NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

With the conclusion of the NHRA Toyota Nationals, the 2016 season is down to just one event, the Auto Club NHRA Finals in Pomona in two weeks, but the penultimate race of the year was packed with wild moments and points-related drama.

Here are today’s highlights:

1. Torrence decides championship, then nabs first win of Countdown
Steve Torrence decided the Top Fuel championship in favor of his close friend, Antron Brown, by defeating Doug Kalitta in round two, then went two more rounds in his Capco Contractors dragster to get his first win of the Countdown and a boost to second place in points behind Brown.

2. Father knows best in Funny Car
John Force added to his NHRA-leading win total with his 147th career victory, and did it in a thrilling final-round battle with his daughter, Courtney.

3. Gray gets first win of season after announcing plans to leave full-time competition
Shane Gray, who will retire from full-time driving at the end of the season, made sure he wouldn’t go home empty-handed when he scored his first win since 2014 in Pro Stock, defeating engine customer Drew Skillman in the final round.

4. Savoie wins again, shakes up points race
With his victory in Pro Stock Motorcycle, Jerry Savoie pulled to within three markers of the points lead, which is shared by Harley-Davidson teammates Eddie Krawiec and Andrew Hines, ensuring a real shootout at the season finale.

5. Pedregon makes highlight reels with crazy wheelstand
Former NHRA Funny Car champion Cruz Pedregon left jaws on the ground when he rode out a near-track-length wheelstand during his first-round victory over Robert Hight. Pedregon’s Snap-on Tools Toyota was too badly damaged to return for the second round [story].
 

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

Australian champ Wayne Newby has only run four events this season with Santo Rapisarda’s dragster, but he’s qualified at all four and has been able to put a pretty strong list of drivers on the trailer.

He defeated Countdown drivers Shawn Langdon and Steve Torrence in the first two rounds in Charlotte, then added eight-time world champ Tony Schumacher’s name to the hit list when he defeated him in round one in Las Vegas.

Newby’s day ended in round two against points leader Antron Brown, but the team will be back at it in Pomona two weeks from now, after a trip back Down Under for the kickoff of the Australian racing season on the weekend between.

Wayne Newby’s surprising first-round victory over Tony Schumacher and teammate Leah Pritchett’s run to the semifinals and J.R. Todd’s final-round appearance dropped the class’ winningest driver from sixth to eighth place in the points and with just the Auto Club NHRA Finals left, “the Sarge” is in jeopardy of missing the top five in points for just the second time since 2002.
 

The last time that the U.S. Army driver didn’t finish in the top five was 2013 when, despite a three-win, three-runner-up season, he finished in seventh position.

After hanging out together all week in Kilgore, Texas, after their final-round encounter at the AAA Texas NHRA Nationals, a race in which Antron Brown beat Steve Torrence to extend his record over his Texas pal to a lopsided 20-1, there was some delicious irony to the fact that it was Torrence who defeated Doug Kalitta to help Brown clinch his second straight and third overall championship.

With Brown watching from the top end after beating Wayne Newby in his second-round pairing, Kalitta got a microscopic .005-second edge at the Tree, but Torrence’s Capco Contractors dragster outran him the rest of the way and emerged the winner by just .002-second, 3.732 to 3.739, to give Brown his third championship [story].

J.R. Todd didn’t reach the winner’s circle – a 10th career victory would have tied him with his legendary team owner, Connie Kalitta – but the driver of the SealMaster machine still picked up two spots in the standings, going from eighth to sixth. A final-round victory would have boosted him to the fourth spot, but he fell shy against Steve Torrence, despite having a better car throughout eliminations.

"That was a tough way to end a strong day,” he said. “We wanted to pick up the win with all of these great Toyota people on site, but it was not our day. Look forward to Pomona and hopefully ending this season on a strong note. We’re not going to win the championship, but we could finish as high as second or third. We’d like to be up there right next to Antron on the stage Monday after Pomona.”

