What to Watch, Who's In Line for NHRA Championships at Pomona Finals

First-year NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Funny Car driver Austin Prock will clinch his class’ title by simply making his first qualifying pass Friday at this weekend’s In-N-Out Burger Finals at Pomona Dragstrip.

The rest of the weekend is not quite as simple, as the NHRA possibly will crown three first-time series champions in the weekend's season-ending event at the famed Southern California racetrack.

Here's where things stand in the four pro classes:

Top Fuel

Top Fuel leader Justin Ashley is seeking his first crown, trying to fend of 2013 champion Shawn Langdon and three-timer Antron Brown, who, respectively, are lurking 44 and 45 points behind. Doug Kalitta, the reigning champion, and four-time Top Fuel dominator Steve Torrence are tied for fourth place, 85 points off the pace in this last of 20 events that awards points and a half during qualifying and eliminations.

Langdon is eager to go after Ashley, whom he beat in the quarterfinals at Las Vegas two weeks ago by.0027 seconds in an epic battle of title contenders with the best reputations for launching quickly. In the Las Vegas semifinals, he was cruising to an easy pass into the finals against Kalitta, who had an engine let go, but his dragster veered over the center line, ran over a scoring cone and cut a tire, and tested his driving skill to keep it from smashing into the wall. That ended in a disqualification.

“It’s a long process to get the car back together. We got the car in the trailer and left Las Vegas the next morning. The guys drove straight through to Indy,” Langdon said. There Precision Built Race Cars worked 51 hours fix it, with help from competitor Josh Hart’s team. Langdon said, “It was actually pretty cool, pretty humbling, how great the sport is in times like that. It was a lot of work for a lot of people, which was unfortunate.

"Nobody said anything other than, ‘We’ll get this car ready for Pomona to go win that championship!’ That’s some incredible support from my Kalitta Air Careers team. I still can’t help feeling like crap that I put them in this position, but we are all 100 percent focused on going to Pomona and winning the championship. There’s no other option.”

He said, “If we can gain 16 points on Justin in qualifying, we can cut it within one round going into race day. If we can get an opportunity to nip it down less than a round, we’re going to try to take full advantage of it. If we can’t, then we’ll just have to go two more rounds on Sunday. Like Brian [crew chief Husen] says, we just have to trust the process.”

Funny Car

In Funny Car, Prock has a 188-point advantage over John Force Racing teammate Jack Beckman.

Here's the rub. A perfect weekend (event winner, top qualifier, top ET in each of the four qualifying sessions, and the 15 entrant points just for making one pass) is worth 191 points. Prock gets 15 just by showing up for the first qualifying session—after that first qualifying pass, he'll get the trophy.

Both Prock and Beckman are substitute drivers this season—Prock for three-time champion Robert Hight, who’s on medical leave, and Beckman for 16-time champion boss John Force, who’s recovering from a racing accident. The John Force Racing organization is poised to celebrate its 21st Funny Car title.

“I always loved going to Southern California as a kid and I still feel that same way,” Prock said. “I had a lot of success here in Top Fuel (advancing to the final round in four of seven appearances with a victory at the 2022 Finals), and maybe that will translate to the Funny Car. It’s been an amazing year, but there’s still work to do.

“I loved running the Top Fuel car,” he said, “but Funny Car is where I belong. I always dreamed of driving one like my grandpa [1970s match-race-era ace Tom Prock], and I’m loving every second of it. I love the challenge of these cars. I love sitting behind the engine. I love the body dropping. And to top it off, I'm doing it with my family.” His father, Jimmy, is his crew chief, and brother Thomas is an assistant crew chief with Nate Hildahl.

Prock owns the class record of 14 No. 1 starts, and he has advanced to 11 final rounds with eight victories and the quickest elapsed time during eliminations at 13 different events. He also has clocked the two quickest times since 2017 (3.814 at St. Louis, 3.813 at Dallas), both just off the national record of 3.793 seconds set by his predecessor Hight.

Pro Stock

Veteran Greg Anderson, in third place, is trying to make up a 56-point gap to earn a sixth Pro Stock championship. But he’s battling Elite Motorsports’ young shoe Aaron Stanfield and his own KB Racing colleague Dallas Glenn.

Stanfield moved into the lead with his victory at Las Vegas. He replaced Glenn, who is ranked No. 2 with a 32-point margin to overcome. Both Glenn and Stanfield are eyeing a first championship.

Pro Stock Motorcycle

The Pro Stock Motorcycle category once again has been a Gaige Herrera show, although six-time champion Matt Smith is furiously trying to erase the Vance & Hines Suzuki juggernaut’s 123-point cushion. He knows it’ll be a tall order to upset the defending champion Herrera, who in just his third season has won 10 races and 21 overall.

It won't take much for Herrera to close out the field and there's a possibility he locks away the title before Sunday's eliminations.

The Mission Foods Drag Racing Series will feature two qualifying rounds (1 and 3:30 p.m. PT) Friday and two more Saturday (11:30 a.m., 2 p.m.) Final eliminations will begin at 11 a.m. Sunday. Television coverage includes qualifying action on FS1 at 10 a.m. ET Sunday, with live eliminations to air on FS1 at 4 p.m. ET Sunday.

Points Format for Pomona

Even the NHRA would have to admit the points formula in the series is not exactly a fan-friendly one. It's not something you can explain to a fan during a quick stop at the water cooler.

What we can share is that a perfect weekend—winning the event, qualifying first in class, turning in the low ET in each of four qualifying rounds and simply making a run—is 186 points.

Here's what it looks like:

Elimination Rounds Points

• Event winner: 150

• Event runner-up: 120

• Third-round loser: 90

• Second-round loser: 60

• First round loser: 30

Qualifying Position Points

• No. 1 qualifier: 10

• No. 2 qualifier: 9

• No. 3 qualifier: 8

• No. 4 qualifier: 7

• Nos. 5 and 6 qualifiers: 6

• Nos. 7 and 8 qualifiers: 5

• Nos. 9 through 12 qualifiers: 4

• Nos. 13 through 16 qualifiers: 3

Low ET In Each Qualifying Round Points

• Lowest ET in each round: 4

• Second-quickest in each round: 3

• Third-quickest in each round: 2

• Fourth-quickest in each round: 1

Contestant Entry Points

• All entrants who make at least one qualifying run: 15