2026 NHRA U.S. Nationals Results: Langdon, Beckman, Glenn, Smith and Gray Win the Big Go

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Winners, 2026 Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals

Every Wally handed out at the 72nd running of the Big Go, Sept. 2 through 7, 2026, at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. Professional final round data is winner elapsed time and speed. Every winner took home a commemorative 75th anniversary diamond Wally.

Professional

Photography by NHRA.

Specialty

Sportsman

Every winner this weekend took home a 75th anniversary diamond Wally. Beckman swept the weekend for John Force Racing, winning the Callout on Sunday and the Big Go on Monday. Matt and Angie Smith gave Pro Stock Motorcycle a husband and wife final round at Indianapolis. Scott Taylor became the first Outlaw Street winner in U.S. Nationals history and the class’s first repeat winner.

Final Regular Season Standings and the Countdown Field

The regular season is over and the Countdown field is set. Indy paid a point and a half, 150 points to the winner instead of 100, and three of the four professional titles were still live when the cars staged Monday morning. Two of them changed hands on the racetrack. The regular season championship paid $150,000 in Top Fuel and Funny Car, $55,000 in Pro Stock and $15,000 in Pro Stock Motorcycle. Points reset for the six race Countdown to the Championship, which opened Sept. 18 through 20 at U.S. 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan.

The top 10 in each professional class carried into the playoffs. Standings below are final through the U.S. Nationals.

The 2026 regular season champions

Four titles, and three of them were still live when the cars staged Monday morning. Two changed hands on the racetrack.

Final regular season points, all five classes

Top 10 in each Mission Foods professional class made the Countdown. Pro Modified runs its own Road to the Championship and does not reset at Martin.

Top Fuel

Funny Car

Pro Stock

Pro Stock Motorcycle

Steve Johnson took the 10th and final Pro Stock Motorcycle Countdown spot at 358, with Jianna Evaristo eighth on points earned before her injury.

JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Modified

Indy was stop two of the five race Road to the Championship, behind Norwalk, with Rockingham, St. Louis and Las Vegas to follow. Justin Bond left Indianapolis with the lead by seven over Mike Stavrinos.

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Final Qualifying Orders

The closing qualifying order in all five professional classes. Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle ran five sessions Friday through Sunday. Pro Modified ran four. Round one ladders are in the eliminations section.

Top Fuel, final qualifying

Shawn Langdon qualified No. 1 at 3.727, 334.98. He ran it in the first session Friday night and nobody touched it in the four that followed. Tony Stewart is second at 3.744 and Doug Kalitta third at 3.746, on the quickest qualifying speed of the weekend at 335.82. Langdon took the No. 1 qualifying position points and opened Monday against the bump car.

The final session did not change the field. Leah Pruett ran the quickest lap at 3.799 and took the four bonus points, Tripp Tatum went 3.807 for three, Justin Ashley 3.824 for two and Maddi Gordon 3.825 for one. Will Smith improved to 3.828 and moved from 15th to 14th, the only change inside the show. Clay Millican held the bump at 3.844 on the number he ran Saturday afternoon, and the field closed covered by .117 with all 16 cars in the threes.

Tony Schumacher missed it by .039. He went 3.883 in Q5, his best run of the weekend, and finished 19th. Ten U.S. Nationals wins, more than any driver in history, and he watched Monday from the pits at the racetrack where he made his Top Fuel debut 30 years ago, in a car carrying the Peek Brothers tribute scheme honoring the people who put him in it.

Outside the field: Jake Sanders (3.862), Dan Mercier (3.873), Tony Schumacher (3.883), Krista Baldwin (3.887), Lex Joon (4.823), Jacob Opatrny (11.406).

Six cars went home from a 22 car entry. Sanders was .018 outside the bump and Mercier .029 out. Baldwin, Joon and Opatrny never got close. Sanders, Mercier and Schumacher were all in the show after Q3 and all three were run out of it Sunday.

Funny Car, final qualifying

Ron Capps qualified No. 1 at 3.914, 332.18. He ran it in Q3 Saturday afternoon and nobody beat it in two more sessions. Austin Prock is second at 3.921 and Jack Beckman third at 3.937 on his Friday night number. Spencer Hyde is fourth at 3.944 in the Jim Head Racing Mustang, the best qualifying position of his career at this race. Nine cars are in the threes and the 16 car field is covered by .175.

