NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

ANTRON BROWN: ALWAYS THERE

The most shocking stats to come out of this event concern your Top Fuel winner, Antron Brown. The always affable AB scored his second straight win of the Countdown to the Championship, following his victory the previous weekend in Reading with a gutty win in Charlotte.

The dual victories gave Brown the points lead not just for the first time this season but — are you ready for this? I don’t think you are — for the first time since August 2017. That’s right, dear reader, the three-time world champion hasn’t sat atop the points standings for more than seven years!

Oh, sure, he’s perennially been second or third throughout the years but hasn’t won the championship since his third and most recent in 2016. That seems impossible because Brown is always omnipresent, his infectious laugh permeating the pits and the media center, and his Matco Tools rail always in the thick of the fight.

Crazy stat No. 2: Although his Reading and Charlotte wins were his fourth and fifth of the season, his win in Charlotte marked the first time this season that he didn’t lose in the first round at the race following his win. Victory in Charlotte, first-round exit in Epping. Victory in Norwalk, early shower in Seattle. Victory in Sonoma, on the trailer after round one in Brainerd.

Beautiful stat No. 3: The Charlotte win was Brown’s 63rd in Top Fuel, which moved him into sole possession of second place on the all-time Top Fuel wins list, breaking the tie that he’s held with fellow three-time world champion Larry Dixon.

At the time that Dixon scored his final win, at the 2011 Phoenix event, Brown had just nine Top Fuel wins through his first four of what is now 16 full seasons in the class.

Brown laughed when I told him that Tony Schumacher’s class-leading 87 wins was his next target, which, at his current pace, is probably still nine or 10 seasons away.

Even with just 35 wins, Don Garlits is still considered the GOAT of Top Fuel, but Brown is slowly and surely working his way up that list.

EVERYONE LOVES AN UNDERDOG

The truisms of racing – especially in nitro racing — that “we don’t race them on paper” and “anything can happen” and that given the right variables – the old “luck is when preparation meets opportunity” — anyone can have a great day and maybe even win a race, played out once again at zMAX Dragway.

At his home race, with good help, good support, and solid financial backing, Doug Foley and the Alloy Employer Services team almost got the job done, racing past eight-time world champion Tony Schumacher, points leader Justin Ashley, and Toyota NHRA U.S. Nationals champion Clay Millican to reach the final. No gimmes there.

And he did it legitimately. He outran Schumacher 3.78 to 3.83 and then outpedaled Ashley in a wild second-round race. If there was a lucky break, it was the semifinals, where Millican backfired the blower on the launch and Foley made it to halftrack before having his own blower backfire.

Foley, who had a previous runner-up in Top Fuel at the 2022 NHRA Gatornationals, where he was runner-up to Tripp Tatum, couldn’t get past Antron Brown in the final; it takes nothing away from his accomplishment and reinforces the anything-can-happen nature of the sport, especially in Top Fuel.

You don’t have to have too long of a memory to remember California diehard Ron August making it to the semifinals in Sonoma, Ida Zetterström reaching the semifinals in her Brainerd debut, or Dan Mercier reaching the semifinals in Reading after having done it a few months earlier in Chicago.

Although the winners of every race since Tatum’s stunner in Gainesville have been the usual suspects, the specter of another crowd-pleasing upset are always there.
 

HULK IS BACK

With the rip-roaring season that Austin Prock has been having this year, it has been easy to overlook four-time world champion Matt "Hulk" Hagan, who has two wins – back-to-back in late spring in Charlotte and Chicago – but has spent just one race in first place. The rest of the season he’s loitered around a third- and fourth-place ranking and sank to fifth after a holeshot loss to J.R. Todd in the first round of the Countdown opener in Reading.

But Hagan and crew chief Dickie Venables look to have regained some of the title swagger with a strong No. 1 qualifying effort at the NHRA Carolina Nationals. They may have lost the final round to Prock, but they moved past J.R. Todd into fourth with four races to go. Sure, he’s 153 points back and needs to go to more finals, but he’s back in the fight.

“Obviously those guys are doing a heck of a job,” he said of Prock’s team. “I mean, they're almost on a different planet. The car’s going down the racetrack almost every run, and they're four- or five-hundredths ahead of everyone. It is a little tough not to get fixated on that because you scratch your head because we know we can run with these guys. It's just a matter of "push this button, pull that button, turn this knob," you know? It's tough, but what I've always done with my championship hunts, and anything that I'm ever involved with, is just focus on what you can control.

"We feel like we found some stuff, working hard behind the scenes. My guys have obviously been scratching their heads a little bit all year and have just not had the performance that we really wanted or hoped to, but knowing that we can run with these guys, and I think that we showed that Friday night, that's real. We can do this still, so that was a great shot in the arm for us.”

Hagan is in fourth place, behind Prock, Bob Tasca III, and John Force/Jack Beckman, but now he’s at least back in the title discussion.

NO RUST ON BECKMAN

Three months ago, Jack Beckman could only dream about racing a Funny Car again, relegated to the sidelines after the Don Schumacher Racing “giving cars” were sidelined, and Beckman went from “Infinite Hero” to “Infinite Elevator Repairman,” the same job he held before turning Pro years ago.

Then John Force got hurt in Virginia, and Beckman was called from the sidelines to fill in for the GOAT, not just the opportunity of a lifetime but the honor of a lifetime, and you’d think that after three and a half years on the sidelines, “Fast Jack” might be a little rusty, no?

Nope.

The former world champ has been rock-solid since sliding into the saddle of the Peak Camaro, capably tuned by Danny Hood and Tim Fabrisi. In his 12 rounds, Beckman has left on his opponents eight times and has made it down the track on 23 of 27 runs between qualifying and eliminations. No signs of rust there.

The Hollywood-worthy script of winning a 17th championship for Force would be going well if it wasn’t for teammate Austin Prock, who beat him in the Reading final and again in the semifinals here.

As Beckman said in his post-Reading comments, "If we want to win the championship, Austin is the target. We can’t spot him [points] every race and expect to win it.”

The mission is there, and the driver and car are capable, but someone has to slow Prock.

IT’S A THREE-BIKE BATTLE

All year long, through the weight-break changes and internet innuendo, Matt Smith has painted the battle for Pro Stock Motorcycle supremacy as primarily between himself and reigning world champ Gaige Herrera. Sure, Herrera’s RevZilla/Vance & Hines teammate Richard Gadson has been quick, but it’s always been Smith’s stated belief that Herrera will be the one who is the biggest hurdle between him and a class-record seventh world championship.

It's time for Smith to reconsider that.

Gadson reached his second straight final round, and although he fell there to Smith, it’s clear that the first-year Pro has championship chops. He’s won six rounds so far in the Countdown playoffs – the same as Smith and two more than Herrera – and has a class-leading three holeshot wins. He has a winning record against every other rider not named Matt Smith or Gaige Herrera.

Even though he’s 0-3 in final rounds this season, a first win seems eminent before the season is out, and it’s a win that would keep him in title contention all the way to Pomona.