NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Three NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series world championships are still on the line at the season-ending Auto Club NHRA Finals in Pomona, with championship battles raging in Funny Car between Ron Capps and Matt Hagan, in Pro Stock between Jason Line and Greg Anderson, and in Pro Stock Motorcycle, where Jerry Savoie is trying to fend off the dual-threat challenge of Harley riders Eddie Krawiec and Andrew Hines.

The event, the 24th and final of the 2016 season and the last race of the six-event Countdown to the Championship, will conclude Sunday, nine months after the season kicked off in Pomona with the Circle K NHRA Winternationals.

Here are today’s highlights:

1. Brown continues to pour it on
Despite claiming his third Top Fuel world championship last weekend, Antron Brown shows no signs of letting up, powering his Matco Tools dragster to the best run of each of the day’s two qualifying sessions.

2. Beckman resets Funny Car track records
Jack Beckman broke both ends of the Funny Car track record with his Infinite Hero Dodge, running 3.865 at 332.84 mph to lead the field Friday. Beckman entered the event with the track record of 3.884, which was bettered by Ron Capps (3.883) and then John Force (3.880) before Beckman took the mark back in Q2, where his speed also bettered Matt Hagan’s incoming record of 331.45.

3. Line adds to Pro Stock points lead
Jason Line increased his points lead over teammate Greg Anderson by one point, pushing it to an even 20 points halfway through qualifying. If Line can enter Sunday’s eliminations leading by 20 points or more, he will be a full round’s worth of points ahead of Anderson as the Summit teammates battle for the crown.

4. Savoie takes over Pro Stock Motorcycle lead
Jerry Savoie came into the event three points behind Andrew Hines and Eddie Krawiec, who sat tied atop the standings, but one day later, Savoie owns a two-point edge over Krawiec after dominating both qualifying sessions. Hines is in third place, three points behind Savoie.

5. Top Alcohol Dragster crash
Norwegian Top Alcohol Dragster driver Fred Hanssen took a scary ride in the second qualifying session when his dragster went out of control and crossed the centerline, struck the opposite guardwall, and rolled once. Hanssen was not injured.
 

Funny Car | Pro Stock | Pro Stock Motorcycle | Etc.

One of the pleasant surprises of today’s opening session was newcomer Shawn Reed, who reset both ends of his career best with a 3.921 at 303.78 mph. The pass was good enough to place Reed seventh after the first session and ultimately kept him in the top 12 heading into Saturday.

“This is a dream of mine. I didn’t start this thing until about three years ago, about 30 years late, but, man, my team and everybody that’s helped me get here, thank you,” said Reed. “It seems like every time we go out this car keeps getting a little bit quicker. You know, a hundredth at a time, and maybe in 20 or 30 passes we’ll get down into the low 3.8s or something.”

Scott Palmer’s Auto Club NHRA Finals weekend got off to a tough start when his car had a mechanical problem on the burnout during Q1, and Palmer was unable to make a run.

“The throttle stop popped off the throttle linkage, and then that caused it to over-rev and split the burst panel on the front of the manifold that we have,” said crew chief Ashley Fye. “We’ve run a lot this year, so stuff is bound to happen sometimes. We’re just trying to keep doing better and make improvements and not have stupid stuff like that happen.”

Palmer did not make an attempt in the second session, but he is expected to return tomorrow.

It’s no secret that Tony Schumacher has not had the kind of Countdown to the Championship run that he wanted. Entering the final race with just four playoff round-wins and sitting eighth in the standings, the eight-time world champion is still hoping to somewhat salvage his Countdown effort, and a win on Sunday would go a long way to doing that.

“We want to win this race. We struggled a bit during the Countdown,” said Schumacher, who also admits to, like many fans, keeping an eye on the still-going battle for this year’s Funny Car title, which is down to a pair of cars from the Don Schumacher Racing stable. “I’m sitting back and watching [Ron] Capps and [Matt] Hagan battle it out. Hagan’s got a few championships, and Capps has been in the running four times. I’m just so proud of those guys. I’m just going to sit back, enjoy this weekend, and try to go out and win a race, and I’m going to watch this thing unfold. I’m still a fan. I love what we do out here.”

Schumacher’s quest to end the season on a high note got off to a great start. He had the third-quickest time of the first session, 3.77, then improved to a 3.73 to finish in the top five after day one.

Though he recorded a runner-up finish the last time out in Las Vegas, J.R. Todd wasn’t 100 percent satisfied with that result.