Steve Torrence has already set personal single-season records for final rounds (8), No. 1 starts (8), and rounds won (34) and now has clawed his way into second place in the standings with his final-round victory over J.R. Todd. Torrence had entered the Countdown a lofty third but sank to sixth after a pair of disastrous opening races. He reached fifth with his runner-up in Dallas and in Las Vegas supplanted Doug Kalitta as the driver closest in points to new champ Antron Brown.

“We struggled those first couple of races and dropped the ball, and we had to try to turn it around and do some good,” said Torrence. “My Capco guys have stayed focused and driven to overcome some bad luck and a couple of screwups on my part. I believe we have a championship-caliber team.

Torrence defeated Richie Crampton in round one but had to run low e.t of the round (3.730) to do so, then followed by taking out Kalitta in a tight second-round race with another decided by just .002-second with another 3.73, then ran 3.74 to beat Leah Pritchett in the semifinals, quite a turnaround also from his qualifying efforts, where he made just one solid run, a 3.728.

“We made a really good first [qualifying] run and that gave [crew chief Richard] Hogan a baseline," said Torrence. "He made great calls on Sunday. We were quickest in every round but the second. The only guy who could screw it up was me. I wasn’t about to do that today.”

Alexis DeJoria, who walked away from a hard crash into the guardwall in Q3 Saturday, opted to sit out her first-round match Sunday with Courtney Force and prepare for the season-ending Auto Club NHRA Finals in Pomona in two weeks.

One of the parachutes of her Tequila Patron Toyota got wrapped around the rear end, damaging the braking system, and the body came down on the left front tire, causing her to lose steering control. After the crash, DeJoria, who was forced to sit out several events earlier this summer after an encounter with the guardwall in Sonoma, initially pronounced herself fine and even made her final qualifying run but opted out of completing the event.

When John Force faced John Bojec in the first round, it was not only the first meeting between the two drivers, but Bojec also helped Force extend an amazing streak. Every year since the start of his career in 1978, Force has faced at least one driver he had not previously raced.
 

Bojec, the 139th driver to have faced off against the 16-time champ, didn’t go down easily, leaving on Force, .040 to .115, but could not hold the lead, and Force lit the win lamp with a 3.90.

Jack Beckman has a deep love for The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. After all, it was there in 2003 that he won an eight-round divisional event that propelled him to the Super Comp championship. It was there where he made his Pro debut – in Top Fuel – in 2005 and there that he won his first Funny Car Wally in 2006, but his hopes of a little Vegas magic to extend his chance at catching points leader Ron Capps evaporated in a round-two loss to Courtney Force.

“Anyone who says they don’t count points is either lying to you or they suck at math, but I haven’t been because that NAPA car is so good,” he said of his points-leading teammate.

Beckman ended the event 151 points behind Capps but just 38 behind third-place Tommy Johnson Jr. --  first-round loser – and 65 behind his other teammate, second-ranked Matt Hagan.

Dallas winner Matt Hagan came into the race in third place, 88 points behind Ron Capps, and, after their simultaneous semifinal losses to their rivals at John Force Racing, ended up 86 points apart. The difference is that Hagan now sits second and previous second-place holder Tommy Johnson Jr. slipped from 64 to 113 points back, making Hagan the only realistic rival to Capps’ bid for a first career championship as the season concludes in Pomona in two weeks

 

Courtney Force lost a tough final round to her famous father, a final that looked like she was fully capable of winning after her Danny Hood-tuned Traxxas Camaro reeled off a bracket-like string of 3.88s (3.888, 3.886, and 3.880) to reach the final, while her father’s Chevy was locked in the low 3.90s.

Sunday was quite a turnaround for the former rookie of the year, who made just one good qualifying run in four shots, as she took out points leader Ron Capps in the semifinals and No. 1 qualifier Jack Beckman in round two.

“We only had one good run in qualifying so we’re thrilled to have a good car in eliminations, with two 3.80s and taking out Beckman was huge because were trying to move up in the points,” said Force, who moved up one spot to seventh place and is just 60 points shy of fourth place.
Even at 67, John Force has showed in this year’s Countdown to the Championship there’s still plenty of life left in the 16-time world champ, and his victory in Las Vegas, sealed with a victory over his youngest daughter, Courtney, did nothing to dispel that.

