The daily itinerary might be shorter for NHRA racers this weekend, but with the Countdown to the Championship beginning, the pressure has only intensified.
As the end of the regular season signified the conclusion of the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge and the Pep Boys All-Star Callout bonus events, teams are left with nothing but qualifying and eliminations to focus on moving forward — and rightly so.
Fifteen races into the season, it all comes down to the final six events.
New No. 1 Seeds, Mostly
Justin Ashley (Top Fuel), Ron Capps (Funny Car), Dallas Glenn (Pro Stock) and Gaige Herrera (Pro Stock Motorcycle) are entering the Countdown as the No. 1 seeds in their respective classes.
Of the four, Capps is the only one who has been in this position before. The reigning Funny Car champion earned the title in 2021 after starting his successful championship run from the lead position. Capps is gunning for a third consecutive title and fourth overall.
“I’ve had a lot of experience, but when you’re in it, you don’t feel like you have a lot of experience,” Capps said. “You’re so into it with these blinders that you feel like you’re going to get sick every Sunday morning. But I know that’s what motivates me.”
Fourth-year driver Ashley, who has six Top Fuel wins this year, is chasing his first championship.
Glenn, who is in his third year of racing NHRA, has been a consistent force in the Pro Stock ranks since the season opener in Gainesville, Fla. He has four wins to his credit.
Meanwhile, Pro Stock Motorcycle sensation Herrera enters his first Countdown with a 29-point lead over reigning champion Matt Smith.
Prock Looks To Repeat Pennsylvania Success
There are plenty of races Austin Prock wishes he could go back and re-do this year.
With six first-round exits and five quarterfinal finishes in 15 races, the highlights are few and far between. But there are a few, including Prock’s four-wide win at zMAX Dragway in Concord, N.C., on April 30.
It is the only Top Fuel win John Force Racing has collected this season.
Prock hasn’t made a final round since April. As such, the 27-year-old will start the Countdown from the eighth seed, 96 points behind Ashley.
But there may be a little luck coming his way this weekend at Pennsylvania’s Maple Grove Raceway, as Prock enters the event as the defending winner.
“There’s no better feeling than coming into a race as the defending champ, especially when it’s the first race of the Countdown,” Prock said. “We had another successful pre-Countdown test session in Indy and I believe it will show this weekend. We’re focused and ready to make another championship run.”
The four-time event winner finished third in the Top Fuel standings last year.
Who’s On The Move?
Antron Brown won the final two national events of the regular season — the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd (Minn.) Int’l Raceway and the NHRA U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
With his pair of wins, the three-time Top Fuel champion is third in the standings
J.R. Todd made his fourth final round appearance of the season in his DHL Funny Car during the U.S. Nationals, but lost to Capps. Nonetheless, the performance lifted the Kalitta Motorsports driver from eighth to fifth in the Funny Car standings.
As odd as it seems to list five-time Pro Stock champion Erica Enders as a driver trying to rebound from early-season struggles, that’s precisely the case with the Elite Motorsports driver.
But she’s been steadily climbing since her win at the Menards NHRA Nationals in Topeka, Kan., in mid-August. Enders moved from sixth to third in points in three races.
Missing The Mark
There are plenty of drivers on the other side of the coin, who are still searching for success. But luckily, the Countdown will grant some grace to such contenders, as the points reset allows playoff drivers to start anew.
Here are a few on the list:
• Defending Top Fuel champion Brittany Force has yet to win this season. She’s only had one final-round appearance, which came recently at Topeka.
• After a career-best start to the season, Funny Car driver Alexis DeJoria has fallen from third to sixth in the standings over the last five races. She has made three final-round appearances, with the most recent one occurring at the Mile-High Nationals at Colorado’s Bandimere Speedway.
• Five-time Pro Stock champion Greg Anderson has hovered between sixth and seventh in the standings all year. The KB Titan Racing driver enters the Countdown seventh in points, with one runner-up performance to his credit.