Yahoo Autos Surprising Names Make List of Winless Drivers in NHRA Nitro Classes This Year
Neither Top Fuel record-setter Brittany Force nor her 16-time Funny Car champion father, John Force, have reached the winners circle this year.
Seasoned nitro champs Tony Schumacher (Top Fuel) and Cruz Pedregon (Funny Car) and motorcycle ace Eddie Krawiec still seeking breakout victories.
Brainerd race is big hope for Top Fuel’s Mike Salinas and Doug Kalitta.
Chad Green, a relative newcomer to the NHRA Funny Car class, has woven one of the best stories in drag racing this season. He was runner-up to J.R. Todd at Sonoma, won the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge at Pomona and qualified for five others, qualified No. 1 at Epping, and has been ranked in the top five in the standings after 11 of 13 races.
Bob Tasca III, likewise, has been a bright star in the Funny Car constellation, particularly after most of his crew defected to Tony Schumacher’s Top Fuel team after last season. Tasca is a two-time event winner (Epping, Topeka) and winner of the Mission Foods Challenge at Bristol. Moreover, he has had four No. 1 starts (Phoenix, Charlotte, Norwalk, Sonoma).
The surprising strugglers, by contrast, include reigning and two-time Top Fuel champion Brittany Force and her 155-time winner dad, John Force.
It might seem a little odd to say they’re struggling. Brittany Force has led her field four times, set top speed at 11 of the 13 completed events, and recorded low elapsed time of the race five times, leaving track records in her wake across the country. John Force was Funny Car runner-up to Tasca in the Epping race and No. 1 qualifier at Seattle—and the 16-time champion will make the Countdown again. But neither Force has found the right combination yet in 13 races to win.
Winless in Top Fuel
Both eight-time Top Fuel king Tony Schumacher and two-time champ Cruz Pedregon (Funny Car) clearly have capable crew chiefs and generous budgets—and no shortage of confidence in their respective teams.
Both are also winless in 2023.
“We’re working hard to get it right, with the challenges the heat has thrown at us,” Pedregon said. “We’re going to be calling on the energy we have from four competitive runs at Night Under Fire (popular specialty/independent event at Norwalk, Ohio) a few weeks ago to fuel our hopes for a better performance this weekend.” He hasn’t advanced past the second round all year.
Pedregon’s show car will be on display at Indianapolis International Airport for the next three weeks, showcasing the U.S. Nationals, but he’d be even more satisfied if he could park his current race car in the winners circle at Brainerd International Raceway this weekend, for the first time since his first championship march in 1992.
Schumacher, meanwhile, has had a year with new team principal Joe Maynard and said his team, with championship-material tuners Mike Neff, Jon Schaffer, and Phil Shuler. And he said he thinks it takes time as much as it takes capital equipment to build a winning team.
“There's not a magic potion,” Schumacher said. “And if you know that, get in and hit the gas, let the guys do their job. They'll figure it out. I know that we'll be champs again. And I know that we'll win races.”
The Quest to Slow Gaige Gerrera
Eddie Krawiec, with four Pro Stock Motorcycle championships and 49 victories that make him second most successful in the class statistically, has tried for nearly two years to record that milestone 50th. He said he isn’t worried, isn’t even keeping track of personal numbers. But he’s aware he’s on the brink of the career achievement.
This year, he—like all of his class’ competitors—is trying to figure out how to stop his own Vance & Hines teammate, trophy-hogging Gaige Herrera, who has won six of the eight races in 2023.
Kalitta, Salinas Overdue
Top Fuel veteran Doug Kalitta has gone winless for nearly three years, since his Oct. 4, 2020, fourth victory at World Wide Technology Raceway, near St. Louis. But when the next triumph comes, it’ll be his 50th. He’s hoping it would be a fitting 59th birthday present to himself Sunday. This Brainerd race will be Kalitta’s 580th, most in the Top Fuel category.
Surely drag-racing fans and Mike Salinas himself expected more impressive results from Mike Salinas this year after he finished fifth in the championship last year with four victories. Salinas was third in the final standings in 2021, as well. He did win the Gatornationals to open the season, but now sits eighth place in the standings. He does have a pair of No. 1 qualifiers but otherwise has been silent since March. He brings a 12-12 race-day record in eliminations into Brainerd—and “mediocre” isn’t a word normally associated with Salinas.
Back Door into the Countdown
NHRA rules allow any racer outside the top 10 to enter the Countdown if he/she competes at every event on the schedule and makes at least two passes.
This year, in the Funny Car class, current No. 11 placeholder Blake Alexander, the Norwalk winner, will not be among the Countdown qualifiers, although No. 12 Alex Laughlin will, because of the show-up-and-you're-in rule.
Meanwhile, Alexis De Joria, John Force, Chad Green, and Cruz Pedregon all will make the top-10, and none of them has won a race this year.
On TV
Television coverage of the Camping World Drag Racing Series will start on FS1 at 8 p.m. (ET) Friday and continue at 1 p.m. Sunday on FS1. Eliminations coverage will begin at 4 p.m. Sunday on FOX.
