Action took place in Pomona recently for the NHRA Winternationals, put on at the In-N-Out Burger Dragstrip and sponsored by Lucas Oil.
In Top Fuel, Brittany Force qualified in the top spot with a 3.641 at 337.17 mph effort. It was her first number one qualifier of the season and 53rd of her career. With a short field of 14 cars for a 16-car ladder, Force would open up against the 14th qualifier, Steve Chrisman. The winner would get a free pass (single run) into the semifinal round. Force would get past Chrisman (3.700 at 337.75 mph to 4.048 at 252.61 mph) and then lay down a 3.693 at 332.26 mph run to advance to the semifinal round, gaining lane choice over her opponent, Clay Millican. Millican advanced to the semifinal round match up, taking out Shawn Reed and Jasmine Salinas with 3.817 and 3.717 performances that also included very good reaction times (0.051 and 0.058 seconds). Force has been working on improving her reaction times, but times of 0.093 and 0.072, left her vulnerable. Force has one of the best crew chiefs/tuners in the business in David Grubnic, who gives her a car that is often much quicker and faster than most of her opponents. In her match up with Millican, she left with a 0.087 reaction time to Millican’s 0.051. But, the Grubnic horsepower made up the difference just past half track and she looked like she would win the round, when the car started losing traction. This caused the car to slow, allowing Millican to take the win, 3.750 at 324.10 mph to (slowing) 3.812 at 263.92 mph, advancing to the final round. On the other side of the ladder was Tony Stewart, who took out Antron Brown (three-time season series champion), Doug Kalitta (number two qualifier and 2023 champion) and Shawn Langdon (number three qualifier and a series champion), with consistent performances. These performances included one of his career best efforts. Stewart was seeking his first win in Top Fuel while Millican was seeking his eighth career victory. Millican got away first (0.038 to 0.065) and was extending his lead on Stewart, when his engine exploded. But Stewart, who had already given up the chase, after smoking the tires badly, could only watch Millican coast to the win, 4.273 at 189.71 mph to 6.1878 at 99.83 mph.
The Funny Car category saw upsets, much like were seen in Top Fuel. Austin Prock, once again took the pole with a 3.816 at 338.26 mph qualifying effort. He was followed by Paul Lee, Ron Capps and Jack Beckman. Then the upsets popped up. Prock lost traction and lost to the number 16 qualifier Blake Alexander, 4.236 at 22.58 mph to 4.415 at 300. 13 mph. Ron Capps then fell victim to loss of traction, allowing number 14 Spencer Hyde to advance. Beckman and Lee were the only two heavy hitters to advance. For Beckman it would be a consistent 3.8-second march to the final round (3.847, 3.859 and 3.860), as he took out Jeff Diehl, Chad Green and Matt Hagan. On the other side of the ladder, Daniel Wilkerson (who struggled until his last qualifying effort to get in the show) would take out JR Todd, Paul Lee and Spencer Hyde, to advance to the final round. Wilkerson was seeking his first career win, while Beckman was seeking his 38th and 300th career Funny Car win for the John Force Racing (JFR) organization. Beckman left first (0.073 to 0.081) and quickly pulled away, as Wilkerson lost traction by the 60-foot cone. Beckman then started to lose traction around half track, but was able to recover quickly and take the win with a 4.015 at 302.28 mph to 8.292 at 91.83 mph margin.
The Pro Stock category has been dominated by two main racing organizations, Elite Motorsports and KD Titan Motorsports. Each supply most of the engines, and race cars run in the class. Erica Enders (Elite Motorsports) and Greg Anderson (KB Titan Motorsports) each have five season championships. But the Elite cars struggled most of last season and into this season. Seven of the top 10 qualifiers at this event were from the KD Titan shops, including three of the top four qualifiers. By the second round of eliminations, all eight remaining cars were from the Titan camp. In the final round it would be an all-KD Titan show, again, with another Greg Anderson vs. Dallas Glenn match up. Anderson, who had just won at the event in Phoenix a week ago against Glenn, would be squaring off against him again. When it was over, the results were the same, as Anderson took the win, 6.476 at 210.90 mph (new track record) to 6.503 at 211.66 mph. It was Anderson’s 16th win at the Pomona track and 108th of his career. The Elite team had been suffering from inconsistences and will be doing some testing in Oklahoma to correct. Six-time series champion, Erica Enders has not won an event in nearly a year, as she and her team, have struggled with performance issues.
In an unusual twist, all three classes involved cars featuring blue paint/wrap schemes for an event run under mostly overcast skies.
The next NHRA event is at the “Strip at Las Vegas” for NHRA 4-wide Nationals in mid-April.
