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ELIMINATIONS ROUNDS RECAPS

TOP FUEL ROUND 1 (11:29 a.m.): Top qualifier Clay Millican showed snagging the green hat was no fluke, running a 3.729 pass and the top speed of the first round (326.79), to set up a matchup with Tony Schumacher, who topped Troy Buff with a 3.758 pass of his own in the first round. Top Fuel veterans Doug Kalitta and Antron Brown put together solid passes (3.761 and 3.752, respectively) to move into the second round. Bob Vandergriff Jr. and Shawn Langdon met in the first round in their return to Top Fuel with Vandergriff getting the win in one of the tightest matchups of the round. Langdon got off the line quicker, but Vandergriff beat Langdon to the finish line, 3.770 to 3.813. (Complete round results)

Second-round pairings (lane choice first): Clay Millican vs. Tony Schumacher; Steve Torrence vs. Troy Coughlin Jr.; Antron Brown vs. Bob Vandergriff Jr.; Leah Pritchett vs. Doug Kalitta.

FUNNY CAR ROUND 1 (11:55 a.m.): Low qualifier Courtney Force got her first round-win since her runner-up at the Circle K NHRA Winternationals, but it was a lucky win after Jeff Diehl smoked the tires and her Advance Auto Parts Chevy went silent further down and coasted to a 5.34 win, which means she’ll surrender lane choice in round two to Alexis DeJoria. Her teammates, father John and Robert Hight, also advanced to round two, the first time this season all three survived the first round. Rookie Jonnie Lindberg, runner-up in the first two races of his career, continued to rack up round-wins, upsetting Tommy Johnson Jr. in a rematch of their Las Vegas final round. J.R. Todd, who struggled to 4.0s in qualifying, supplied the round’s other highlight, beating Cruz Pedregon on a 3.95 to 3.93 holeshot. (Complete round results)

Second-round pairings (lane choice first): Alexis DeJoria vs. Courtney Force; Robert Hight vs. J.R. Todd; Ron Capps vs. Jonnie Lindberg; John Force vs. Jack Beckman

PRO STOCK ROUND 1 (12:10 p.m.) Upsets abounded in the opening stanza of Pro Stock, the biggest of which was Erica Enders’ -.009 red-light loss to her husband Richie Stevens Jr., who also left before the light came on with a -.003 light. KB Racing’s Jason Line was upended by Vincent Nobile in a 6.548 to 6.581 contest, and favored Drew Skillman fouled by .001-second against Chris McGaha. A real jaw dropper took place when Jeg Coughlin Jr. wrapped up the round on a bye run in which he uncorked a new track record of 6.499. Enders also set the new track speed mark of 213.37 mph on her losing run. (Complete round results)

Second-round pairings (lane choice first): Jeg Coughlin Jr. vs. Chris McGaha; Tanner Gray vs. Richie Stevens Jr.; Bo Butner vs. bye; Greg Anderson vs. Vincent Nobile. 

PRO MOD ROUND 2: Mike Castellana, who in Saturday’s first round reset the J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series national record to 5.722, bettered that in round two with a stunning 5.685 pass, the first 5.6-second pass in class history, on a bye run. “It just hooked up and kept pulling all the way down,” said Castellana of his supercharged AAP Camaro. “I can’t thank Frank Manzo and my crew enough. I’m just the lucky guy who gets to drive the car.”

TOP FUEL ROUND 2 (1:10 p.m.): Steve Torrence posted the low e.t. of the round with a 3.755 pass to set up a semifinal battle against No. 1 qualifier Clay Millican, who used a holeshot to take down Tony Schumacher by a thousandth of a second. That wasn’t the only holeshot of the round: Leah Pritchett used the same method to slide past Doug Kalitta by .009-second. Defending world champion Antron Brown continued to be the model of consistency, using a 3.766 pass and a round-high 326.00 speed to send Bob Vandergriff Jr. home. (Complete round results)

Second round pairings (lance choice first): Steve Torrence vs. Clay Millican; Leah Pritchett vs. Antron Brown.