“I never like beating my daughter, but to have two wins in the Countdown is pretty exciting,” said Force, whose victory is the 147th of his career, 50 more than the next Mello Yello racer, Warren Johnson, who has 97 wins. “When I see the stands packed and the way our TV package is hopping and sold-out crowds, and to be a part of that at my age is really awesome.”

The victory over his daughter gives him a slight edge, 3-2, in their final-round meetings and boosted his lifetime record against her to 14-7 (including 5-0 in the Countdown), but she gave him a fight. She had the better car through all three preliminary rounds and had a better reaction time against him in the final, but his Jon Schaffer-tuned Peak Camaro carried him through to a 3.88 to 3.90 victory.

“I went a little deep [in staging] against my daughter and she still left on me, but we gave them a good show," said Force. " I’m just excited to be in the hunt with these kids. I am the luckiest man on earth. Sometimes things just happen for me. It is like the good Lord has a plan for me.”
 

After being relatively quiet through qualifying, including battling a couple of small issues with his car and the tune-up, points leader Jason Line came back to life and did so in a big way, running a 6.676 in the first round that stood as low e.t. of the weekend. It was the big run that Line had been hunting for all weekend, particularly because of the fact that he had come straight from Dallas and tested both of the Summit team entries here last week.

“Yeah, finally [the testing pays off], a couple days late, but, obviously, it was a really good run,” said Line after the pass. “It didn’t seem that good from the driver’s perspective, but the win light came on. I was pretty happy about that. I’ve struggled doing that lately, so great day.”

Line was able to turn on one more win light, besting Alex Laughlin in the second round, but his day came to an end when he shook the tires against Drew Skillman in the semi’s.

In honor of Halloween, Deric Kramer was sporting the emblem from The Flash on his driving shoes, and it turned out to be very fitting for him because Kramer was very Flash-like in the first round, cutting a near-perfect .002 light. Though it wasn’t quite enough to turn on the win light against eventual winner Shane Gray, Kramer was pleased with his performance.

“Every time you go out there you try and cut the best light that you can,” said Kramer. “I always put my foot in the same spot, and if I need a little more, I try and work a little harder. That’s pretty much all I can do. That’s how most of my wins have gone this year, and that’s what we try for every weekend. If I can do my part, hopefully we can get some power under the hood and do the rest of it.

“We started the weekend off a little rocky, not getting down the first pass, but we made improvements, and we kind of went down every time after that. We thought we put a good race-day package together, and we ran right there with everybody else, so we were happy with that.”

It was only a few weeks ago that Vincent Nobile was riding high and feeling like he may be able to give Jason Line and Greg Anderson a run for their money in the championship chase after winning in Reading. However, just as quickly as things went well for Nobile, his fortunes turned, and after a second-round loss here, Nobile has dropped out of title contention.

“We’re just bummed out, but we’ll keep our heads up and go to Pomona and do the best we can to win that race,” said Nobile, who leaves Las Vegas in fourth, 138 points out of the lead.

Overall, Nobile had a rough race day at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. His first-round win came when Matt Hartford went red, a lucky break for Nobile because his car had an issue at the top end, forcing him off the throttle.

“We still don’t know what happened, honestly,” said Nobile, of the first-round issues. “We thought the motor broke, but it didn’t, so we’re still under analysis of what went on there. In the car, it [gave indication there was a problem], but the engine’s not broken.”

Like the other two KB Racing-powered entries, Bo Butner’s team struggled to find the right tune-up for the conditions this weekend, but overall, Butner said he was pleased with the way things turned out.

“We struggled a little tune-up wise, but we ran good in the final qualifier. We were 1-2-3 in that one, but Shane [Gray] and them are fast, too, and they have definitely caught up,” said Butner, who defeated Kenny Delco in the first round before coming up short against Gray. “It’s tough. You’ve got to make perfect runs, and you’ve got to leave first. We had a close race there, and it could have gone either way.”

