NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Just like in Top Fuel, there was a major upset in the first round of Funny Car as Jeff Diehl made it out of the first round at the expense of Robert Hight and Shawn Langdon; it’s Diehl’s first “win” since the Seattle event in 2016. Low qualifier Tim Wilkerson won that quad with a 3.891, low e.t. of the meet.

In one of the weirdest quads of the first round, Tommy Johnson Jr. and Ron Capps advanced with respective e.t.s of 4.234 and 4.280, runs not usually good enough to beat one car let alone two, but they finished ahead of the close e.t.s of Bob Tasca III (4.332) and Terry Haddock (4.302).

John Force, still in pursuit of milestone win No. 150, looked good with a 3.915 to beat Jack Beckman’s 3.958 across the stripe with Cruz Pedregon’s 3.98 and a fiery 4.17 by Phil Burkhart Jr. trailing. Defending event champ J.R. Todd used a 4.34 to 4.33 holeshot to eke ahead of Gary Densham to finish second behind Matt Hagan with Jim Campbell trailing in fourth.

Semifinal quads (lane choice in order):
Tim Wilkerson vs. Matt Hagan vs. Jeff Diehl vs. J.R. Todd
John Force vs. Jack Beckman vs. Tommy Johnson Jr. vs. Ron Capps