“We definitely let one get away there in the final, and for SealMaster and Toyota, we want to finish off the year strong,” said Todd. “I think we can finish third or fourth in the points, and that’s what we’re aiming for.”

Todd helped his cause in the points when he made the second-best run of the first round of qualifying, posting a 3.76. He went quicker in the second session, running a 3.73 that has him in the provisional No. 6 spot.

“That’s a great start to this weekend,” said crew chief Rob Flynn. “You want to end the year strong, and if you start off Friday behind, it tells the tale of the whole weekend, so that’s a great start for this SealMaster team.”

After a promising start to the 2016 season that included advancing to his first career final in Gainesville and being as high as fifth in points, the pendulum swung on Terry McMillen, and he has struggled quite a bit since that early success. From Indy on has been particularly tough, with McMillen failing to qualify twice and placing no higher than 12th in the order. The hard work that his team has been putting in week in and week out to try to right the ship again appeared to pay off today when McMillen made a strong 3.79-second pass under the lights.

“I’ll tell you what, that’s pretty badass,” said McMillen, who heads into Saturday ranked ninth. “Rob Wendland and the guys have been working extremely hard trying to get this thing down the track. We put a new fuel system on it, been working on the clutch, and man, we kind of hit it right there.”

The championship may have already been decided with Antron Brown clinching his third world title in Las Vegas, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a points battle in the Top Fuel class. Less than 100 points separate No. 2 Steve Torrence (pictured) and No. 8 Tony Schumacher. In some instances, just one or two points separate some of the positions. Entering Saturday, Torrence, who added to his tally today with a 3.71 that was the second-best run of Q2, has 2,426 points. Doug Kalitta is 13 points behind Torrence. The gap to No. 4 Brittany Force is bigger, sitting at 60, but she is only one point ahead of Shawn Langdon and just 12 ahead of J.R. Todd. Leah Pritchett is another 19 back, and Schumacher is only two behind Pritchett. That means there is still a lot of potential for movement in the rankings tomorrow and Sunday.

Anyone who thought clinching the Top Fuel world championship in Las Vegas might slow Antron Brown and his crew while they relished their victory would be sadly mistaken. The strong, dominating car that carried Brown to his second straight and third overall title was on full display today, pacing both rounds of qualifying and putting Brown on the provisional pole heading into the final two sessions tomorrow.

“We’re just going out there and having some fun,” said Brown, who posted a best of 3.713 today. “We locked it up in Vegas. Brian [Corradi], Mark [Oswald], and all of our Matco Tools boys, we came in here and had that little edge. I mean, we wanted to win Vegas, and we went up there, and we pressed a little hard, and we didn’t get the result that we wanted to, but we had to. How great J.R. Todd was running, he had the car to beat, and then [Steve] Torrence showed him what it was all about in the final. You don’t know who’s going to win these races, and we’re just trying to set ourselves up right now to end this season not on a good note but a great note. We got some quality points today, but tomorrow, we want to try and do the same thing and see if we can carry it over to Sunday and sneak out of here with something that we can be proud of other than that championship.

“You’re not ever promised to win another championship or to win another round or to win another race. You have to earn those types of times and those types of moments, and right now, I’m just enjoying what we’ve done this whole season.”

The car looks the same, but there is a big difference in the Patrón Toyota this weekend. After Alexis DeJoria was diagnosed with a concussion and forced to sit out this final event, her team brought in journeyman Funny Car driver Jeff Arend to pinch-hit for her. Though it did not require a ton of work to make the car ready for a different driver — changing seat inserts and belts and moving the steering wheel — the team did want to make sure all was well before going full bore so decided to take it easy on the first pass.

“We’ll definitely have it backed off a little bit [for the first run], just kind of get him acclimated and make sure everything’s good,” said crew chief Tommy DeLago. “The car now, he feels everything’s in a good spot, but sometimes you don’t really know until you step on the throttle, so we’re not going to go for the throat or anything. We’re just going to try and make a decent run, but, obviously, keep it a little calmed down and make it easier to drive.”

After that easy first run, which also had some troubles and registered in at just 4.40, DeLago turned up the wick for Q2, and it resulted in a career best for Arend, who clocked a 3.93, his first foray into the threes.

“Not bad,” said Arend. “I’ve run a 4.03 before. It’s not often that you get to run a tenth better at worst. Thanks to everyone out here, especially Alexis and Patrón. Get better, Alexis. We miss you out here. You’ve got a badass car, though.”