Butner has certainly had his ups and downs this season, and with just one race remaining on the schedule, he is still seeking that elusive first Pro Stock win.

“I’ve definitely been humbled [this year],” said Butner. “You can’t take anything for granted. We’re going to work really, really hard, and I’m going to do this whole deal again next year, and we’ll come out swinging again.

“I got to a point to where I was decent driving the car, and then I thought I got worse as the season went on, but there’s so many races, and you can get in a slump. I’m very fortunate and happy to be with this team, and that’s what we’re going to do next year.”

Greg Anderson dominated Saturday qualifying, pacing both sessions and entering race day as the No. 1 qualifier. That strong showing had the title contender feeling very good about his chances for picking up a win today and potentially moving into the points lead. However, those hopes were dashed in the semifinals when his team missed the setup and he came up short against eventual winner Shane Gray.

“You know, I really, really thought that after Friday we did have a grip on [the track]. We didn’t expect that right there,” said Anderson. “Obviously, we made our own call, and the starting line wasn’t what it was the runs before, and we missed it. We overestimated it — our bad. The sun came out there, and we didn’t make the moves we should have made, so shame on us. We made a mistake there, and it bit us. These cars are all so close you have to be perfect every time up there. You can’t overspin the tire. You can’t underspin the tire. You can’t miss. You’ve got to be right on that starting line, and we missed badly that time, so anytime you do that, you’re going to lose. It’s disappointing.”

The weekend result may have been a disappointment, but there was positive news for Anderson and teammate Line when it comes to the big picture. Though Gray was able to move up into third and cut into their advantage, he enters Pomona 94 points out of the lead. Though that keeps Gray in the hunt mathematically, for all intents and purposes, he is out because once Line qualifies in Pomona, Gray will be eliminated.

“The good news is we’re in good shape points-wise,” said Anderson. “It looks like Jason’s got the lock on it, but I’ve still got a chance to catch him.”

Drew Skillman is competitive by nature, so he doesn’t really need added motivation to do well on the dragstrip. However, this weekend, Skillman did have another reason to try and park his Ray Skillman Chevrolet Camaro in the winner’s circle for a second straight event.

“Grandpa’s back out of the hospital, so we’re doing it for him this weekend,” said Skillman, referring to his grandfather, Ray, who crashed during Comp qualifying on Thursday. “The car’s running decent. We’ve just got to keep it up and keep going rounds, and we’re going to do well this weekend.”

Skillman was able to go several rounds today, advancing to the final round. The strong showing moved him up into the top five in points.

Shane Gray isn’t walking away from Pro Stock racing completely, but with son Tanner taking over full-time driving duties next season, he will have limited opportunities to win more Wallys. That has put a premium on the final two events of the 2016 season, and Gray used that added motivation to win and a really quick car to outlast the field at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, earning his first win at the track.

“It was a great weekend for our team, and it was a really good weekend for me. I think I’ve been in 10 semi’s this year, and I haven’t won since U.S. Nationals 2014. It was a great day,” said Gray. “I have one more race to run, then my son’s getting in the car, so I can’t think of a better time to win, and maybe we could go to Pomona and double up, but awesome day.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Gray added about his son driving next season. “My dad used to tell me, ‘You know, it’s more gratifying for me to watch you do good than it is for myself to do good,’ and I always thought, ‘Yeah right.’ But I’m in my mid-40s now, and I understand the concept of it now. There’s a lot of cool things in life that you kind of take for granted when you’re younger, but when you get a little bit of age on you, it makes you appreciate. I think I’ll be just fine.”

Gray and his engine customers, Drew Skillman and Alex Laughlin, were strong from the moment they rolled off the trailer, continuing the strong showing from Dallas, where all three were in the semifinals. Gray finished fourth in the qualifying order, and he continued to run well through eliminations, defeating Deric Kramer, Bo Butner, Greg Anderson, and Skillman en route to the winner’s circle.

