Racing on crew chief Alan Johnson’s 68th birthday, world champ Doug Kalitta pounded out a 3.791, low e.t. of the round, to drive around Will Smith’s holeshot start. In round two, he’ll take on Billy Torrence, who got the first round-win of his comeback tour with a 3.84 after Antron Brown lost traction at mid-track. Air temperature is 84 degrees, and the track is at a comfortable 107 degrees.
Tony Stewart beat Shawn Reed in round one for the second straight time at this event, clocking a 3.82 in the R+L Carriers hot rod, and his wife, Leah Pruett, followed him into round two with a 3.827 against cylinder-dropping Cameron Ferre.
In the battle of rookies, Maddi Gordon, who has about two dozen runs under her safety belts, defeated Jaren Mott, who has just eight runs in Larry Dixon’s dragster, backed by local construction company Zaxis. She will cede second-round lane choice to Stewart.
Gatornationals winner Josh Hart added his fifth straight round win, beating Justin Ashley in a race where both drivers battled traction woes from halftrack on. Predictably, Ashley was first off the line (as he was last year in 47 of 49 races) with a stout .035 reaction time, but Hart wasn’t far behind with a .056 light.
The round closed with a battle of Rick Ware Racing teammates, Tony Schumacher and Clay Millican, tuned, respectively, by brothers Jim and Jon Oberhofer. Schuancher lost traction early and recovered, driving around a spinning Millican, who may have snapped the throttle cable in pedaling. Schumacher then punctuated his 4.32 with a blower backfire in the lights.
Second-round pairings (lane choice first): Shawn Langdon vs. Tony Schumacher; Tony Stewart vs. Maddi Gordon; Leah Pruett vs. Josh Hart; Doug Kalitta vs. Billy Torrence
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As track temps continue to climb, the consensus among Funny Car teams prior to the round was that a low-4.0 might be the best of the frame, and while 4.0s were the winning norm, and they were in six of the eight matchups, but two teams also cracked into the three-second zone.
Ron Capps and tuner Dean Antonelli, who bowed out in round one at the season opener, made no such mistakes this time, beating Capps’ former world champion crew chief, Rahn Tobler, who is tuning Jason Rupert. Capps’ NAPA Toyota roared to a 3.9 after Rupert ran into trouble and stepped off downtrack.
Jordan Vandergriff, who had to race John Force Racing teammate Jack Beckman in round one in Gainesville, had to face his other new JFR teammate, Alexis DeJoria, here, and he’s now won both of them. This one was lopsided as Vandergriff’s Cornwell Quality Tools Camaro raced to a 3.98 after Alexis double-stepped and fouled.
Two-time reigning world champ Austin Prock, who in qualifying showed signs of rebounding from his Gainesville DNQ, remained winless on the season after J.R. Todd’s steady DHL Toyota raced to a 4.04 against his tractionless effort. Todd, who moved into second place in points with the win, will surrender round-two lane choice to low qualifier Spencer Hyde, who didn’t even make the field here last year, but advanced the Head Inc. Ford to round two with a 4.01.
Gatornationals champion Chad Green ran his unbeaten streak to five straight rounds with a 4.011 against local favorite Dylan Winefsky and will take on this event’s defending champ, Paul Lee, who ran 4.05 to beat Dave Richards.
Daniel Wilkerson upset No. 2 qualifier and three-time Phoenix winner Jack Beckman with a 4.00, and four-time world champ Matt Hagan ran an effortless 4.031 to beat Cruz Pedregon, who hasn’t won this race since 1993.
Second-round pairings (lane choice first): Spencer Hyde vs. J.R. Todd; Jordan Vandergriff vs. Matt Hagan; Ron Capps vs. Daniel Wilkerson; Chad Green vs. Paul Lee
***
With the air temp at 90 degrees and the track at 124, Pro Stock took the stage for its opening round, and what the fans saw was not a heat mirage.
Chris McGaha, who won just one round all of last year and DNQ’d at seven of his 14 outings, pulled off a major shocker by taking out the defending event champ, Greg Anderson, by just .0008-second (eight ten-thousandths) with a 6.625 to defeat Anderson’s low e.t. of the round pass of 6.577.
“It’s no secret that we don’t have a lot of smoke [power], so the only way to win is with my left foot,” McGaha admitted.