Like many others not in the championship battle, Tim Wilkerson and his team have already begun preparations for 2017, and that included pulling out a different car for the weekend.

“That’s our car that we brought back from Denver, crashed at Denver. We just got it back, so we’re actually trying stuff for next year,” said Richard Hartman, who assists Wilkerson with tuning decisions on the car.

Wilkerson's first day in the new old car was a mixed one. Wilkerson admits to missing it on his 6.50-second pass in the first session, but his team rebounded on the second attempt, posting a 3.92. Though good, Wilkerson admitted he was looking for more.

“Stupid race car,” said Wilkerson, with a laugh after the run. “Nah, we’re happy with that, get ourselves in the show, and now we can go out there and lean on it. We didn’t have enough clutch on it, and we knew we didn’t. After that first run, which we screwed up there, and it shook the tires, I’m happy with that. I figured it would go a 3.90 flat, not a 3.92, but I think I may have beat us out of a hundredth early.”

Australian Anthony Begley, who made his NHRA debut two weeks ago in Las Vegas, is racing at famed Auto Club Raceway at Pomona for the first time, and his first pass down the track will be one he won’t soon forget. First, his team had some struggles getting the body to latch again after it opened it following the burnout, then Begley’s parachutes did not deploy after the 4.30 pass, sending him on a bit of a wild ride through the shutdown area. Begley got his car stopped before going into the sand.

“It’s my first time down the track, and it couldn’t have been more exciting, I think. It was really good,” said Begley, who sat out Q2. “The boys had a little drama with the latch. It must have bent on the line; so typical, when everything happens, it happens at once.”

Paul Lee joined the three-second club in Las Vegas, and he continued to add to his three-second resume today, posting sub-four-second times on both attempts. The quickest of the two threes today was a 3.935 that is a new career best for Lee, whose speed was only 305.36 mph.

“I shut it off early. The front end was up in the air, and I clicked it off at about 900 feet, but hey, great job to the team,” said Lee, who also ran a 3.95 today. “I can’t say enough about Todd [Smith] and the guys and Team Kalitta. It’s just great to be part of it, and this is a great way to start the weekend.”

Ron Capps’ quest for his first world title got another boost today when he led the first round of qualifying, adding three points to his tally. Though he smoked the tires on his second pass, Matt Hagan was unable to earn points in either session, lifting Capps’ advantage to 89 heading into Saturday. If he ends tomorrow with a lead of 81 points or more, Capps will officially clinch the title, and though he is sitting in a great position to do that, Capps is still cautious.

“First things first, we’re qualified. We’re a big sponsor team, and that may sound weird for me to say that, but this is drag racing, man, and you don’t take that for granted. That’s the great thing about our sport: You have to prove yourself time and time again,” said Capps, who finished the day third, two spots ahead of Hagan. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world. Trust me, I’m not as good as this car is. I’m just having a blast right now. It hiked the front end up. It’s such a fun car to drive right now. It’s like being at the March Meet in [Steve] Plueger’s car a few years back, a blast, and I’m the luckiest guy in the world. We’re just trying to gain these ‘little points.’ Dream, dream season so far.”

Crew chief Rahn Tobler was also still a bit cautious, saying, “You come in here, and you want to be a little bit careful, just to try and make sure you go down on that first run. We’ll just try to keep doing what we’ve been doing, like I’ve been saying all along.”

Tommy Johnson Jr. finished the first session in the No. 2 spot, but the strong 3.91 that he put on the boards actually could have been better, potentially even giving Ron Capps a run for the top spot.

“That thing was on a really good run,” said Johnson, who had slightly better incremental times at 330 feet and the eighth-mile than Capps. “Out there on the top end, it really started pulling hard, and then it just shut off right before the finish line. That’s a shame. That would have been definitely a high 3.8 if it would have made it all the way, but the guys are doing a great job on the Make-A-Wish team.”

It wasn’t quite a wheelstand at the level of Cruz Pedregon’s in Las Vegas (then again, how many others are?), but John Hale went on a bit of a wild ride in the second session when his special-edition Mooneyes entry hiked up the front end about 300 feet into the pass and carried it in the air until just before the eighth-mile when it slammed back down on the track.

“Wow, that was kind of a déjà vu on what happened to us here at the [Circle K NHRA] Winternationals,” said Hale. “I don’t know if Cruz has started something here with this, but it felt like it got up pretty high on us. It came down pretty hard, too. I hope we can fix it and run this beautiful body again tomorrow.”

