NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

It’s just the second of six races in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Countdown to the Championship playoffs, but already you can feel the weight, and raceday is sure to ratchet up the emotions with close points battles raging across the fields.

Two-time and reigning Top Fuel world champ Doug Kalitta chewed a few points off of his points-leading teammate Shawn Langdon’s gap on him during qualifying, and the two Kalitta Motorsports drivers and their all-star crew chiefs are neck and neck. Kalitta had the better outing in qualifying, finishing atop the field with three solid runs in four qualifying attempts while Langdon and team, winners of the season’s last two races, only made it down once.

With Sunday’s weather expected to be just a tad hotter than Saturday, and with drivers from all classes saying that there’s no visible difference between the lanes – a true rarity these days – it should be an all-out brawl.

Funny Car, which has a championship battle raging between six drivers separated by about 100 points, was a qualifying slugfest with 13 drivers qualifying in the three-second range and separated by just a tenth of a second. Again, with no obvious flaws in either lane, this could come down to a battle of horsepower and consistency. Low qualifier Ron Capps, J.R. Todd, and Matt Hagan all made four flawless runs and should be considered the favorites. Capps has a first-round bye and could face Hagan in round two if Hagan can get past Dave Richards.

The North Carolina-based KB Titan team, which tests regularly at Rockingham Dragway, displayed that laminarity in testing with their engines taking up the first five spots, but polesitter Matt Hartford only leases engines, not tuning advice, and yet he’s atop the field after four steady qualifying passes. Hartford has an eight-point lead over Dallas Glenn but, more importantly, as a first-round bye run for the 15-car field.

Similarly, Pro Stock Motorcycle frontrunner Angie Smith will get a free pass in the opening round Sunday as she continues on her goal to win a first world championship to join her husband, who’s won the crown six times. The Smiths were 1-2 in qualifying until the final session where two-time world champ Gaige Herrera made a dizzying pass of 6.680, better than everyone else by more than a half-tenth, to squeeze into the No. 2 spot. Just 36 points, or slightly more than a round’s worth of racing separate the top four in points, still led by reigning world champ Richard Gadson.

TRACK RECORDS

Top Fuel: 3.683 secs. by Doug Kalitta; 338.09 mph by Kalitta
Funny Car: 3.870 secs. by Ron Capps; 336.83 mph by J.R. Todd
Pro Stock: 6.476 secs. by Matt Hartford; 212.87 mph by Hartford
Pro Stock Motorcycle: 6.675 secs. by Angie Smith; 204.17 mph by Matt Smith

SCHEDULE

SUNDAY, Sept. 27
NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series eliminations begin at 11:00 a.m.

TELEVISION

Sunday, Sept. 27, FOX Sports 1 (FS1), will televise three hours of qualifying coverage at 11:00 a.m. ET
Sunday, Sept. 27, FOX Sports 1 (FS1) will televise three hours of finals coverage at 3:00 p.m. ET

NATIONAL RECORDS

Top Fuel - 3.623 sec. by Brittany Force, Sept. ‘19, Reading, Pa.; 346.95 mph by Shawm Langdon, September ’26, Martin, Mich.
Funny Car - 3.793 sec. by Robert Hight, Aug. '17, Brainerd, Minn.; 341.68 mph by Austin Prock, Nov. ’24, Pomona, Calif.
Pro Stock – 6.443 sec. by Greg Anderson, March ‘25, Gainesville, Fla.; 215.55 mph by Erica Enders, May ’14, Englishtown, N.J.
Pro Stock Motorcycle – 6.627 sec. by Gaige Herrera, October ‘23, Dallas; 205.04 mph by Matt Smith, July ’21, Sonoma, Calif.