Features | Preview | Results

QUALIFYING SESSIONS RECAPS

PRO STOCK Q3 (2:10 p.m.): No. 1 qualifier Jason Line showed the way again, running a 6.534 that did not move him up the order but did earn the points leader three more points. In this session, Vincent Nobile had the second-best time with a 6.542, then it was Shane Gray at 6.548. Greg Anderson, who remained No. 2 thanks to his 6.52 from Q2, was left out of the bonus points after slowing to a 6.550. One driver who improved this session was Chris McGaha, whose 6.553 moved him from the bottom half of the field to the top half.

TOP FUEL Q3 (2:30 p.m.): Neither Leah Pritchett or Tony Schumacher made it to the finish line under power to repeat their field-leading Friday mid-3.60s (ironically, both ran 3.81, at just about 250 mph on aborted passes), but Antron Brown was in repeat mode with a 3.679 to back up his 3.689 from yesterday, yet remained in the No. 3 spot. Steve Torrence ran a get-well 3.684 after being mired in the mid-3.70s here and in Pomona and jumped to fourth behind the trio above and ahead of Troy Coughlin Jr., the fifth driver to run in the 3.60s here.

FUNNY CAR Q3 (3:05 p.m.): Ron Capps was quickest of the third round of qualifying, posting a 3.847 that moved him up to third entering the final session. Capps’ Don Schumacher Racing teammates Jack Beckman and Matt Hagan also earned bonus points after respective runs of 3.869 and 3.870. Also of note during the third session, J.R. Todd recorded the first 3.8-second run of his career in a flopper, driving the DHL entry to a 3.889, which has him seventh entering the final session.

PRO STOCK Q4 (4:30 p.m.): Jason Line wrapped up a near-perfect qualifying effort, pacing the field for the third straight session (he was second-best in the opening round). Line ran a 6.535 that was .006-second better than Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Vincent Nobile, who put matching 6.541s on the scoreboards. Coughlin got the higher spot on the speed tiebreaker, 211.30 to 210.21. Line’s teammate, Greg Anderson, again finished just outside of the “little points,” with his 6.546.

First-round pairings (lane choice first): Jason Line vs. Val Smeland; Greg Anderson vs. Kenny Delco; Tanner Gray vs. Alan Prusiensky; Vincent Nobile vs. Matt Hartford; Jeg Coughlin Jr. vs. Allen Johnson; Bo Butner vs. Deric Kramer; Shane Gray vs. Erica Enders; Chris McGaha vs. Drew Skillman

TOP FUEL Q4 (4:45 p.m.): Antron Brown snatched the No. 2 qualifying spot away from teammate Tony Schumacher by matching "the Sarge's" Friday 3,667 but at faster speed (328.78 vs. 323.89), but couldn’t catch their other teammate Leah Pritchett’s 3.658, making for a 1-2-3 Don Schumacher Racing dominance at the top of the sheets and a first-round for Pritchett. Pritchett, low qualifier also in Pomona, is the first female to qualify No. 1 at back-to-back events since Shirley Muldowney in 1989.

First-round pairings (lane choice first): Leah Pritchett vs. bye; Antron Brown vs. Steve Chrisman; Tony Schumacher vs. Terry Haddock; Steve Torrence vs. Steve Faria; Doug Kalitta vs. Shawn Reed; Troy Coughlin Jr. vs. Scott Palmer; Brittany Force vs. Terry McMillen; Clay Millican vs. Troy Buff.

FUNNY CAR Q4 (5:25 p.m.): Tommy Johnson Jr. reset the Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park e.t. record, running a 3.837, the fifth-quickest run in history, to qualify No. 1. That run bumped Courtney Force, who did not improve on her 3.838 from Friday, to second. Ron Capps jumped up to the third spot after running a 3.839 that matched Matt Hagan’s Friday best. Capps got the higher spot on the speed tiebreaker, 333.58 to 329.67. Capps’ speed tied the 10th fastest run in history and reset the track speed mark.

