NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Following a thrilling and memorable AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals in Dallas, the field of contenders remaining in the Countdown to the Championship has been trimmed to just a handful in most cases, but that doesn’t mean that anything has been decided at this point. While Antron Brown extended his already sizable lead with another Countdown victory in Top Fuel, he was the only incoming points leader to register a win, so the other three classes remain up for grabs, especially in Pro Stock Motorcycle, where the top four riders are separated by just 60 points.

Here’s a class-by-class look at the changes:

TOP FUEL

Driver

Antron Brown

Doug Kalitta

Brittany Force

Shawn Langdon

Tony Schumacher

Steve Torrence

Leah Pritchett

J.R. Todd

Richie Crampton

Clay Millican

Winners: The only true winner in Top Fuel is Antron Brown (pictured), who all but locked up his third Mello Yello world championship with his third win in four Countdown events. Brown defeated Steve Torrence in the final round to extend his lead to 150 points over second-place Doug Kalitta. With just two events remaining, Brown won’t have to do much in Las Vegas and Pomona to officially lock up the title.

Losers: Doug Kalitta had a chance to make up ground on Brown when they met in the second round but wasn’t able to finish the job. Had Kalitta won the round and went on to win the event, he could have trimmed Brown’s lead to less than two rounds. Now he stands more than seven rounds back with just eight rounds of racing left in the season. Technically, seven drivers could still catch Brown, but the odds of any one of them doing so are extremely small.

Breaking even: Shawn Langdon and Steve Torrence are now third and fifth, respectively, in the Mello Yello standings after both drivers had solid days in Dallas. Langdon scored a huge holeshot win over Tony Schumacher to reach the semifinals, and Torrence reached the final round for the seventh time this season and earned his fifth runner-up.

Key stat: Since the start of the Countdown in Charlotte, Brown is 12-1 in eliminations rounds with his Matco Tools dragster.
 

FUNNY CAR

Driver

Ron Capps

Tommy Johnson Jr.

Jack Beckman

Matt Hagan

Del Worsham

John Force

Tim Wilkerson

Robert Hight

Courtney Force

Alexis DeJoria

Winners: Finalists Matt Hagan (pictured) and Ron Capps emerged as the event’s biggest winners for obvious reasons. Hagan kept his title hopes alive with his fourth win of the season while teammate Capps did a solid job of protecting his lead by reaching the final round for the 10th time this season. Capps now heads into the final two events with a respectable 64-point lead over second-ranked Tommy Johnson Jr. while Hagan is still in the mix, 88 points back in third place.

Losers: Jack Beckman had a perfect opportunity to cut deeply into Capps’ points advantage when they met in the second round but lost on a holeshot. Capps had one of the best reaction times of the day in Funny Car with a .029 light and defeated Beckman’s Infinite Hero Dodge, 3.96 to 3.93. The loss left Beckman 131 points back in the title fight. Teammates John and Courtney Force also had rough outings; both exited via red-light starts. John fouled against Alexis DeJoria in round one, and Courtney’s Traxxas Camaro went out a round later against Hagan.

Breaking even: Johnson entered the race in second place, and he remains there, although he did lose a bit of ground to points leader Capps. Johnson now trails his teammate by 64 points, which is not an insurmountable margin, but he almost certainly has to win at least one more round than Capps in Las Vegas to maintain a reasonable shot at the title.

Key stat: Capps’ round-win record is now 51-16 on the season. It marks the first time in his long career that he has eclipsed the 50-win mark and just the third time he has exceeded 40 round-wins in a single season.

PRO STOCK

Driver

Jason Line

Greg Anderson

Vincent Nobile

Bo Butner

Shane Gray

Chris McGaha

Allen Johnson

Drew Skillman

Jeg Coughlin Jr.

Erica Enders

Winners: Drew Skillman won’t win the 2016 NHRA Mello Yello Pro Stock world title, but now that he has two wins in the bank, he can certainly consider this to be a successful sophomore season. Skillman has only competed at 44 events as a Professional, but he has been a semifinalist or better at 13 of them. Incoming points leader Jason Line lost on a holeshot to Skillman in round two, but he can still be considered a winner because he did not surrender the lead to teammate Greg Anderson.

