NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Pacific Raceways, home of the NHRA Northwest nationals, bills itself as "The Place To Race," but also could well be "the place to race to first wins" as it has been home to some career firsts, including initial career wins by Ron Capps, Austin Prock, and Shawn Langdon. Here's just a few of the most memorable first wins at Pacific Raceways.

Ron Capps, of course, got his first of 76 career wins at the 1995 Seattle event, doing it in Top Fuel in Roger Primm’s dragster. Capps, who also has won this event three times in Funny Car (1998, 2016 2018), is one of three drivers to have won the event in both nitro classes, the others being Tommy Johnson Jr. (Top Fuel in 1993, Funny Car in 2015) and Del Worsham (1999 in Funny Car, 2011 in Top Fuel). 

Funny Car points leader Austin Prock scored his first career win in Top Fuel at the 2019 event and could join the above trio as a dual-fuel winner in Seattle. Prock's win that year was shared by his team boss, John Force, whose win was the milestone 105th of his career.

Matt Hagan’s championship-winning crew chief, Dickie Venables, earned his first career victory as a solo crew chief at the 2002 event with John Force Racing and driver Tony Pedregon after the crew chief of record, John Medlen, was sidelined with medical issues and was unable to make the trip.  

Alexis DeJoria’s first win in a Funny Car came at the 2011 NHRA Northwest Nationals while racing in the Top Alcohol Funny Car category. It wasn’t her first win over — she’d won in Super Comp at the Pacific SPORTSnationals back in 2006 — but it was her first win under ‘glass. DeJoria’s crew chief, Del Worsham, by the way, still owns the track E.T. record of 3.832 seconds, recorded at the 2016 event while he was driving the DHL Funny car for Kalitta Motorsports.

In 2002, current Top Fuel star Shawn Langdon scored his first career win in Super Comp. Despite 26 subsequent wins, he’s not been able to return to the winner’s circle here but does have a trio of runner-ups, in Super Gas (2006) and Top Fuel (2012 and 2015).

Tommy Johnson jr., already a winner in the Top Alcohol Funny Car class, scored his first Top Fuel win at the 1993 Seattle event, defeating Cory McClenathan in the final round. Twenty-two years later Johnson would also win it in Funny Car, making him just one of three drives to pull off the double-nitro win in Seattle (Ron Capps and Del Worsham being the others).

Future nitro star Melanie Troxel scored her first national event win of any kind in Seattle in Top Alcohol Dragster in 1999, her first of seven wins. Troxel, who would go on to become one of just 18 drivers to win in both Top Fuel and Funny Car, was driving Jerry Darien's In-N-Out Burger-sponsored A/Fuel Dragster.

Troy Coughlin Jr. scored his first career Pro Stock victory here in 2022 when he took down Fernando Cuadra, Camrie Caruso, Greg Anderson, and Erica Enders. He’d already collected eight Wallys before that — three each in Super Gas and Top Alcohol Dragster and a pair in Super Comp — before getting his first of what is now five Pro wins.