NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

After a year's absence due to the pandemic, the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series returned to New England Dragway for the TascaParts.com NHRA New England Nationals presented by Bandero Premium Tequila, race No. 6 of the 2021 season. Here's what we learned.

THE OL’ TORRENCE ONE-TWO PUNCH IS BACK

Back in 2019, Steve Torrence and father Billy routinely traded winner’s circle appearances, collectively winning 13 of the season’s 24 events. Billy had only once since 2019 — at the Return to Racing event last summer in Indy — while Steve had tallied seven times, including three times already this season, and Billy had yet to reach the semifinals in 2021.

The Capco kingpin ended that drought by collecting his seventh career Top Fuel win in Epping to make “them Capco Boys” a dual threat once again. Billy not only won the event but was the No. 1 qualifier for the second time this season. Steve went to the semifinals, reaching at least that result for the fifth time in six starts.

While Billy went from seventh to third in the points standings, his son actually extended his point lead over second-place Antron Brown 140 to 162 points after dad took out in the second round.

FORCE FUNNY CARS ARE BACK IN FIGHTING FORM

John Force, the sport’s all-time wins leader, hasn’t won three events in a season since 2016, but the 16-time world champ assuredly will get there this year with two wins already in six starts and 14 events still to go.

Of course, it didn’t help that the entire John Force Racing squad sat out most of the 2020 season for pandemic-related reasons, but the guy with more runs under his safety belts than anyone else in the sport — the event marked his 795th career national event start — obviously did not forget how to drive and win in the 14 months he sat on the sidelines.

The win was the third straight for JFR following Robert Hight’s Houston win, and it was Hight in the other lane trying to stop Force from collecting career win No. 153. The two had dueled in final rounds six times previously, evenly splitting the results, but Force went up 4-3. It was also the 51st final round between John Force Racing drivers but the first since 2018 when Courtney Force beat John in Richmond. The event was also the 900th Funny Car race, and it was appropriate that the class' all-time win leader would be the one leaving with the Wally.

Both drivers are still trailing Bob Tasca III in the standings, but each moved up a spot — Force to second and Hight to fourth — after their Epping effort. 

AARON STANFIELD IS A CHAMPIONSHIP THREAT

Aaron Stanfield has more than proven himself a winner in every class in which he has competed, with wins in Super Stock and Top Dragster and then dominating the Factory Stock Showdown last season en route to the 2020 championship.

The son of four-time Super Stock world champ Greg Stanfield only took 20 races into his Pro Stock career to get his first win there, and he added No. 2 in Epping by beating points leader Greg Anderson at both ends of the track. His first win, last year in Houston, came with a final-round victory over one of the class’ other all-time great, Jeg Coughlin Jr., so Stanfield clearly doesn’t shrink from a challenge.

And now he finds himself in the second spot in points, just 15 behind Anderson after slingshotting his way past Mason McGaha, Erica Enders, and Deric Kramer, capitalizing on their early outs in Epping. Stanfield can drive, the Janac Brothers Camaro obviously is a runner, and the best may still be ahead.

The only thing missing for Stanfield in Epping was the presence of his father, Greg, who was busy doing some winning of his own, capturing the Super Stock title at the Division 4 NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event at Osage Casino Tulsa Raceway Park.

ANDERSON WILL GET PAST W.J., AND MAYBE TO 100 WINS

At the end of a four-win 2017 season, Greg Anderson’s win total stood at 90, just seven wins shy of tying his mentor, Warren Johnson, Pro Stock’s all-time win leader, and catching “the Professor” seemed like a no-brainer. In the three seasons leading up to 2021, Anderson scored just four wins and was shut out last season (for just the third time in the last 20 seasons), and suddenly seemed a long way from catching W.J., let alone reaching the lofty goal of 100 career wins.

The fact that he was entering the year with no major sponsor after longtime supporter Summit Racing Equipment pulled back the financial reins, and without sidekick Jason Line in a matching entry for more data, Anderson’s future looked a bit questionable.

But six races into the season, he’s scored two wins and reached the final again in Epping before being turned back by Aaron Stanfield, and his newly sponsored HendricksCars.com Camaro has been the low qualifier at five of those events and No. 2 at the sixth.

With 14 races remaining on the schedule and 96 wins to his credit, there’s no doubt that he will pass Johnson before the summer is out and, if he continues his pace, could join John Force as the only Camping World Drag Racing Series driver to reach 100 wins.

ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN, EVEN TO TERRY HADDOCK

It was almost the obligatory speech that a heavily favored driver or team delivers heading into what should be a lopsided match, but Ron Capps, hot off of a runner-up in Houston, had no idea when he prefaced his first-round match with Terry Haddock with the caveat that “anything can happen/that's a good team over/we're not taking them lightly,” that something would happen to him.

But Capps’ mount lost traction at midtrack, and then something in the powertrain gave way in a fiery explosion, and Haddock scooted by for the narrow win, which also awarded Haddock with a second-round bye in the short field and gave the gutty but generally luckless Texas veteran the first two-wide semifinal of his racing career.

Haddock entered the 2021 season with just seven round-wins in 288 events — 168 of which he failed he qualify for eliminations — and he hadn’t won a round since 2018, while racing in Top Fuel. According to NHRA statsmeister Bob Frey, Haddock’s last Funny Car round-win prior to this season was in 2005 in St. Louis but already this season he’s won three rounds and been to the first two semifinals of his career. Earlier his year, he finished second in the first-round quad at the Charlotte four-wide race, which made him a semifinalist in the three-round eliminator. This is the first season in which he’s ever turned on three win lights.

Unfortunately for Haddock and the appreciative Epping fans, Haddock’s day ended against John Force in the semifinals but not before Force acknowledged Haddock’s grit with what might be the ultimate compliment he could pay, comparing Haddock’s struggle and determination with that of his own early career.

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