Jack Beckman and his team subscribe to the philosophy of “If it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it,” so though many other teams have switched to the six-disc clutch, the Jimmy Prock-led team has stuck with the five-disc model that served it  very well last season. The problem is sometimes something completely out of your control may force a change, and that’s what happened to Beckman’s group.

“With the way our car ran last year with a five-disc, we weren’t giving up anything. The problem is we ran out of enough new discs, and it’s a bigger deal with the five-disc. Each disc is 20 percent of the clutch pack. The more you put in, the less a single disc will affect the clutch pack. Six-disc is going to be the way we go.”

Facing a lack of discs for the five-disc combo, the team stayed over Monday in Las Vegas and tested the six-disc clutch. The crew saw enough in that test to believe it had a handle on it and elected to leave it in for this weekend. So far, that appears to be a great decision. After posting a 3.92 that was the third-best time of Q1, Beckman shot to the top of the order with a 3.865 at 332.84 mph, both track records.

“It was an amazing run, not just for the 1,000 feet that we were accelerating,” said Beckman. “ ‘Jungle Pam’ Hardy backed me up after the burnout. She’s just an absolute icon and legend in the sport, and it was a bit of a pinch-me moment. I’m still a huge fan, and as I’m backing up, I’m like, ‘That’s “Jungle Pam” backing me up,’ and then I kind of had to smack myself in the cheek and go, ‘OK, get your act together. It’s time to make the run.’

“With 1,000 feet, you sometimes have time to glance up at the scoreboards as you go by them, and it looked pretty good to me. I caught the 3.86 on the scoreboard, but I didn’t catch the mph; it was going by too fast at that point.”

Few racers will be more glad to see the 2016 season end than Erica Enders. Coming off of her back-to-back NHRA Mello Yello titles in 2014 and 2015, Enders entered the Auto Club NHRA Finals with no victories and in 10th place in the standings. “I’ve had rides earlier in my career in which we went to each event knowing that we didn’t have much of a chance to qualify, so I’ve been through this before. Even with the great success that we had during the past two years, it just goes to show you how quickly things can change.”
 
The Freeman Motorsports team that Enders drives for is expected to announce significant changes for the 2017 season soon, and Enders is looking forward to next year with great anticipation. “The frustrations of this year would have broken other teams, but our group has actually become much closer. I’d rather go to the bottom with these people than be at the top with any of the other teams,” said Enders.
 
After suffering tire shake in the first round that slowed her to a 6.701, Enders improved in the second session with a 6.645 to finish 12th.
 

Bo Butner enters the final race of his first full-time season in Pro Stock with very impressive credentials; his three No. 1 qualifying efforts and four runner-up finishes have given him a decent shot at finishing as high as fourth place. “It’s been a great campaign for us,” said Butner. “We’ve been able to do everything we had hoped for except for getting that big first career win, which we hope to do this weekend.”
 
2016 has been a huge learning experience for Butner as well. “The biggest lesson for me this year is how much that even the smallest of mistakes can hurt you," said Butner. "And that’s even more significant now that everybody has caught up with the KB Racing team [which builds Butner’s motors].
 
“But I am very pleased with how the season has gone overall. I plan to continue with KB Racing for next year, and I’ll be using their stuff until I get my first win.”
 
Things went well during Friday’s qualifying for Butner, who finished in the No. 2 position and moved past Drew Skillman into fifth place in the top-10 standings. 
 

While the Freeman Motorsports team’s Mopar entries driven by Erica Enders and Jeg Coughlin Jr. have struggled this season, Vincent Nobile has excelled with the group’s tried and proven Chevy Camaro package. Nobile used the combination to win the Countdown to the Championship event in Reading, his first victory since winning in Chicago in 2014, and he had runner-up finishes in Denver and Seattle, which enabled him to enter the Auto Club NHRA Finals in fourth place.
 
“I’ve been treated very well on all of the teams that I raced with in the past, but our personalities just seemed to mesh best here,” said Nobile, who was sixth with a 6.597 after Friday’s qualifying.
 

Even though Allen Johnson has had the quickest Mopar entry in Pro Stock this season, both he and his father and engine builder, Roy, believe that there is still lots of room for improvement with their combination. “Either the car hasn’t worked right or our tune-up has been off,” said the elder Johnson.
 