“I think we’ve caught up [to the KB cars], but if you think you’ve ever figured it out, you’re in trouble,” said Gray. “I think we’ve caught up to where they were some days, and other days we haven’t, and the some days they haven’t, and then some days we have. This stuff is like a roller coaster. Drag racing, you can be a hero one day and feel like a complete idiot the next day. It’s just a roller-coaster ride.”

From the outside, Chip Ellis’ Las Vegas weekend may not have looked like a success, but Ellis and his crew are feeling good leaving Nevada. Ellis switched to the bike with which he started the season, and he steadily got quicker as qualifying went on. Ellis’ race-day efforts were stymied a bit when his Buell wouldn’t shift into high gear, and he had to sit up on the bike in a losing effort against Matt Smith’s very quick entry, but overall, Ellis was still pleased with what he saw from his entry this weekend.

“With 28 bikes on here this weekend, just qualifying was a big deal,” said Ellis, who was 13th in the field. “We still have some work to do, but we got down the track, so we feel good.”

This weekend was most definitely a get-well outing for Angie Smith. It began during the third round of qualifying when Smith ran a 7.00, the first good, strong full pull for her in quite some time, then continued during the opening round when Smith turned a .021 to .116 lead at the Tree into a 7.05 to 6.96 win against Hector Arana Sr. It was Smith’s first round-win of the 2016 season.

“I was pretty happy about Q3, about making that run. I was ecstatic,” said Smith. “It’s too late but not too late. I wish we could rewind about 14 races and go back, but, you know, I’m just glad that we found out the problem and it’s all fixed, and it gives us momentum going into 2017. We made a great run in Q3, and then we went out there first round, we missed it just a tad, but I did my job on the starting line, and we turned on the win light. I was pretty happy about that. I hadn’t seen one this year. I was beginning to think it was burned out in my lane. I was going to ask them if we could change the bulbs or something in my lane.”

Heading into the first round against his teammate, Angelle Sampey, Cory Reed knew he was at a bit of a performance disadvantage and therefore needed a little help on the starting line if he was going to have a shot at winning the match. Reed was able to do just that, cutting a .009 light to the .057 of Sampey and carrying it to a 6.99 to 6.97 holeshot win.

“I told her last night that I was going to have to Tree her to beat her, and that’s what happened,” said Reed. “I told her I was going to get a .010 light and she would get a .026, but she threw a .057 and I threw a .009, so I was cool with that. I said it was going to run a 7.02 with a .010 light, and she was going to run a 6.95 with a .026 light, so I was wrong on her part, and I was wrong on my speed and e.t. I was cool with that. I was able to go in the sixes once this weekend.”

That run was indeed Reed’s first six of the event, a fact that was somewhat surprising considering his teammate was able to run in the sixes a few times. Reed said his team struggled a bit with the tune-up on his Buell.

“I think the air kind of threw us off big-time,” said Reed. “First day, we had the original motor that we showed up in it, and it didn’t seem to do well, so we swapped. That one actually picked up. That one probably would have went really fast [second] round, too, against Matt [Smith], but it just didn’t shift into 2-3, but I think it’s because I short-shifted a little. The first gear I short-shifted, and it hung up and stuck in between a little, and I put it to go into 3rd, and it didn’t, so I rolled off a little bit and then clicked it again, and it popped in, but he was already gone at that point.”

Like wife Angie, who saw her fortunes turn around this weekend, Matt Smith also had reason to smile after this weekend. His Victory showed a lot of potential, from qualifying when he finished fourth in the order through eliminations, in which he recorded a semifinal finish. What made the results all that much more promising is Smith admitted he is working on his 2017 engine combination, and judging by the performance this weekend, there appears to be great promise with it.

“Our Victory Gunners ran pretty good this weekend,” said Smith, who moved up to eighth in the standings. “All in all, we had a good showing. First time all year that we both went past first round, so good deal, and hopefully the momentum will continue.

“We went up there [for the semifinals against Jerry Savoie], and it just blew the tire off in low and second, just kind of gave it away. I mean, I knew I needed to hit the Tree a little harder. I was .02 and .03 the previous two rounds, and I tried to go .00. I was just .00 on the wrong side. It’s just one of those deals. It wouldn’t have mattered. He still drove around us. He’s just got a fast bike.”

