By Mike Haag, Raceday San Antonio
ENNIS, Texas – All eyes will be on the NHRA Top Fuel class when the NHRA Mission Drag Racing Series rolls into town for the Stampede of Speed Texas NHRA FallNationals this weekend at the Texas Motorplex.
Competition in the NHRA’s premier Nitro class is expected to intensify as the second half of the six-race postseason begins Friday during qualifying time trials.
The Countdown to the Championship in Top Fuel is going down to the wire for a second straight season. Last year, drag racing fans witness a winner-take-all final round with Doug Kalitta racing against Leah Pruett as he propelled his way to the finish line to win his first championship.
A chase for the 2024 Top Fuel title is taking a similar route with all roads leading to the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals on Nov. 14-17 at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip. The road to the finals will also include a pivotal stop at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Ford Performance NHRA Nationals on Oct. 31-Nov. 3.
Antron Brown, who won the NHRA Top Fuel championship in 2012, 2015 and 2016, is the current points leader after winning the first two playoff races in Reading, Pa. and Charlotte, N.C.
Brown, who has five victories this season, holds a 34-point lead over Justin Ashley, who is going after his first world title. Ashley has three wins this season (Pomona, Charlotte and Brainerd) and has reached the final round five times this season. After 17 races this season, he remains Brown’s biggest challenger.
“We just had a sensor that was just too tight when they put a new front tire on, and it actually triggered my car and shut it off early,” Brown said after losing in the second round at St. Louis. “It wasn’t spinning (the tires). It was actually running a really good lap, and we were running good enough on the incremental splits to outrun him by over two hundredths. With that being said, we’ll go to Dallas and keep on doing what we do. We’ve got to stop the little mistakes from biting us and go out there, keep our heads down as one team, one unit, and get after it. That’s the game plan.”
Brown and his AB Motorsports team hope to pad their lead in the point standings as he heads to Texas. He will be aiming for his 74th career win (58th in Top Fuel). He has three victories at the Texas Motorplex (2012 and 2016 in Top Fuel and 1999 in Pro Stock Motorcycle).
“I just want to work on Dallas,” said Brown, who moved up to No. 2 on the Top Fuel all-time win list when he won the last race in Charlotte. “Our main focus is that we hopefully get four good qualifying sessions where we can definitely work on our qualifying and get those small bonus points. That’s definitely what we want to work on.”
Former world champion drivers Shawn Langdon is ranked third (-60), followed by Kalitta (-87), Steve Torrence (-88) and Tony Schumacher (-103). They all are within striking distance and are all contenders for the championship this season.
Schumacher, who has won a record-breaking eight Top Fuel world championships, won the most recent race in St. Louis while driving his 11,000-horsepower Leatherwood Distillery/Waltrip Brewing Co. dragster for JCM Racing. It was his first playoff win in 10 years and 88th of his career.
“I love that place. It’s where I won my first race and one of the places where it set us up for our first championship (in 1999),” Schumacher said. “There will be tons of friends and family there, and it’s going to be a great time. We’ve won there before, and I love going to that race. The Meyer family are just great and it’s a really cool place. We’ll be there for a couple weeks, and we’ll be prepared, that’s for sure.”
Schumacher, who now resides in Austin, Texas, will be aiming for his second straight victory and third of the season. He won back on June 2 in Epping, N.H. A victory this weekend would be his seventh career win at the Texas Motorplex, which happens to be the site where he scored his first Top Fuel victory in 1999.
“I’m really proud of my guys. We hurt ourselves early on (in the Countdown), but we’re closer than we were when we started St. Louis,” Schumacher said. “It’s been fantastic. Let’s face it, we struggled, and we didn’t have a great car and for three years we tried to find our problem. We found it in Brainerd.”
Schumacher added, “I had said we found it several times before, but it wasn’t the right problem. We found it and I’m so proud of the guys. We just couldn’t get it to go down the track and a couple of races ago, (Crew chief Mike Neff) found it. They’ve sucked it up and figured it out, and it’s a beautiful thing.”
NHRA Top Fuel action begins with “Friday Night Live,” which offers more than $40,000 in bonus money to the stars in Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle. The low qualifier under the lights on Friday night will earn $15,000 in bonus money for quickest Top Fuel qualifier.
NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series qualifying will feature two rounds at 4:15 and 7:00 p.m. CT on Friday, Oct. 11, and the final two rounds of qualifying on Saturday, Oct. 12 at 12:00 and 3:00 p.m. Final eliminations are scheduled for 12:00 p.m. CT on Sunday, Oct. 13. Television coverage includes qualifying action on FS1 at 2:00 p.m. ET on Sunday and as well as action from eliminations at 4 p.m.
For ticket information call 800-668-6775 or visit tickets.texasmotorplex.com. Children 12 and under are admitted free in general admissions areas with a paid adult. For more information about NHRA, visit www.nhra.com.
