Justin Ashley Ready for Seat at Table of NHRA Top Fuel Champions

• Justin Ashley is leading the NHRA Top Fuel points championship after a runner-up finish at Norwalk, Ohio, by a whopping 97 points over runner-up and four-time champion Steve Torrence.

• He's won nine times and has an incredible career winning percentage of.636 in elimination rounds, winning 96 of 151 rounds.

• This year, he's won 20 of 25 elimination rounds.

It's good to be Justin Ashley these days.

Ashley, a 28-year-old NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Top Fuel dragster driver from Plainview, N.Y., is leading the class with four wins in nine events. He's leading the points championship after a runner-up finish at Norwalk, Ohio, by a whopping 97 points over runner-up and four-time champion Steve Torrence and by 106 points over Norwalk winner Leah Pruett.

"It's not easy with the way the Top Fuel field is right now," Ashley told Autoweek. "The quality and depth in the field is better than we've ever seen in NHRA history. So to be able to win four out of the first nine races is really special. And it's a testament to the work that we put in during the offseason."

What's really special is Ashley's run to the top of the Top Fuel charts so early in his NHRA career. He's looking more and more like a driver ready to take up the mantle from a rather short list recent Top Fuel champions.

In the past six years, just two drivers have held the NHRA Top Fuel championship trophy—defending-champion Brittany Force (2022 and 2017) and Steve Torrence (four times, 2018-2021). Ashley is hoping the more experienced drivers in the field won't mind a relatively new face stealing some of their thunder for hopefully the next several years.

"I think that youth is really important," said Ashley, son of former NHRA racer Mike Ashley. "The bigger the youth movement, the better it's going to be for the future of the NHRA. I feel like I'm certainly ready for whatever comes our way.

"But the key for me is that it's not about me, and it never was. It's always about the team that we have behind us because it takes a group. It really takes a team effort just to be able to be out here racing, let alone turn on a win light."

Ashley this year drives the Phillips Connect/Vita C Shot Toytota dragster. The team's crew chiefs are Mike Green and Tommy DeLago.