Andrew Hines said the competition between him and teammate Eddie Krawiec “always makes us better,” and that competition is about to get much more heated thanks to a key semifinal race between the two. Krawiec entered the match with a 20-point edge over Hines, but further proving his point that Krawiec brings out the best in him, Hines cut a near-perfect .002 light and made a 6.96 run that was just .002 off his best of the day to turn on the win light. The win was huge because instead of giving Krawiec a 40-point lead heading into Pomona, it tied Hines with him.

“The competition that Eddie and I have inside the team, you know we both want to have the faster bike in the pit area, the better e.t. ticket, and it’s good for us, but it makes it a lot harder on everybody else because we push each other to be better,” said Hines. “That’s what we pride ourselves on: we come here with two motorcycles, and they’re both fast and can both run up front. We’re really happy with what we’ve done over the years to have both bikes come together at the right time. We kind of meander here and there during the preseason and figure out what each motorcycle wants, and then when we get to the Countdown, we throw what we think is the best tune-ups in both of them, and they run consistent.”

Last year, Jerry Savoie took Andrew Hines down to Sunday in Pomona in the championship chase, and though he enjoyed being part of the battle, Savoie admits he “wasn’t too worried” about it. This year, things are much different.

“These boys better pay attention because we want to win,” said Savoie. “We’ve got one bad motorcycle.”

That point was more than proven this weekend when Savoie put together a dominating performance. Savoie paced all four rounds of qualifying and was quickest of all but one round of eliminations today en route to victory. Savoie began with a 6.90 against Scotty Pollacheck that stood as low e.t. of race day, then stayed in the 6.9s as he dispatched LE Tonglet, Matt Smith, and a red-lighting Andrew Hines in the final. The win over Hines was huge because it moved Savoie to within three points of Hines and Eddie Krawiec, who are tied for the points lead, heading into the finale in Pomona.

“It’s unbelievable that we’re going to go into the [Auto Club NHRA] Finals and three points behind,” said Savoie. “Anything can decide the championship. It could be on qualifying points every round, and let me tell you something, this is one bad Vance & Hines Suzuki. It’s going to be very, very interesting when we get to Pomona, and I’m so thankful.”

As is the case at every event, Sunday’s pre-race activities began with the SealMaster NHRA Track Walk. The walk featured drivers from all four of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series categories, including Pro Stock Motorcycle low qualifier Jerry Savoie.

Jimmy DeFrank was recognized as the 2016 NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Super Stock national champion after he locked up that title this morning. DeFrank officially secured the championship when Brett Speer went out in the early rounds here and Nick Morris lost early at the divisional event in Rockingham, N.C. This is the fifth Super Stock national championship for DeFrank, who also won the title in 2012, 2009, 1999, and 1997.

Jonnie Lindberg was also honored during pre-race activities after winning his second straight Top Alcohol Funny Car national championship, officially clinching when Doug Gordon lost in the opening round this morning. Interestingly, Gordon’s loss came against Lindberg’s brother, Johan, who is making his NHRA debut this weekend. The success of the Lindberg brothers was a big hit with the large contingent of Swedish fans in attendance this weekend.

As part of NHRA’s celebration of 50 Years of Funny Car, a legend of the class is honored at each event. This event’s honoree was Roland Leong, the legendary car owner of the Hawaiian.

David Rampy picked up his 92nd national event win to highlight Sportsman action at the NHRA Toyota Nationals. Following are final-round results from the seven categories contested at the event:

Top Alcohol Dragster
Garrett Bateman def. Joey Severance

Top Alcohol Funny Car
Terry Ruckman def. D.J. Cox

Comp
David Rampy def. Jeff Lane

Super Stock
Kyle Rizzoli def. Ryan McClanahan

Stock
Darrel Goheen def. Nanette Stein

Super Comp
Michael Miller def. Mike Hiatt

Super Gas
Tommy Phillips def. Kevin Moore

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