First-round pairings (lane choice first): Tommy Johnson Jr. vs. Phil Burkart Jr.; Courtney Force vs. Jim Campbell; Ron Capps vs. Jeff Arend; Matt Hagan vs. Cruz Pedregon; Tim Wilkerson vs. John Force; Jack Beckman vs. Gary Densham; J.R. Todd vs. Alexis DeJoria; Del Worsham vs. Robert Hight

FEATURES

Despite all the attention shining on her after her victory at the Circle K NHRA Winternationals and Friday’s national-record 3.765 pass. Leah Pritchett continues to maintain a cool demeanor and level head about her successes and to turn the spotlight on her crew, led by Todd Okuhara and Joe Barlam.

“Man, it's fun. I won't lie,” she admitted. “It's nice to say your team is the quickest in the world, but there are other drivers like my teammates who are not very far behind us. The confidence I have in this car, thanks to Todd and Joe, puts me in a confident place that I’ve never been before and able to focus more on my Tree, because I’ll say it right now: Race are going to be won and lost on the Tree because of how close everyone is behind me.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to [all of the attention, because I used to be that person, a fan keeping track of low qualifying times and trying to get their autograph. I thought over time that would go away, but it hasn’t. When people talk about me and what I’ve done, I want to find a way to shed a light on my crew, because they’re the ones who really make 90 percent of this happen."

She's also savvy enough to know that the good times won't go on indefinitely.

"When we ran that .65 in testing and to go that quick again is a whole new realm," she acknowledged, "but at some point everyone will catch up or I will make a mistake – that’s human nature – but right now we’re focused on not doing that for as long as possible.”

Before Leah Pritchett busted up the party last year with her Top Fuel win, Antron Brown had been the even-year winner at the event, scoring in 2012 and 2014 and DSR teammate Tony Schumacher the odd-year guy, winning in 2013 and 2015, but Brown would be just as happy to get back in the win column in this “odd” year, and has a real affection for Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park.

“It’s a lot of fun coming back to Phoenix,” Brown said. “We always get excited when we come here. I distinctly remember a lot of special things happening at this place and I expect that to continue here this weekend. For the weather we have, these are the kind of ideal conditions so we start smiling and licking our chops. This is one of the few tracks where you get to run really hard and really strong at it. When it's like this, this place is Disneyland and dreamworld and [today] we want to make some dreams come true.”

Prior to the event, Brown spent time with more than 1,700 Matco Tools distributors at the annual Matco Tools Expo in New Orleans, where he unveiled the 2017 Matco Tools dragster featuring the names of distributors that will ride with him on each lap this season.

Brown and crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald ran 3.689 Friday for the No. 3 spot, and they know they’ll need more of them to claim the race title this year.

“One thing we learned at Pomona is that the .60s are here to stay,” said Brown. “If you want to have a car to win, you have to run in the 60s.”

Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park has not traditionally been kind to Steve Torrence. After all, it was at this event in 2013 that he suffered one of his four career DNQs. He’s also never even made it to the final round here. A 3.69 during Nitro Spring Training three weeks ago was a positive sign, but it didn’t take long for those good vibes to evaporate. The Capco team entered Saturday sitting on Friday runs of 3.76 and 3.75, which might feel good if Leah Pritchett hadn’t run 3.65 and, in the process, stolen their 3.67 national record.

Crew chief Richard Hogan was at a loss Saturday morning to explain the car’s current lack of performance.

“We ran that the 3.69 in testing, on an early shutoff pass, then went to Pomona and all we could run were mid-3.70s,” he said. “3.75s aren’t good for [anything] any more. We’re just slow everywhere -- 60-foot, the 60/330-foot split, halftrack speed -- and we’re not sure why. It just takes off and doesn’t go anywhere. We ran 394 [mph] at halftrack in testing and the best we’ve done here is 390. The 60-foots have come around a little – we were .840s in Pomona and usually we’re .820s; here we’re mid-.830s – so we’re still juggling stuff around trying to find out what the problem is. We’re changing both the tune-up and clutch package. We’re going to do some of the testing today that we had planned to do Monday, because with 15 cars we’re already in the field, but unless someone shakes or smokes against us on Sunday, a 3 .75 is not going to get it.”

Hogan, Bobby Lagana Jr., and crew obviously fixed that problem in Q3, going .820 to the 60-foot and almost 294 mph at the eighth-mile, and breathed a sigh of relief after a stout 3.684 flashed onto the scoreboard, good for the No. 4 spot.