Losers: It was hard for Vincent Nobile to hide his pain and frustration following a rare holeshot loss in round one that all but ended his title hopes. Coming off an impressive win in Reading, Nobile could have done some damage in the standings with an encore performance in Dallas, but Shane Tucker had other ideas.

Breaking even: Shane Gray had a successful outing with a semifinal finish, and both of the finalists were using engines supplied by the Gray Motorsports team. While that is cause for optimism, Gray remains well back in the points battle, trailing leader Line by 134. 

Key stat: Finalists Skillman and Alex Laughlin have just 66 races of combined experience in the class. By comparison, Allen Johnson (478) and Anderson (402) are the active leaders in the class.
 

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE

Rider

Andrew Hines

Eddie Krawiec

Angelle Sampey

Chip Ellis

Jerry Savoie

LE Tonglet

Cory Reed

Hector Arana Sr.

Matt Smith

Hector Arana Jr.

Winners: Screamin' Eagle Harley-Davidson rider Eddie Krawiec was perhaps the biggest winner of the event because he took over the points lead with his 36th victory. Krawiec is now 17 points ahead of teammate Andrew Hines heading into the Las Vegas round. It’s worth noting that after an untimely round-two loss in St. Louis, Krawiec was fifth in the standings, but back-to-back wins in Reading and Dallas have helped resurrect his chances of a fourth title.

Losers: Hines and Chip Ellis suffered the most in Dallas. Hines lost a close battle against LE Tonglet in round two that cost him the points lead, and Ellis continued to struggle with his bike and lost in the second round, crippling his chances of winning the title.

Breaking even: One could certainly make a case for putting Jerry Savoie in the winner’s column after the Suzuki rider reached the final round in Dallas for the second straight year and earned a runner-up finish, but his holeshot loss in the final might well come back to haunt him should he lose the championship by less than a round. 

Key stat: Just 60 points separate the top four riders: Krawiec, Hines, Angelle Sampey, and Savoie, making it the most competitive battle in any of the four Pro classes.

AWARDS

Best race: LE Tonglet over Andrew Hines, round two
Tonglet is consistently one of the best riders in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class, and he proved it again with a narrow win over points leader Hines. Tonglet’s Nitro Fish Suzuki left first, .008 to .021, and held on to win by just .0002-second.

Marquee matchup: Antron Brown vs. Doug Kalitta
Barring an amazing and unforeseen turn of events, this is the round that decided the Top Fuel championship. Kalitta desperately needed a win to stay in the points battle against Brown, but the Matco team was too strong. Brown won a thrilling 3.73 to 3.76 battle and extended his lead with an eventual final-round win against Steve Torrence.

Driver of the race: Drew Skillman
Skillman’s second Pro Stock win of the season was no fluke. Coming off a successful two-day test session in Indy, Skillman drove one of the better races of his career, which included a holeshot win over points leader Jason Line in the semifinals.

Upset of the race: Alex Laughlin def. Greg Anderson
If his victory in St. Louis wasn’t a solid indicator of how far Laughlin has come as a Pro Stock driver this year, his semifinal win against Anderson should be. Laughlin not only left on the four-time champ but also outran him to the finish line, 6.637 to 6.659.

Best run of the race: Robert Hight
Funny Car runs in the mid- to low 3.8s are hardly surprising anymore, but Hight’s 3.839 during qualifying was still impressive. Not only was the pass low elapsed time of the event, but it also ranked as the third quickest in history.

Key stat: Antron Brown
Technically, he has not clinched the title, but Top Fuel points leader Brown is an enormous favorite to win a third Mello Yello Top Fuel world title after extending his lead to 150 points. With a maximum of 130 available per event, Brown could conceivably skip the Las Vegas event and still head to Pomona with a lead of at least 20 points.