“We made some changes to our tune-up right before the Countdown began, and it appears that they were in the wrong direction. So we’re trying to get back to the basics this weekend so we can run like we did earlier in the year."

The team’s efforts were rewarded with a top-half showing in Friday’s qualifying with a No. 7 clocking of 6.601.
 

2016 has no doubt been a breakthrough season for Alex Laughlin. Not only did he earn his first round-win at the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals, but he also produced his first national event victory at the St. Louis Countdown to the Championship event.
 
“It was a huge relief to get that first win,” said Laughlin. “It not only showed us that we could finally become competitive at this level, but it was extremely valuable for our public relations. Ever since St. Louis, we’ve had hundreds of fans come over to our pit area, asking for autographs and to have their pictures taken. And then to reach the finals again in Dallas [with a runner-up effort to fellow Gray Motorsports competitor Drew Skillman] was very special.”
 
Laughlin said that he will continue to run with engines from Gray Motorsports for the 2017 season. “That’s a no-brainer,” said Laughlin. “They’ve given us lots of horsepower and have treated us very well.”
 
During qualifying, Laughlin finished a solid fourth with a 6.587.

For the first time since they began racing together as teammates for KB Racing, Greg Anderson and Jason Line entered the Auto Club NHRA Finals as the leading contenders for the NHRA Mello Yello Pro Stock world championship. Line started in first place with a narrow 19-point lead over Anderson, who cut the margin to 17 when he was No. 1 in the first session, but Line took advantage of Anderson’s shutoff run in the second stanza to grab the pole with a 6.565 to expand his lead to 20 markers.
 
“It will probably go back and forth some more on Saturday,” said Line. “Although that might be nerve-racking for Greg and me, it should be fun for the fans to watch.” By qualifying, Line eliminated any chance for third-place Shane Gray to overtake him in the standings.
 
Despite the solid start, Line, as always, said that his car has the potential to run quicker. “It was a little lazy in the first session [when he was third with a 6.585], and I didn’t hit the shift points right on the second round. We’ll just keep trying to push it a bit further on Saturday. It would be ideal for me to go into Sunday’s eliminations with a 21-point lead [which would force Anderson to go two rounds further than Line]."
 

Harley-Davidson V-Rod teammates Eddie Krawiec and Andrew Hines came into the Auto Club NHRA Finals tied for first place with rival Jerry Savoie’s Suzuki just three points behind, and the significance was not lost on Krawiec. “This is the first time in Pro Stock Motorcycle history that three bikes have entered the last race of the year so close. I don’t feel any pressure at all. In fact, it’s very exhilarating to have such a challenge. Our goal is pure and simple: Just go out there and win the race. If we do that, everything will fall into place.”

Krawiec ended the day with a best of 6.858 that put him in third place. Hines was eighth with a 6.886.
 

For Hector Arana Sr. and his son Hector Arana Jr., the 2016 campaign has been like “riding on a wooden roller coaster." So their efforts in Friday’s first round of qualifying, in which Arana Jr. was second with a 6.857 and his father was third with a 6.870, were a big boost. Said Arana Sr., “We’ve always run good at Pomona, and we didn’t have to make any major changes. It was just a matter of the track coming to us. It gave us a big morale boost, and hopefully we can build on that for a good showing on Sunday, which will give us a lot of positive momentum during the offseason."
 
For 2017, the Aranas will be running a new body design and engines with more power. “That hopefully will enable us to improve on what we’ve been doing,” he said.
 

Angelle Sampey and Cory Reed, running in their last event for Star Racing, were fourth and ninth after Friday’s pair of qualifying rounds with respective times of 6.861 and 6.911. The two will field their own operation, Team Liberty, in 2017. Said Reed, “The reason we’re forming our own team is because that’s what my parents [Jim and Annie Whiteley] do. We’ll be going from the Buells that we’ve used with Star Racing to new Victory bike and engine combinations. The new engines are supposed to last longer, and we’ll be spending lots of time over the winter doing lots of R&D work to optimize the potential of the new equipment.”
 

Following his DNQ at the NHRA Toyota Nationals, Fred Camarena and his crew stayed for an extensive test session to prepare for the Auto Club NHRA Finals, and it paid off with a best of 6.916 at 195.39 mph that was good for the No. 10 position. Camarena’s top-end effort was his swiftest since running 197.77 mph in Charlotte in 2015.

