NHRA Giant Killer Justin Ashley Out to Conquer Old Age and Treachery

• At age 27, the Phillips Connect/Vita C Dragster driver Justin Ashley has risen to the top of the Top Fuel standings in just his third season.

• His closest rivals represent eight Top Fuel championships.

• Ashley says he expected all along to be in first place at this time.

NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Pro Stock legend Warren Johnson always contended that “Old age and treachery beat youth and inexperience every time.”

Top Fuel points leader Justin Ashley plans to flip that script.

Ashley, 27, who’s hoping this weekend at Texas Motorplex at Ennis, near Dallas, to repeat his Top Fuel victory at the FallNationals, has positioned himself well in the Countdown to the Championship in just his third full season.

Three of his four top-five rivals—Steve Torrence, Brittany Force, and Antron Brown—have combined for eight titles, but Ashley (as well as No. 4-ranked Mike Salinas) is pursuing his first championship.

So is the value of experience exaggerated?

“No, experience is not overrated. Experience is huge. It's crucial,” Ashley said. “You look at a guy like Steve Torrence, who's won four championships, he's participated in the Countdown before. That experience is invaluable. It really is. And it's an important element to finding success, but it's not everything. You have to put everything together. You have to have the right culture. You have to have the right group.”

He said he believes he has that with his Phillips Connect/Vita C Dragster team at Dustin Davis Motorsports.

“All these teams are great. They're all fantastic, our team included. But we also do have a lot of experience. Believe it or not, our team has a lot of experience,” he said. “(Crew chiefs) Mike Green, Tommy DeLago, they have championship-winning experience (with Tony Schumacher and Matt Hagan). We have guys up and down the list on the team that have championship experience. So it's definitely not overrated. It's a critical element.”

And Ashley said he relies on those more-experienced team members: “I lean on them a lot. Guys like Mike and Tommy and the rest of the team that have been there, done that, because there's just certain things that I haven't experienced or don't fully have an understanding of, just because I haven't been there, done that before. So they've been really, really valuable, a valuable tool, a valuable asset.

"And I think that probably the best thing that I can do is just sit there and listen and hear what they have to say about what it takes to be successful and what it takes to win championships. Even guys like Antron Brown, even guys like (Brown crew chiefs) Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald, (have been) kind enough to spend time with me and spend time with our team, and we're fortunate to be able to work together with Antron's team to become better as a group and for both our teams to get better. So everybody collectively, as one big unit, is working together. And it's something that I'm trying to fully take advantage of.”

Ashley said, “I think it takes time and it takes experience to find yourself in this situation. I don't have as much experience as a lot of other teams and a lot of other drivers.”

He competed in just three races in his debut year, and his first full campaign was in 2020, when the NHRA bagged a Countdown format. So last season, when he finished fourth, he was experiencing his first Countdown and the pressures that come with it.

Behind him in the standings are such veterans as seventh-ranked Doug Kalitta, who has 49 trophies and five series runner-up finishes; Clay Millican, owner of six consecutive IHRA Top Fuel crowns; 10-time Top Fuel winner Leah Pruett, who has titles in the Hot Rod Heritage Series and Factory Stock Shown class; and eight-time NHRA Top Fuel champion and 86-time victor Tony Schumacher.

However, Ashley said he feels no pressure. He said he welcomes it: “It's better than the alternative, right? I mean, the alternative is not being in a pressure situation because you didn't put yourself in that situation, because you're not competing for a championship. Pressure has a funny way of helping a lot of drivers to increase their focus on the task. Pressure is a privilege, in a lot of ways.

“Of course, we’d love to lock it (the championship) up early and not have that pressure and all that stuff just like everybody would, but ultimately, that's not the kind of sport that we're in, for the most part,” Ashley said. “For the most part, it's going to come down to the wire.”

And he invited that pressure on himself, figuring from the start of the season that he’d be in the hunt.

“I'm not surprised,” he said, “but I am humbled to be in this position. Having raced against teams that are the best in the world and the best of what they do, we have a healthy understanding and respect for the competition. The competition out here is absolutely fantastic. They are stout, but we’re grateful to be in this position.

"We certainly did expect to be in this position—not just because we rolled out of bed one day and just said, ‘You know what? We're going to win the championship’ but because of the work that we put in. We came in prepared. We've continued to prepare throughout the season. But during the offseason we brought on Tommy DeLago, and we focused a lot on improving as an organization, as a program, making sure that we came into 2022 in the best position possible because we knew how deep the field was going to be in Top Fuel . . . and it has proven to be just that. So we expected to be in this position but nonetheless humbled that we are here with only three races left.”

After the Texas FallNationals, the Camping World Drag Racing Series season will wrap up with races at Las Vegas and Pomona, Calif.