FUNNY CAR ROUND 2 (1:30 p.m.): Jack Beckman, who’s had a quick but inconsistent car of late and narrowly escaped round one with a 4.22 to 5.14 win against teammate Matt Hagan, showed the flip side with a 3.897 victory over John Force, who came close to brushing the wall at the top end. Robert Hight’s 3.898 was right there for performance honors and gives him lane choice over teammate Courtney Force in the semifinals. Ron Capps will have the fourth car in the semifinals after becoming the first driver to stop Jonnie Lindberg short of a final-round appearance. (Complete round results)

Semifinal pairings (lane choice first): Robert Hight vs. Courtney Force; Jack Beckman vs. Ron Capps

PRO STOCK ROUND 2 (1:39 p.m.) Low e.t. of the second round went to Bo Butner as he turned a 6.544 on his bye run. In other competition, Jeg Coughlin Jr. topped Chris McGaha with a 6.546, Tanner Gray outran Richie Stevens Jr. with a 6.547, and Greg Anderson turned a 6.558 to defeat Vincent Nobile.(Complete round results)

Semifinal round pairings (lane choice first): Jeg Coughlin Jr. vs. Tanner Gray; Bo Butner vs. Greg Anderson

TOP FUEL SEMIFINALS (2:47 p.m.): Leah Pritchett made it back to the final round for the third time this season by topping defending world champion Antron Brown. She moved back into the points lead in the process with a 3.772 pass. It’s Pritchett’s first final since she captured her second win of the season back in Phoenix, the second race of the year. She’ll face Steve Torrence, who will get lane choice thanks to a 3.760 pass after taking down No. 1 qualifier Clay Millican, in the final round. Pritchett’s husband, Gary, works on Torrence’s crew, making for an intriguing matchup in the final at Royal Purple Raceway. (Complete round results)

FUNNY CAR SEMIFINALS (2:55 p.m.): It will be a classic Don Schumacher Racing vs. John Force Racing battle in the Funny Car final as reigning world champ Ron Capps will take on 2009 champ Robert Hight. Capps, runner-up earlier this year in Phoenix, reached his milestone 100th career final by besting teammate Jack Beckman, while Hight, who hadn’t reached the semifinals in the season’s first four events, beat teammate Courtney Force to reach his 58th career final. Hight will have lane choice based on his superior 3.908 to 3.926 semifinal performance. (Complete round results)

PRO STOCK SEMIFINALS (3:02): Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Bo Butner each took advantage of red-light starts by their respective opponents, Tanner Gray and Greg Anderson, to advance to the final round. Coughlin recorded the first win of the semi’s when Gray left too soon by .010-second, and Butner got his victory when Anderson fouled with a -.012 light. This will be Coughlin’s 101st final-round appearance and his first final since the 2015 Seattle event. Coughlin’s last victory took place in Englishtown in 2014. Butner will be racing in his eighth Pro Stock final and is still looking for his first career win. Butner outran Coughlin, 6.536 to 6.558, and will have lane choice in the trophy dash. (Complete round results)

LUCAS OIL SERIES RESULTS: Kevin Helms fell just one round-win short of what would have been his second career double-up victory, scoring the win in Stock and runner-upping in Super Stock.

Helms drove his A/SA Challenger (right) to the win in Stock over Austin Ford, who broke out in his F/SA Mustang with a 9.632 on a 9.69 dial, while Helms was good for the win with a 10.096 on his 10.08 dial. It was Helms’ 25th career win. Helms, who first doubled in Denver in 2005, then lost his chance for a second when he fell to first-time winner Norvell Bowers in the double-breakout Super Stock final. Helms ran 9.383 on his 9.39 dial to be .004-second further under his dial than was Bowers with a 10.587 on a 10.59 target.

Reigning world champ Joey Severance (right) scored his 18th career win in Top Alcohol Dragster, besting Mia Tedesco in the final round, 5.20 to 5.44. Doug Gordon collected the win in Top Alcohol Funny Car with a 5.42, low e.t. of the meet, in besting a tire-shaking Jay Payne for his eighth career win.

Alan Savage survived the math of a double-breakout final in Super Comp to edge Britt Cummings, 8.888 to 8.876, for his second career victory. In Super Gas, Steve Collier ran right on the 9.90 index in the final to defeat Roger Warren, who was .001-second too quick to the stripe with a 9.899 breakout. The victory was the third for Collier, while Chris Vang collected his first career Super Street victory on Val Harmon's narrow -.001 final-round red-light. 

J.R. Baxter won the Top Dragster presented by Racing RVs title at the SpringNationals for the third straight year, winning this time on Bill Kruse’s red-light, while Keith Raftery was the winner in the Top Sportsman presented by Racing RVs class, taking win No. 5 by defeating Vince Hoda.