The bump closed at 4.089 and it never went into the threes. That was the prediction on the entry list and the racetrack did not give the back half of the class the conditions to do it. John Smith made his first full pass of the weekend in Q4, ran 4.089 and took 16th. Julie Nataas ran the same number in the final session and got back in 15th. Bobby Bode, who was in the show after Q4 at 4.098, is the first alternate. Chris King, who was 15th and in Saturday night, finished 18th. The bump moved every session: 4.713 after Q1, 4.205 after Q2, 4.119 after Q3, 4.098 after Q4, 4.089 at the close.

Outside the field: Bobby Bode (4.098), Chris King (4.112), Blake Alexander (4.115), Dylan Winefsky (4.119), Justin Schriefer (4.124), Dave Richards (4.130), Terry Haddock (4.922).

Seven cars went home from a 23 car entry, the largest Funny Car field of the season. Jordan Vandergriff improved to 3.948 in the final session and moved to seventh. Hunter Green improved to 4.024 and moved to 12th, pushing Paul Lee to 13th.

Pro Stock, final qualifying

Matt Hartford closed it at 6.572, 208.97, his fourth straight session on top. Dallas Glenn and Cody Anderson both went 6.574 and Glenn took second on speed, 208.01 to 207.91. The 16 car field is covered by .074 and the top nine cars are inside .021.

Greg Anderson qualified fifth and Glenn second, which put them on opposite halves of the ladder. They could not meet before the final, and the regular season championship came down to which one got further. Greg Stanfield fell to ninth. Erica Enders, the defending event winner, is sixth with top speed of the class at 209.36. Shane Tucker got back in the show at 12th and Mason McGaha held on at 15th. Deric Kramer missed by .015.

Outside the field: Deric Kramer (6.661), Alan Prusiensky (6.783), David Vaseloff (6.863).

Hartford banked 15 session bonus points across the weekend, the most of any driver in any professional class.

Pro Stock Motorcycle, final qualifying

Matt Smith took the No. 1 spot back in the last session at 6.757, 200.98. It is the only run over 200 mph anybody made in the class all weekend. Gaige Herrera is second at 6.781 and Angie Smith third at 6.787. Smith and Herrera each banked 15 session bonus points, tied for the most in the class.

Richard Gadson qualified fourth and Herrera second, on opposite halves of the ladder. The two Vance & Hines riders racing for the regular season championship could not meet before the final. Steve Johnson and Michael Ray both qualified from outside the field, ninth and 10th. Hector Arana Jr. got in 15th and drew Herrera.

Outside the field: Wesley Wells (7.085), Hector Arana (7.091), Mark Paquette (7.158).

Nineteen bikes entered for 16 spots, the biggest Pro Stock Motorcycle field of the season.

Pro Modified, final qualifying

Justin Bond qualified No. 1 at 5.654, 255.00. Both numbers were low ET and top speed of the meet. J.R. Gray is second at 5.693 and Tony Wilson third at 5.710 in the Willys. The JBS Equipment field ran four sessions across Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning, and the last one moved almost everybody.

The bump ended at 5.815 and it took Mike Castellana with it. Castellana was 10th after Q3 at 5.829 and finished 17th, first alternate by .014. Chip King held the last spot at 5.815, three thousandths off Alex Laughlin. Derek Menholt, the Road to the Championship points leader who spent Saturday outside the field, ran 5.732 in the final session and qualified fifth.

Outside the field: Mike Castellana (5.829), Shane Gray (5.836), Paul Daigrepont (5.875), Jimmy Widener (5.884), Jason Collins (6.858).

Five cars went home from a 21 car entry. Shane Gray made the first full passes of his Pro Mod career and missed the field by .021. Jason Collins, a two time winner in 2026, never got down the racetrack.

Eliminations

Complete. Monday’s four Mission Foods eliminators and Sunday’s Pro Modified eliminator are posted round by round below, followed by the All-Star Funny Car Callout, the round one ladders and the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. Reaction time, elapsed time and speed for each driver.