Holeshots were a major theme as two other rounds were also won by the slower-performing car. Cody Coughlin, in just his 18th event in the class, showed that he already knows his way around the Christmas Tree, beating Eric Latino on a 6,621 to 6.611 holeshot. Latino’s son, Matt, flipped that script, winning his race against Gatornationals winner and hometown hero Matt Hartford on a 6,625 to 6.612 gatejob after both played out a little staging battle.
Erica Enders, who owns a slim 31-30 lifetime advantage over fellow six-time world champ Greg Anderson, notched her first win against Anderson’s son, Cody, who red-lighted for the second straight raceday. Enders, who is also competing in Pro Mod this weekend, ran a nice 6.59.
Chris Vang, who impressed everyone with a strong qualifying effort, was shut off on the starting line with a fluid leak, giving Aaron Stanfield a free pass to round two. Stanfield will take on his father, Greg, in the next round after Dad took a 6.585 to 6.595 win over Troy Coughlin Jr., who was back at the track after missing Saturday’s qualifying to attend his sister Paige’s wedding.
World champ Dallas Glenn raced to a 6.58 to take an easy win against Stephen Bell.
Second-round pairings (lane choice first): Cody Coughlin; Erica Enders vs. Jeg Coughlin Jr.; Aaron Stanfield; Dallas Glenn vs. Matt Latino
***
With the air temp at 90 degrees and track temp at a difficult 130 degrees (yet cloud cover has it 10 degrees lower than yesterday), the tuners will make their money this round.
Rookie Maddi Gordon raced her way into her second straight semifinal to kick off her career, outrunning Tony Stewart with a 3.85 that was low e.t. of the round and will earn her lane choice over two-time defending event champ Shawn Langdon, who powered to a 3.85 to take out Tony Schumacher, who backfired the blower for the second straight round in defeat.
World champ Doug Kalitta raced to a 3.87 to trailer Billy Torrence and take the points lead and will pick his lane in the semifinals against Leah Pruett, who ended incoming points leader Josh Hart’s five-round win streak with a 3.887, meaning she still has a shot at a third Arizona Nationals title.
Semifinal pairings (lane choice first): Maddi Gordon vs. Shawn Langdon; Doug Kalitta vs. Leah Pruett
***
Ron Capps turned on the win light ahead of Daniel Wilkerson, 4.14 to 4.15, but paid dearly for it with a huge blower explosion and fire. While not as bad as last year’s boomer that sent him plunging into the left guardwall, Capps only moderately nerfed the right wall this time with the headers so the chassis is probably OK, but the Toyota body is clearly deeply cracked across the midpoint of the hood. Capps will have semifinal lane choice against Paul Lee.
“It’s a tough track. Everybody’s spinning down there. You don’t have time to say, ‘Oh, should I lift?’ ” he said. “It’s Sunday, when a round win is pretty important, but I don’t think it’s worth a round win, unless we go on to win the race, then we’re gonna look back at this and know it did. I didn’t see Daniel next to me. There’s a lot of things that go through your brain. I’ve been doing this a long time. I couldn’t see out the front windshield, so I was looking out the [side window] porthole and watching Daniel, and was just kind of judging off of him.”
Defending event champ Lee will be in the semi’s because he won his sixth straight round at Firebird, ending the day of incoming points leader and Gatornationals champ Chad Green, who lost traction early. Fortunately for Green, second-place Alexis DeJoria exited in round one, and J.R. Todd was knocked off in this frame in a tight loss toSpencer Hyde, 4.14 to 4.16.
Matt Hagan advanced to the final four after both he and Jordan Vandergriff lost traction at midtrack, and both stepped off the throttle, figuring they’d be beat, only to have a coasting match to the stripe, which Hagan won on a 4.62 to 4.65 count.
Green will leave here with the points lead unless Hagan or Hyde wins the race; because those two will race in the semi’s, one of them will be in the final with a chance to take the points lead.
Semifinal pairings (lane choice first): Spencer Hyde vs. Matt Hagan; Ron Capps vs. Paul Lee
***
Both Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Erica Enders shook hard, and both swerved toward the centerline. Coughlin was able to pull his yellow and black Camaro back and eased by for the win while Enders, who was off the line first, .017 to .055, wisely clicked it off.
“When, obviously, we were just too aggressive for the track condition,” said Coughlin. “From my vantage point, I let the clutch out when the Tree fired, and it just immediately started shaking. I got into second gear as quickly as I could. It was still shaking really bad through second [gear], so I pedaled, and once I got it into fourth gear, I just kind of nursed it down through there. I think we were close to one another a time or two there, but as W.J. [Warren Johnson] would say, ‘That’s why they have a steering wheel.’ “
Coughlin will face his nephew, Cody Coughlin, in the semifinals after a weird race with Chris McGaha. McGaha, who won round one on a holeshot against Greg Anderson, did the opposite against Coughlin, leaving late with a .233 light, allowing Coughlin an easy win.
