The Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals lived as much as the custom of Southern California drama that’s been current for the reason that race debuted in 1961. The racing was splendidly shut and thrilling, and the winners engaged in the fun of successful one in all NHRA’s “majors” which are the Winternationals. Here’s our 5 large takeaways from the race.
THOSE SoCAL FANS …
The weekend was a little bit of a marathon occasion, with some on-track incidents on Saturday and rain and extra oil on Sunday, making for a protracted day, however the followers hung robust.
The early-week forecast for the race was not optimistic, however it received higher because the week wore on. What initially seemed like an entire washout of Friday after which Saturday moved into potential rain on Sunday, and fortunately, most of that didn’t materialize.
It rained Sunday morning, placing the present delayed as we did not begin till 12:30, after which after Tony Schumacher grenaded a rear finish for the second straight day, resulting in a cleanup of greater than an hour, endurance was positively a advantage each in the pits and in the grandstands.
The followers, God love ‘em, took it all in stride and hung in there until the end, which didn’t come until 8 p.m. Sunday night, right as the curfew hit.
Of course they had plenty of things to do during the downtime because, once again, the legends from the sport’s historical past had been all over, the racers had been welcoming to followers, and the interviews on the Nitro Stage in the pits and the multitude of interactive shows and video games on Nitro Alley stored everybody engaged, and it did not damage that In-N-Out Burger was serving its world-famous burgers to maintain the starvation at bay.
LEGEND-ARY WEEKEND
As talked about above, there have been lots of drag racing legends available on the occasion as NHRA continues to have fun its seventy fifth anniversary. In addition to the drivers who had been celebrated as a part of NHRA’s 1,000th Funny Car race — bringing again former racers like Bruce Larson and Johnny Gray so as to add the praise of present drivers who received on the 100s — we had lots of drivers in attendance to choose up their particular crystal awards for being on the celebrated listing of NHRA’s Top 75 Drivers, together with multitime Top Fuel world champ Gary Beck, and Kenny Bernstein returned to accompany Susie Arnold Armstrong, spouse of late mechanical genius Dale Armstrong. Danny Thompson was there to just accept for his late father, Mickey Thompson, and three-time Top Alcohol Funny Car champ Brad Anderson was saluted by the partial SoCal followers.
Shirley Shahan, who made drag racing historical past in Pomona on the 1966 Winternationals, when she turned the game’s first feminine nationwide occasion winner, was once more hanging out with Top Fuel rookie sensation Maddi Gordon, who was NHRA’s one hundredth feminine winner a few years in the past. We launched the duo a couple of years again, and so they turned quick pals, and the Drag-On Lady was again once more to hang around with the most recent fan sensation for the weekend.
Drag racing icon Don “the Snake” Prudhomme, who lives not removed from Pomona, got here out once more and introduced alongside his outdated racing buddy Richard Tharp, who took half in one other of the legends autograph classes. Bob Muravez, aka Floyd Lippencott Jr., the unforgettable Top Gas winner from the 1963 Winternationals, was additionally there, having fun with himself and getting up shut and private with at present’s stars and reuniting along with his outdated buddies from the previous.
THAT POMONA REVERENCE
Tony Stewart had a fantastic weekend, scoring Elite Motorsports’ first Top Fuel win and being joined in the winner’s circle by Tony Stewart Racing Funny Car ace Matt Hagan. They shared the stage in the Media Center after the occasion, and each acknowledged the gravity of successful one in all NHRA’s legendary occasions.
“I’ve been [in NHRA] for five years now, and following Leah [Pruett] around and being a part of it, but it doesn’t take long to realize how special Pomona is in drag racing and how much it means to everybody; it’s one of the crown jewels in NHRA,” mentioned Stewart. “And then the impact that Leah has had on my career here and to be a part of it in NHRA’s 75th Anniversary and win here at the Winternationals, this is her home track, and it just feels extra special to me because of her and because of her story of telling me that when she was a kid, she’d sneak out of school just to come to the drag races on Friday. So when you think about it, and for me to think about how important this place is to her.
“We’re honored to be a part of NHRA’s 75th Anniversary. These trophies this year are just unbelievable, and everybody within NHRA should be proud of what NHRA has meant for 75 years. Wally Parks built a great foundation and still to this day, after 75 years, gives us a great place to race. The camaraderie in the pit area with all the people here, it is truly a large, large family, and it’s an honor to race here.”
“This is such a magical place,” Hagan echoed. “I mean, I was pulling up at the staging lanes, and I just couldn’t get my eyes off the mountains behind us, I should have been focused on what we were doing, but the sun was setting, and the mountains were just amazing. And you just look at California. Man, this place is just amazing. So just to be in that moment when you’re going to pull up to the starting line and fire up a 12,000-horsepower race car, and you get to go down to there 330 miles an hour, that’s just magical in itself, and there’s probably only 50 people in the world who get to know what that feels like. I tell this dude [Stewart] every time we win, ‘Thank you for letting me drive your race car.’ There are plenty of people I’d like to take my place. It’s just very special, not just to win but to win at the Winternationals.”
THAT ASHLEY MAGIC
As much as Stewart and Hagan are loving Pomona, Just Ashley again flashed that Pomona magic with a runner-up finish behind Stewart in what was truly a bounce-back weekend for the Scag team after two tough openers in Gainesville and Phoenix.
Ashley, who won the Winternationals three straight years (2022-24 and was runner-up in 2021 when he couldn’t run the final round due to heat prostration), was a machine on the starting line with three straight 025 reaction times in a class where anything below .050 is considered world-beating. It’s not only superhuman but almost robotic. He’s a true starting-line artist. And even his “slow” mild of .036 in the ultimate nonetheless beat Stewart off the road. In six leaves this yr, he’s averaging .028.
Last yr, he left on 47 of the 49 opponents he raced, and he’s six-for-six already this yr.
Not solely that, however apparently this type of factor is contagious as a result of his Scag Racing Top Fuel teammate, Will Smith, reduce a .029 mild in spherical one in the Bluebird Turf machine. I don’t know what they’re placing in the water over there, however everybody else most likely needs a drink.
READY FOR LAUNCH?
There’s no doubting that the early 2026 returns for the Prock household after leaving John Force Racing to align with Tasca Racing haven’t been good, however the Winternationals seems to have marked yet one more step in the appropriate course that appears to have the “Prock Rocket” able to launch in the way in which we have seen him dominate the final two seasons.
The trials of the group have been properly documented in how, leaving the JFR universe, tuning mastermind Jimmy Prock was compelled to attempt to assemble a mix primarily based on accessible components with which he doesn’t have nice familiarity. It has been a piece in progress, marked by positive factors and losses as they sought the proper energy degree, however the group got here into Pomona optimistic as a result of this was the primary race the place they had been capable of get all of the components they needed and wanted to go quick.
Although Austin, the two-time world champ, misplaced in the primary spherical for the second straight race after failing to qualify on the season opener in Gainesville, you possibly can simply get the sense that they are climbing nearer. Although their qualifying effort was nonetheless slightly bit checkered, with solely two strong runs, one was a three-second time that certified them fifth. Their friends all knew the group would wrestle, so this isn’t sudden for them and even for the Procks themselves, however these groups had higher begin wanting in the rearview mirror as a result of fairly quickly the Prock Rocket goes to be blasting after them.