TOP FUEL HARLEY FINAL: Jay Turner, near lane, scored his third Top Fuel Harley win of the season as the Pomona and Las Vegas champ defeated Bob Malloy in the final, 6.21 to 6.31.

PRO MOD FINAL: Steve Matusek, near lane, collected his first career win in the J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series on a bye run after Shane Molinari, who had problems backing up after his burnout, rolled the beams and fouled.

PRO STOCK FINAL (4:09 p.m.): Bo finally knows ... Pro Stock victory! After coming up short in his seven previous Pro Stock finals, Bo Butner, near lane, scored his first factory hot rod victory with a hard-earned 6.551 to a 6.562 victory over Jeg Coughlin Jr., a 58-time Pro Stock winner. Both drivers had identical reaction times of .061, and Butner managed to use the KB Racing horsepower to pull ahead of Coughlin’s Elite Motorsports-powered entry. Butner previously scored 15 victories in the NHRA Sportsman ranks.  

FUNNY CAR FINAL (4:14 p.m.): Ron Capps, far lane, collected his milestone 50th career Funny Car win and 51st overall in a wild final-round battle with Robert Hight. After a near-even launch, both cars ran into mechanical problem downtrack. Hight dropped cylinders and fell back and ultimately crossed the centerline behind Capps, whose NAPA Auto Parts Dodge erupted into a ball of fire at the finish line. Capps got the win with a 4.004. It was his first win since the Seattle event (completed in Brainerd) last August.

TOP FUEL FINAL (4:22 p.m.): Leah Pritchett, far lane, got back into first place in the standings in style by capturing her third Top Fuel title of the season. She topped Steve Torrence for the second time this season with a 3.781 pass, beating the Texan by .006-second to earn her fourth career Top Fuel victory. She beat Torrence off the line by .009-second and held him off down the track. That kept up Don Schumacher Racing’s impressive run of victories: five-straight for DSR racing in Top Fuel. Every Top Fuel race this season has ended with a DSR driver in a yellow hat.

Sunday recap: Pritchett, Capps, Butner capture victories at SpringNationals

FEATURES

Clay Millican had no way of knowing it, but his first career runner-up in NHRA Top Fuel competition – which came at this event in 2004 – was just the beginning of a long and, so far, fruitless courtship of an NHRA Wally. He went to two more finals that year – and a total of seven since – yet hasn’t been able to turn on the final-round win light.

“At the time, I wasn’t too concerned about it,” said Millican, who has won more than 50 races in IHRA competition. “I remember rolling into Houston fresh off a win at an IHRA race. We faced Brandon Bernstein in what would turn out to be the first of three consecutive final-round appearances at NHRA races. We assumed with 50 wins under our belt that our first NHRA win wasn’t going to take long. We were wrong.

“I never thought that 13 years later we would still be wondering when our first NHRA win would finally come to us. Our team is doing a great job and working really hard. I am confident this is our year.”

Millican has plenty of reason to be confident as his Stringer Performance Great Clips/Parts Plus dragster entered Sunday in the No. 1 qualifying spot, the sixth of his career.

Here’s a look at Millican’s final-round frustration:

Like Clay Millican, Terry McMillen is still looking for his first win, and even though McMillen only has one final-round appearance to Millican’s eight, the linkage between the two extends far beyond that.

Their names are similar enough to cause confusion and tongue-tiedness with announcers – NHRA chief announcer Alan Reinhart calls it his “Dr. Seuss” call whenever the two are paired – that McMillen says he’s jokingly suggested that NHRA pay them $1,000 each when their names get flubbed or co-mingled (“Terry Millican” showed up on one big-screen graphic in Las Vegas). It’s also not uncommon for confused deliverymen to drop off parts to the wrong trailer.

“I can’t wait for the two of us to be in a final round together,” said McMillen. “That would really be something, wouldn’t it?”

With the drivers on opposite sides of the ladder, it could have happened, but McMillen's first-round exit ended those hopes.

The big prize for Doug Kalitta would be picking up his third-straight NHRA SpringNationals title. But if the Top Fuel veteran can earn a pair of round-wins on Sunday, he’ll pass Bob Glidden for ninth all-time in total round-wins. One race win will get Kalitta to 600 round-wins; he’s also just eight rounds completed away from 1,000 in his career. 

“Houston has been a good place for us the past couple of years,” said Kalitta. “The weather conditions are usually really good. It would be real cool to win three straight races at the same track. It’s awfully hard to do these days, but my Mac Tools Toyota team is really doing a hell of a job, week in and week out. We’ll go in there with that goal and see if we can pull it off again.”

