I can’t thank everybody enough here that’s standing here for everything they poured into this class.”
Other winners included Cory Michalek (Top Alcohol Dragster), Keith Castle (Top Sportsman), and Scott Leber (Scott Rods AA/Gas).