It’s been a rough two days for Terry Haddock. The plucky Texan’s lone run Friday ended before it began as he found that he had no brakes at the end of his burnout and had to drive on through without staging. His Q3 hopes Saturday were dashed when a bad ignition ground prevented the car from firing on time. By the time his crew got the engine lit, NHRA Chief Starter Mike Gittings had already DQ’d him, but, due to a misunderstanding, he rolled up, staged, and took the Tree, thinking he needing to do at least that to get a spot on the qualifying sheets, but NHRA officials informed him that the run did not count.

Haddock did make it back for Q4, and powered to an earnly-shutoff 4.29 to earn an official spot in the field.

“It’s been a tough two weeks,” said Haddock, who qualified at the Winternationals but at the expense of an engine he couldn’t afford to lose. “We just need to keep trying.”

Expect to see Haddock back in the Funny Car class later this season – perhaps as early as Houston – but he’ll continue the season in Top Fuel with his Back The Blue 2016 dragster while he awaits a new Funny Car, which will center around a John Force Racing-built chassis. 

“The new car’s not quite ready and I’m not going to bring it out until I can run with these guys,” said Haddock. “We’ll probably run the first four events in Top Fuel, then stay and test after Las Vegas. If everything goes well, we’ll run Houston. I’m not going to rush this and do it wrong. I can’t afford to run my car as hard as [other teams] do, but we think with the parts I have we can run 4-flat consistently, but I can’t afford to tear stuff up. Hopefully as we’ll run OK and attract some attention and get some [financial] help.”
 

Matt Hagan is paying tribute to his younger brother, Kyle, who unexpectedly passed away last month, with a special-edition helmet that features a portrait of his brother painted by Polen Designs.

“He was 33 years old and he’s gone,” said Hagan. “You’ve got to take life and really realize how special every moment is. So I think that when I’m crawling into the race car this year I’m not going to take anything for granted and not just go through the motions. It just means a lot more to me now knowing that it can be gone tomorrow.

“I wanted to do something special on my lid this year to honor my brother and all of the memories we made together. Polen Designs did a wonderful job, and I was at a loss for words when I saw it.”

One of the surprises entering today’s final two qualifying sessions was the fact that reigning world champion and last year’s No. 1 qualifier at this event Ron Capps was mired down in 13th after recording a best of 4.22. However, there was a reason for the Friday struggles for Capps and crew. Much like they did in Pomona, the Rahn Tobler-led team used Friday as a bit of a test session, trying out a new clutch setup. After struggling with that setup and not making a full pull on either attempt yesterday, Capps’ crew went back to the tried-and-true setup that made them so tough in the Countdown to the Championship at the end of last year. That paid immediate dividends because Capps blasted to a 3.847 that was the best run of the third session and moved him all the way up third in the order.

J.R. Todd became the latest driver to join the 3.8-second club when he posted a 3.889 during the third round of qualifying.

“The car is definitely more than capable of up there at the front with the other cars, you know running those low- to mid-3.8s,” said Todd. “We struggled all through testing and even in qualifying in Pomona. We found an ignition problem that just plagued us, so we’re pretty much runs behind everybody to get started off this year, but the DHL guys are getting a handle on it. Going into today, they said they were going to tune it up some more because we needed to to be competitive with these guys out here, so 3.88 is going in the right direction. We just wanted to put a 3.8-anything on the board to get it out of the way, and now we can go up there and stand on it again for Q4 and see what it does.”

Though Matt Hartford certainly looks forward to any weekend spent at a racetrack, the NHRA Arizona Nationals weekend is one he considers a favorite. The reason? Hartford hails from nearby Scottsdale, Ariz., making it a home game for him that draws many friends and family out to support him.

“This is great,” said Hartford. “You know, I’ve got all the guys from Total Seal out here this weekend. The president and owner, Joey Moriarty, is out here with us. It’s a blessing to be out here with all these guys.”

Hartford had a mixed Friday, shaking the tires on his first attempt then running a 6.58 that left him 12th at day's end. On his first run of Saturday, Hartford recorded a steady 6.59.

Chris McGaha turned a lot of heads Friday when he recorded a .958 60-foot time on his Q2 pass (by comparison, Jason Line was .951 to 60 feet, and Greg Anderson was .957). Though McGaha and his team have been working hard to get a better 60-foot time, McGaha said the number even surprised him, noting he found it odd when the cameras followed him after the run when Shane Gray, who ran next to him, was a little quicker at the finish line.