Kalitta is the only driver to win back-to-back Top Fuel titles at the NHRA SpringNationals. A win on Sunday would make him the first Top Fuel driver to get four Wallys at the race; he’s currently tied with Larry Dixon and Kenny Bernstein with three Wallys apiece. 

Kalitta reached the semifinals in Las Vegas and Gainesville, falling to Tony Schumacher and Antron Brown, respectively. He lost to Leah Pritchett in the final in Pomona and entered Houston in fourth place with 301 points. 

With his 3.743 best effort qualifying him in the No. 4 spot, Steve Torrence extended to 38 the number of consecutive NHRA tour events for which he has qualified his Capco Contractors dragster in the top half of the field -- the longest such active streak in the Top Fuel class -- and, in the process, earned lane choice for the first round.

Torrence, who qualified No. 1 last year – his second pole in three years at the event – probably should have won last year’s event, setting low e.t of the first three rounds Sunday before falling to Doug Kalitta in the final. And he would love nothing more than to score in front of his homestate Texas crowd.

“I’ve got all the people here who root for us all year long, guys I grew up drag racing with, I’ve got friends and family all here cheering for us,” he said. “The DSR [Don Schumacher Racing] cars have been kicking our butts. They’ve won the first four races, but maybe we can start giving them some payback now that we’re back home in Texas.”

Save for a 3.890 during Friday night’s Q2 “hero” session, 16-time world champ John Force had a pretty frustrating go in qualifying. On  his first pass Friday, he crossed the centerline in his Peak Camaro. On his first run Saturday, he double-stepped the throttle at the line and had to abort his pass. His final try down the track was lost to tire smoke.

“Me personally, I was kind of struggling,” Force said. “Even though I didn’t get down the racetrack on the last run, I got my stuff together. It’s just a feeling that your body gets, and you get out of whack.

“I took a nice little vacation for a week with my family and my grandkids and my children. I came back and worked out every day – maybe I worked out too much. I was just off my game.”

“[Amanda Busick] from FOX keeps getting on me. They knocked Rocky out, and he keeps coming back. She said, ‘Those are movies.’ I said, ‘I live by movies. I make movies every day out here.’ Rocky came back, Fast and Furious came back. It’s all a matter of how bad you want to come back.”

Saturday was a get-well day for Robert Hight and crew chief Jimmy Prock with runs of 3.92 and 3.89 in the final two qualifying sessions after a pair of five-second attempts on Friday when they overpowered the track as Prock tries to sort out the new-to-him six-disc clutch that all of the John Force Racing cars run.

“We’ve been changing a lot of stuff, so we don’t have much of a baseline,” confirmed Prock. “We’ve been struggling with this six-disc clutch all season, and coming into this race, we basically threw out everything we’d done this year and started over.”

“We’ve got to put what’s happened this year behind us,” Hight said. “We’ve got to move forward. We’ve got a good car, a good team, and I’m excited. It doesn’t seem like the season’s started because it’s been such a slow start to the calendar, and our performance hadn’t been great. We’re ready to kick it off right now. [Sunday] is a new ballgame. It’s going to be cool, it’s going to be dry, and more than likely, that 3.85 track record will not be around at the end of the day.”

A few days after their final-round matchup in Las Vegas, Tommy Johnson Jr. got a visit at the DSR raceshop from Jonnie Lindberg, who was stopping by to pick up some parts.

“Jonnie told me, ‘How about a rematch in Houston?’ and I said that would be great with me … I just didn’t think it would happen in the first round,” said Johnson, whose No. 7 qualifying berth will give him first-round lane choice over his class-rookie opponent.

Johnson likes the other similarity between this event and Las Vegas. In Vegas, he and crew chief John Collins struggled Friday with the Make-A-Wish car, then came alive Saturday and won Sunday. This weekend, they had runs of just 8.16 and 7.14 Friday, then bounced back Saturday with passes of 3.950 and 3.934 despite the heat and tricky track conditions.

"We would have liked to have done a little bit better, but I think going into [Sunday], the conditions are going to be a little better and the track is going to come around," Johnson said.  "Then we can go back to our normal tune-up, which should set us up pretty good for a good race day. So far, everything has kind of gone the same as Vegas, and I hope [Sunday] does as well."

It didn't.

