After the Texas Fall Nationals, Torrence will miss Las Vegas and Pomona as he shifts focus to family and the family business.
Doug Kalitta said this weekend’s NHRA’s Texas Fall Nationals is where “the points can swing out.” This certainly is the race that will deliver disappointing news to a number of drivers throughout the pro ranks.
In Pro Stock, the chase for the championship already has come down to just the two KB Titan Racing teammates Greg Anderson and Dallas Glenn. However, it’s still close in the Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock Motorcycle classes.
Two qualifying sessions will take place both Friday and Saturday. Eliminations are set for a 10 a.m. (CT) start Sunday.
Top Fuel
In Kalitta’s Top Fuel category, the top five still are battling as the Stampede of Speed comes back to Ennis, Texas, just south of Dallas. The leading three drivers are making it a dogfight, with Kalitta leading Justin Ashley by 86 points and Shawn Langdon by 127. No. 4 Tony Stewart, the regular-season champion, is lurking 153 points back, and No. 5 Clay Millican has 182 points to make up—all with a points-and-a-half format tossed in at the season finale at Pomona, California.
As the pressure ratchets up, Ashley could be in the perfect place at the perfect time. He won in two consecutive trips to Texas Motorplex, in 2021 and 2022, and he won again last October. In the 2023 gap-year, he fared well, setting his career-best elapsed time and speed (3.661 seconds, 338.40 mph on the 1,000-foot course).
And with four victories in seven final rounds, he’s poised to cause trouble for three-time winner and 2023 champion Kalitta.
“Dallas is a pivotal race. It can shake up the points in a hurry,” Ashley said. “We have to ensure that we are on the right side of that shake up at the end of the weekend. The best way to do that is by staying within ourselves. There’ll be 16 other Top Fuel cars on the property ready for battle. The intensity level will be at an all-time high.
“But there’s no reason to get caught up in that. Our attention will be centered on our process, because that’s all we can control. We’ve had a lot of success here in the past, and I have the utmost confidence we can do it again.”
Kalitta teammate Langdon is taking a practical approach: “To have a shot at the championship in the last two races, we really need to win in Dallas. I haven’t won there yet, but... we just need a couple things to turn our way and we’ll be fine. It’s going to be what it’s going to be. It’s good to just try to soak it all in, enjoy it, do the best that you can, and leave no regrets.”
Funny Car
In the other nitro category, the Funny Car crown at first looked like an all-but-certain deal for Austin Prock, the unstoppable leader for the past 13 events. However, the points reset after Indianapolis, along with Countdown victories by Cruz Pedregon at Reading, Pennsylvania, and Matt Hagan at St. Louis, are making this chase more of a nail-biter than perhaps expected.
Hagan, who was the No. 3 seed to start the playoffs, has improved to second, within 20 points of regular-season dominator Prock. Jack Beckman is third, only 65 points off the pace of his John Force Racing teammate. Ron Capps (-125), Dan Wilkerson (-137), Paul Lee (-158), and Pedregon (-162) are hoping for mathematical miracles.
Prock, rocked a bit by two quarterfinal losses in the Countdown (a center-line disqualification at Reading and a tire-smoking effort at St. Louis that sandwiched his Charlotte four-wide win), has a more modest approach this week.
“The stakes are a little bit high right now, with everybody tightened up, but going in there and not thinking about it will probably be the best mindset to be in,” Prock said. “Just go in there and execute and do as good as you can and hope that it’s good enough.
“Our race car is running really good right now. It sucked to stumble the last race and let everything get tightened up, but it very much can go the other way in Dallas. We could go out early, or we could go and win the event, so we just need to go in there and focus on doing the best of our ability.
“Regardless of how anything goes, if we do that, we’re at least going to leave there with a 40-point lead. I think that needs to be our mindset, to just go up there and do the best of our abilities. Everything’s already written. It’s going to work out how it’s going to work out. And, for as well as we’ve done all year, I really want it to be us. And I think it can be.”
No. 3 Beckman said, “I don’t care what the gap is to second place, because the only goal of [his team] is to win the championship. Austin’s taillights were pretty far in the distance after Charlotte, but St. Louis let us know we very much are still in the run for the championship.”
“Our goal is always for the John Force Racing Funny Cars to meet in the final round, guaranteeing one gets in the winners circle, but there’s not enough rounds left if we beat him in all three remaining final rounds. At St. Louis, it was a do-or-die situation going into the second round against each other. We knew that if he beat us, it was going to be the nail in the coffin for our championship. Fortunately, we were able to not only beat Austin but win the next round, which put us 40 points closer to him.
“Nobody wants to not have a shot the championship on the last day of the season. This just revived our championship chase and put us right back in the thick of this thing.”
Curiously, in 17 races so far, despite Prock’s eight victories in 10 finals, the Funny Car class has had eight different winners. In the 17 races in hand, the Top Fuel class has had nine winners. So the parity will make the final three races a little more suspenseful.
Pro Stock Motorcycle
It's a three-rider scramble for the two-wheelers. Richard Gadson, winner three times in five finals so far, is leader of the pack. He’s 29 points ahead of Vance & Hines teammate Gaige Herrera, the back-to-back and reigning champion. Matt Smith is relentless in this pursuit of a seventh series title, 53 points out of first.
If No. 4 John Hall and No. 5 Angie Smith, who are separated by a single point entering this weekend, have any chance to take the championship, the three leading racers would have to have catastrophic collapses. And sixth-place Brayden Davis (-157) and seventh-ranked Jianna Evaristo are definite long-shots.
Category: General Sports