A rematch of last year’s father-son Sonoma final went to Dad again as Greg Stanfield eked past Aaron by just .004-second with a 6.63. Stanfield will take on world champ Dallas Glenn, who ended Matt Latino’s weekend with a 6.61. Glenn can take the points lead from Matt Hartford if he reaches the final round.
Semifinal pairings (lane choice first): Cody Coughlin vs. Jeg Coughlin Jr.; Dallas Glenn vs. Aaron Stanfield
***
In their first rematch of the final round of the 2023 NHRA Finals that decided the world championship, Leah Pruett got revenge on Doug Kalitta and advanced to the final round with a 3.88 to 3.92 victory. Pruett, who has a part-time Arizona residence in Lake Havasu City, won her first Top Fuel title ever at this event in 2016. She will now have lane choice and the chance to score the 200th win by a female racer in NHRA competition. The 100th was by Courtney Force in Topeka in 2014.
“That win light coming on against Doug, that’s why I got back in this car,” she said. “That’s the feeling that we have right now. We want it so bad. My guys, they said, ‘Yeah, I think we got this right up here.’ So we’ve got the right people, we’ve got the right partners, we’ve got the right attitude, we’ve got the right horsepower, and we’ve got the right driver.”
Pruett can also take the points lead with a final-round win, which would put her one point ahead of Kalitta.
The other semifinal pitted rookie phenom Maddi Gordon against one of her Top Fuel mentors, Shawn Langdon, and Langdon won easily with a 3.93 when her Carlyle Tools dragster lost traction halfway down. Langdon is going for a third straight Arizona Nationals crown.
Low qualifier Spencer Hyde will get the chance to win his first Funny Car crown after defeating four-time world champ Matt Hagan, 4.18 to 4.21. Last year Paul Lee scored his first career win at this event … will history repeat itself?
If it does, he’s going to have to do it against the comeback kid, Ron Capps’ team was late arriving to the starting line after this massive pit thrash. With Lee patiently waiting in a move of great sportsmanship, Capps team, with Capps already strapped in the car, hightailed it through the pits and maneuvered their way through every shortcut to make it to the water box.
The race was not close as Capps blasted to a 4.12 to end Lee’s chance for a repeat and also earned lane choice in the final, which will be the 165th of Capps’ career.
“I’m speechless,” said Capps, who climbed out of the car at the top end and immediately thanked Lee for waiting. “These are those moments that you think of growing up as a kid. I’ve had them throughout my career with our crew people and our family. It wouldn’t even start the pit area, so we weren’t even sure, and they changed one of the boxes in the ignition, and then it fired up for the burnout. I was shocked.
“Listen, I know everybody is saying this place hates me after what happened last year, but oh my god, I love this place. It’s been great. I’ve got a lot of wins here, a lot of success. It’s always a family trip. We love coming here. But those, these are the moments right now. Maddi in the semifinals, again, we’re both in the [Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge in Pomona], and it’s just like it’s gotten better and better.”
Like Pruett in Top Fuel, Hyde can take the points lead with a final-round win, which would put him two points ahead of Chad Green.
With the thermometer edging towards 100 degrees and the track at a sizzling 147 degrees, it was two KB Titan vs. Elite Motorsports matches, and the KB crew won both.
Cody Coughlin defeated his uncle, Jeg, in an all-family battle, 6.69 to 6.72, to reach his second career final. He’ll face the guy who beat him in that first final, world champ Dallas Glenn, last fall in Reading, after Glenn raced past Greg Stanfield on a 6.64 to 6.68 count. Glenn will be looking to avenge last year’s weird final-round loss here to Greg Anderson.
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Nathan Sitko claimed the victory on a final-round bye after defending event champ Ray Horan’s team was unable to get their car started. Sitkpo powered the Bubble Up Firebird to a 4.79 winning lap.
***
Super Stock
Tim Seymour def. Evan Kowalski
Stock
Justin Lamb def. Leo Glasbrenner
Super Comp
Doug Johnson def. Tanner Theobald
Super Gas
Val Torres Jr. def. Chris Gabbard
Top Dragster
Cooper Chun def. Dylan Hough
Top Sportsman
Rob Mendenhall
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