Lindberg wheeled Jim Head's Toyota down the tricky right lane -- one of only two cars to do so in round one -- to avenge his loss.

J.R. Todd captured a SpringNationals title 10 years ago, an anniversary that holds special meaning to the Funny Car driver. The win in Houston came just one race following the death of close friend Eric Medlen in a testing accident following the Gatornationals. 

“That’s right up there at the top for me in terms of best wins,” said Todd. “It was pretty cool because, he and Brandon and I and I had gone out to downtown Gainesville, and Eric and I had switched ID’s to mess with the door guys. And I never got my ID back from him until Sunday.

“He was saying, ‘Hey man you need to come get your ID back so you can fly home.’ So, then you know he has his accident, but he had written on the back of my license, ‘Win the race, bro.’ So, my very next race I won.”

That was back when Todd was a Top Fuel driver. Now in his first season as a Funny Car driver, Todd is still getting comfortable in his DHL machine. He ran a 4.016 in the fourth qualifying session to slot in at No. 12. 

“Yesterday it just wasn’t tuned up enough, looking at the runs we thought it would run way better than it did,” said Todd. “Today is a new day.”

With his Phoenix victory earlier this year, Greg Anderson has 87 career national wins in Pro Stock, and there is some speculation as to how long it might take before he records his 100th win. Anderson is third on the NHRA all-time Pro wins list, trailing John Force (147) and the no longer active Warren Johnson (97). Just last year Anderson moved past Bob Glidden’s total of 85.
 
Anderson took advantage of KB Racing’s early domination of Pro Stock during the first year of the EFI era to score eight victories in 2016, and he won four in 2015. With parity having returned to Pro Stock, it would be realistic to assume that Anderson might average five victories a season, which means that he might achieve his 100th victory in 2019.
 
But the pragmatic Anderson is avoiding any speculation. “There’s no guarantee that I will get an 88th win, let alone 100. Throughout my career, I’ve always felt that my latest win might be my last win.”

Anderson did indeed suffer winless seasons in 2013 and 2014, the drought in the latter campaign partially attributed to missing the first five races of the year while recovering from heart surgery. But since winning his first Pro Stock event in 2001, Anderson had a string of 12 consecutive seasons with at least two victories per year.
 
While Anderson is not inclined to speculate on future achievements, he is proud on what he has accomplished so far, especially his passing of Glidden’s win total. “That was cool,” said Anderson. “That was something I never expected would happen.”

 
Consistency is always a desired element in Pro Stock competition, and Bo Butner certainly has that asset going into Sunday’s eliminations. Butner was either first or second during the four rounds of qualifying by driving his Jim Butner Auto Chevy Camaro to times of 6.574, 6.560, 6.568, and 6.575 to rack up a solid total of 10 bonus points, the most of any driver in the Pro categories. 

Butner had also competed in Stock eliminator this weekend and was defeated in the second round. “The way the Pro Stock car was running, maybe I should have had it in Stock,” laughed Butner, who is hoping that his elusive first Pro Stock victory will take place today.

No one – especially her -- expected Erica Enders to lose her highly-anticipated first-round match with husband Richie Stevens Jr. – she had vowed Saturday night to “treat him like any other competitor and do everything I can to rip his throat out” – and even fewer (again, especially her) could have expected her to lose by red-lighting, which she surprising did -- out-red-lighting him, -.009 to .-003. Her run, 6.523, which was low e.t. of the meet at that point, only added salt to the wound. 

“There’s no way; there’s some rollout change. I’m pretty damned good at adjusting my clutch pedal,” she said. “I left right on the amber, and that should have been a .015 green. I'd bet my life's savings on it. I’m a little pissed off. We just ran low e.t of the whole fricking race. It is what it is, but it’s a damn shame for Lupe Tortilla and Elite Motorsports and Transportation Impact and all of the people who help us. We’ve got a bad-ass hot rod, and I’m pissed.”

A new rivalry in Pro Stock may be emerging from this event: Gray Motorsports vs. Elite Motorsports.

This was the first race of the year for Alex Laughlin, who after running engines from the Gray operation has switched to an Elite powerplant. Laughlin was paired against Tanner Gray in the first round, and after Gray won the 6.555, 212.03 to 6.563, 210.90 contest, he was quick to remind Laughlin about his switch in engine builders and more words ensued.

There were further animated discussions in the pits between Elite’s Richard Freeman and Gray's father, Shane. Both teams will be racing next week in Charlotte, so stay tuned.

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