“[We’ve been working on the 60-foot time] for like a year because last year we couldn’t get past 1-flat. Obviously, we’ve fixed that,” said McGaha. “The rest of it needs to be fixed now. You think you know what it is, then you don’t. In Pomona when [KB Racing] went .953, we went .970, and when we came back, I looked at it. I didn’t even know they had done that yet, and I went, ‘Wow, I could probably go .955 or .956 if I fix this,’ then I get the slip and see that they’d gone .953, and I’m like, ‘OK.’ I guess we stepped on it yesterday, and it happened.

“This is a step [in the right direction]. It can help. When you don’t have enough power, that’s what you have to do; you have to kill the front part. That’s the first part of killing the front part, getting the 60 foot.”

McGaha continued to improve in the third round of qualifying, running a 6.55 that moved him up several spots. His 60-foot time on that run was .964, which matched the 60-foot time of pacesetter Line.

Vincent Nobile made the second-best run of the third session, but there was a bit of drama before that blister 6.54-second pass due to a problem at the end of the burnout that delayed him backing up to make the run.

“It ended up stalling on me,” said Nobile. “We don’t really know why. We looked back, and there was really no reason, but it started back up, and I was able to back up and had no other issues. Honestly, my guys didn’t even know what happened because on the starting line, you can’t hear that far out. I stopped. I told them, ‘Guys, I stalled. Just give me a second. Let me reset everything,’ and there were no issues.

“I’m really happy with the car. We’re probably the most consistent car out here this weekend. We could almost bracket race in Top Sportsman. I think we went 6.542, 6.540, and a 6.542. That last run we were second quickest; can’t complain about that. Now, we’ve just got to stay consistent and keep going up and down the racetrack.”

Alan Prusiensky is have a weekend of career-best runs. After admittedly missing it on his first attempt of the weekend, Prusiensky has reset his career-best e.t. every time he has gone down the track since. He bettered his previous 6.615 best by .001-second in Q2, then lowered it to 6.606 in the third session before joining the 6.5s on his final qualifying pass, wheeling his ’16 Dart to a 6.599.

“Every round we’ve gotten faster,” said Prusiensky. “Every run we’ve made the right calls. We’ll see if we what we can do tomorrow. It’s pretty exciting every round to do a career best.”

The Mello Yello autograph session once again invited fans to get up close and personal with some of the stars of the series, including J.R. Todd, Troy Coughlin Jr., Matt Hagan, Allen Johnson, and Leah Pritchett.

“Fast Jack” Beckman and NHRA announcer Alan Reinhart taught Nitro School to the fans, sharing with them the intricacies of running a nitro-burning car in the Mello Yello Series.

Once again, the pits at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park were jammed with fans checking out the cars and the stars of the NHRA.

The grandstands were also packed to near capacity as Arizona fans took advantage of comfortable temperatures and a great racetrack to watch the drama of final qualifying.
 

Jet dragsters once again closed out the day, putting on a huge fire and smoke show for the fans.

PREVIEW

The stage is set for the final two qualifying sessions of the NHRA Arizona Nationals to set the fields for Sunday’s final eliminations, and as fantastic as Friday’s opening day was, teams are expecting even more.

In Top Fuel, Leah Pritchett made the quickest run in class history, a 3.658, alongside teammate Tony Schumacher, who ran 3.667, the third quickest pass ever. Four drivers ran in the 3.60s at a track that had never seen even one prior to this event. The battle for the No. 1 spot will be hard-fought as the No. 1 qualifier will get a bye in Sunday’s first round.

As it was in Top Fuel, the Funny Cars broke the track record on multiple occasions. There had never been a single official 3.8-second here, and yesterday the teams combined to make 10 of them, led by Courtney Force, whose 3.838 was the fifth quickest in class history. Three weeks ago here she ran 3.804; can she get there today? Or into the 3.70s?

In Pro Stock, the KB Racing duo of Jason Line and Greg Anderson again front the pack, as they did at the season opener in Pomona. Winternationals winner Line made the quickest pass under the new EFI rules introduced last year, a 6.509, to lead the charge. Behind them is impressive rookie Tanner Gray, looking to get his first No. 1 at just his second event.

The first Mello Yello qualifying session kicks off with Pro Stock at 1:30 p.m. Mountain time (3:30 p.m. Eastern).