“We basically made some adjustments with the timing, along with using a new clutch,” said Camarena, who contacted Jerry Savoie’s team for assistance. “I’ve been working with Jerry and Tim Kulungian since the middle of 2014, and we plan to continue this working relationship next year. Our plans right now are to run half the schedule. If we get off to a good start, we might run even more races.”
 

With the departure of riders Angelle Sampey and Cory Reed, Star Racing has yet to determine if it will field a team for NHRA Mello Yello Pro Stock Motorcycle competition in 2017. Team owner George Bryce said, “We’ve been talking with several potential riders at this point, but as of yet, we haven’t made any firm decisions. We want someone we know is capable of winning, and we don’t want to race just for the sake of racing. So if we can’t get the caliber of rider that we want, we may just end up focusing on our engine program next year and also continue with our driving school."

Bryce also said that he sold the bike that Sampey used in 2013 and 2014 to an individual whom they will work with on a part-time basis.

Jerry Savoie accomplished his primary goal of qualifying No. 1 in both Pro Stock Motorcycle sessions on Friday, but the day was also very eventful in another way: He rode his bike into the sand trap in the shutdown area during the second session.(animated gif)
 
Savoie, who came into the event just three points behind the Harley-Davidson V-Rod riding duo of Andrew Hines and Eddie Krawiec, ended up with a lead of two points after Krawiec earned only one marker and Hines recorded none.
 
The excitement for Savoie came shortly after he crossed the finish line in the second round of qualifying.
 
“I was on the brakes when my bike hit a bump and got pretty crazy on me,” said Savoie. "I couldn’t use the brakes again until the very end of the shutdown area because it would have spun out.”

Savoie kept his ’01 Suzuki upright and reported that there was no major damage.

“The big thing now is that I have a two-point lead, which we hope to keep or even build on. If all of us [Savoie and the two Harley riders] go out in the same round on Sunday, I’d be the winner.”
 
Savoie ran 6.844 and 6.856 to earn the maximum Friday total of six bonus points. 
 

Race week kicked off with the traditional pre-championship press conference Thursday at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in nearby Pasadena, where the top drivers of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series met with the press to discuss the upcoming event. (Below) Newly crowned Top Fuel champ Antron Brown shared the podium with his Funny Car teammates Ron Capps and Matt Hagan, who are battling this weekend for the Funny Car championship.

The 28 drivers who will battle this weekend for national championships in the Summit Racing Series gathered Thursday night at the NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by Automobile Club of Southern California, where they were greeted by representatives from NHRA and Summit as well as Summit-sponsored racers Jason Line, Greg Anderson, Tim Wilkerson, Andrew Hines, and Eddie Krawiec.

Friday marked day two of the season finale in Pomona, with racers in some of the Lucas Oil Sportsman classes beginning eliminations and others continuing the qualifying process.

As part of NHRA’s salute to Veterans Day, active-duty military personnel were honored as they rode up the return road in the vehicles of the NHRA Safety Safari presented by AAA.

The lone Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series championship still to be decided this season will get a dramatic twist in Saturday’s third round of Stock eliminator. Brad Burton, a two-time national champ (2010, 2012), needs to win four rounds this weekend in his D/SA ’72 Pontiac Formula to pass Jeff Strickland and win his third title, and his third-round opponent will be none other than Strickland, who, even though he has used up his allotted points-earning events, has the rare chance to control his own destiny by personally stopping Burton.

Strickland, who already has clinched the championship in the Top Dragster class, will be seeking to become just the second driver in NHRA history to win two championships in the same season.

Burton advanced to the crucial round by beating Randi Lyn Shipp and her ’69 Firebird in a heads-up second-round race Friday morning, 10.34 to 10.43.


One driver who won’t be sweating any championship drama this weekend is Mia Tedesco, who clinched the Super Gas title last weekend in Las Vegas. Tedesco is the first female driver to win a championship in the 9.90-index class.


Dodge NHRA Nationals Top Alcohol Dragster champion Jackie Fricke had a scary moment during the second qualifying session when her A/Fuel Dragster crossed the centerline and nearly made contact with Jay Livingston. (animated gif)

Top Alcohol Dragster racer Fred Hanssen, of Afjord, Norway, was involved in an incident during the second qualifying session. Hanssen’s Norwegians Racing blown Alcohol Dragster went out of control and made contact with the retaining wall before coming to a stop on its side. Hanssen exited the car under his own power and was alert and responding to commands. He was evaluated and released. Hanssen remains qualified in the field with his Thursday 5.77 pass but clearly will not be able to continue at the event.