NHRA Pros at Charlotte

Matt Hagan begins to fall behind early in the run.  (Ron Lewis photo)

And is out of the picture at the end. (Ron Lewis photo)

Don Schumacher Racing's Ron Capps won his second NHRA title in eight days on Sunday when his NAPA team Powered by Pennzoil and led by crew chief Rahn Tobler won the Four-Wide Nationals and took over the championship points lead after the sixth event of the year.

In the final Capps’s Charger ran 3.933/322.65 to defeat DSR teammates Jack Beckman (3.959/320.05) and an up-in-smoke Matt Hagan (8.820/93.67) and J.R. Todd (4.103/307.72).

(Ron Lewis photo)

Capps disagrees with some of the other racers about the four-wide format.

“Some of these drivers are saying that they don’t like it,” Capps said. “They can stay home next time. This is a fun race. This is a fun event. It changes everything, your mentality, the way you approach the track, the way you approach each round. There aren’t very many times you see that many drivers pop out of the car at the other end of the track and all smiling, win or lose. It’s just an exciting race.”

Del Worsham (Chris Haverly photo)

Before the beginning of the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello season, two-time NHRA champion Del Worsham left Kalitta Motorsports to rejoin his family-owned team Worsham Racing. Now he’s going up against the multi-car super teams as a single-car team that is still in the process of being rebuilt.

At zMax Worsham qualified 11th with his Lucas Oil Toyota Camry Funny Car. Unfortunately, the 2015 Four-Wide runner-up placed fourth in his first-round match up against John Force, Ron Capps, and Chad Head subbing for Alexis DeJoria.

Chad Head, who last year drove a Funny Car for his father, Jim Head, returned to the driver’s seat of the Tequila Patron Toyota Camry this week as regular driver Alexis DeJoria dealt with some family issues. At zMax he finished third in the quad that also contained John Force, Ron Capps, and Del Worsham. (Ron Lewis photo)

Jim Campbell gets a last look by team owner/tuner Jim Dunn. He was defeated in the first round.  (Chris Haverly photo)

Robert Hight  (Chris Haverly photo)

Robert Hight set the quickest elapsed time for Funny Cars in Sunday’s Four-Wide Nationals at, but came up short in his bid for a third title in the unique race.  He ran Low ET of 3.884 second at 327.66 mph in the first round against Jack Beckman, who advanced, and Tommy Johnson Jr. and Jim Campbell were out.

Because the Low ET gave him lane choice, Hight took Lane 1 for the second round, which he hoped would launch him into the finals. But the car dropped a cylinder immediately when Hight hit the throttle, and he pedaled the car to the finish.

PRO STOCK

Chris McGaha got his first win at zMax Dragway defeating Greg Anderson and Shane Gray in the final. Drew Skillman turned on the red light to take himself out of the final-round competition.

McGaha’s Harlow Sammons Camaro ran 6.591/210.44 to 6.614/209.56 for Anderson and 6.648/209.33 for Gray. This was McGaha’s fifth career win.

“I’ve always said you’ve got to have power to win in this game,” McGaha said. “This one showed us we have a lot of power and that’s why we came here.”

Erica Enders  (Ron Lewis photo)

Erica Enders never got a chance to flex the horsepower of her Elite Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro Sunday at zMax Dragway because she was timed-out at the starting line after taking too long to stage. It's one of the hazards of the annual NHRA Four-Wide Nationals and every year someone seems to get bitten.

"For Jeg and I to qualify 1-2 on the ladder, run the kind of numbers we have run here, I would have bet the house that we'd be fighting for the trophy at the end of the day. At the very least we should have won our opening-round races,” Enders said.

"It just goes to show that even the best in the world have off days and today, Jeg and I did not rise to the occasion. He's a six-time world champ and I've won two championships. Both of us are known for being sharp at the Tree. We just didn't show it today."

Jeg Coughlin Jr.  (Chris Haverly photo)

Coughlin posted the quickest pass of the eighth annual NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in the opening round of Sunday's eliminations but it was all for naught after a strange starting line miscue caused him to leave more than half a second after his three opponents.

"I'm not really upset," Coughlin said. "It's just the complexity of the four-wide format. The staging procedure is extremely important and once all four of us were pre-staged I started the count in my head. About that time, I saw Lane 3 (No. 16 qualifier John Gaydosh) take the pre-stage light out so I figured his front-end was in the light and he was going to be fully staged within a matter of a second. What I didn't realize was that he had rolled clean through both beams.

After his regrettable .633-second reaction time, Coughlin zipped down Lane 4 of zMax Dragway and posted a 6.568 at 209.52 mph, proving the best car doesn't always win on race day.

Dodge Dart drivers Allen Johnson (shown), Alan Prusiensky, and Deric Kramer were all eliminated in the first round.  (Ron Lewis photo)

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE

Scotty Pollacheck (far lane) left way too early.  (Ron Lewis photo)

LE Tonglet rode his Nitro Fish Racing Suzuki to a 6.864 at 195.00 pass to earn his 10th career victory and first of the season.

“It’s just unbelievable what we’ve come through this weekend alone,” Tonglet stated. “With the four-wides you just have to be prepared for anything. You just have to concentrate because if you lose your train of thought it’s going to be bad.”

This was the first victory for Tonglet since joining the White Alligator Racing headed by Pro Stock Motorcycle world champion Jerry Savoie. Savoie was out in the first round.

The third qualifying round saw Savoie’s bike bitten by the curse of new bodywork. His brand new Suzuki TL1000 body was hit by a chunk of something on the track that made his run squirrelly, punched a hole in the body, and slowed his pass.

In the final round, three of the riders had problems with the tree: Pollacheck left before the tree came down and both Eddie Krawiec and Andrew Hines had way-late ET’s, .317 for Krawiec and .402 for Hines. Tonglet’s RT was just .071, which made all the difference.