Monday eliminations, round by round

Every round of every professional eliminator, final round first. Reaction time, elapsed time and speed. Pro Modified ran Sunday afternoon. The other four ran Monday.

Top Fuel

Final

Semifinals

Round 2

Round 1

Langdon qualified No. 1 and never trailed on elapsed time in four rounds. Kalitta ran the two quickest numbers of the meet in round one, a 3.681 at 341.68, and smoked the tires when the championship was on the line. Stewart reached his second straight Indy Top Fuel final.

Funny Car

Final

Semifinals

Round 2

Round 1

Ten of the 16 first round cars ran in the threes and the slowest winning number of the round, Wilkerson’s 3.942, would have qualified fourth. Both semifinals went to a car that stayed on the racetrack. Beckman never ran slower than 3.965 all day.

Pro Stock

Final

Semifinals

Round 2

Round 1

Coughlin won three rounds on holeshots, taking out Chris Vang, Greg Anderson and Matt Hartford, then left first again in the final and lost by three hundredths. Glenn was quicker than every opponent he faced.

Pro Stock Motorcycle

Final

Semifinals

Round 2

Round 1

Matt Smith was the only rider over 200 mph all weekend and did it again in the semifinal at 200.26. The semifinals produced the two closest races of the day, with Angie Smith beating Herrera by two thousandths.

Pro Modified

Final

Semifinals

Round 2

Round 1

Bond had low ET and top speed of the meet, 5.654 and 255.00, and lost the final by six hundredths. Gray qualified second and won the race from the right lane in the final. Rickie Smith, the No. 11 qualifier, lost round one to Billy Banaka despite running the quicker number, 5.696 to 5.743, on a .053 starting line deficit.

NHRA All-Star Funny Car Callout

Jack Beckman won the All-Star Funny Car Callout from the No. 1 seed. He went through Chad Green, J.R. Todd and Matt Hagan across three rounds run inside Sunday’s qualifying sessions, and he did it without ever needing to be the quickest car in the round. Roughly $80,000 went with it. It was the first half of a weekend sweep.

Beckman gave up the starting line in the final and won on the other end. Hagan left .026 quicker, .042 to .068, then slowed to a 4.290 at 227.19 while Beckman drove past with a 3.980 at 323.19. Beckman ran 3.9 in both of the rounds that mattered and did it in the PEAK Chevrolet carrying John Force’s 1996 flames.

Round one took two of the four championship contenders out. Ron Capps smoked the tires against Alexis DeJoria and went 6.820, and Austin Prock slowed to a 4.054 at 285.17 and lost to J.R. Todd’s 3.981. Hagan ran 3.947 at 331.77 to beat Spencer Hyde, the quickest lap of that session, and the same run banked him four qualifying bonus points. The Callout rounds ran inside the Q4 and Q5 windows, so every pass here counted twice.

The Callout paid money, not championship points. Beckman came to Indy 74 out of the Funny Car regular season lead and the Callout did not move it. He closed the gap the next day, on the racetrack, and finished the regular season third.

Round one ladders

Standard NHRA pairing, 1 against 16 on down, off the closing qualifying order in each class.

Top Fuel

Langdon drew Clay Millican, who took the bump Saturday and did not improve on it. Kalitta drew Will Smith, who qualified out of the outside spots in Q4 and improved again in Q5. Justin Ashley and Shawn Reed qualified three thousandths apart and met in round one.

Pro Modified

Bond drew the bump car. Peter Norton and Alex Laughlin qualified on the same number, 5.811, and Laughlin drew the No. 2 car. Rickie Smith, a two time NHRA Pro Mod champion, qualified 11th and drew Billy Banaka. Derek Menholt, the Road to the Championship points leader, climbed from outside the field to fifth in the final session and drew Kevin Rivenbark.

Funny Car

Capps qualified No. 1 at 3.914 and drew John Smith, who got in 16th on his first full pass of the weekend. Julie Nataas ran 4.089 in the final session and put herself back in the show at 15th, against Austin Prock. Bobby Bode was the first alternate at 4.098 and Chris King finished 18th. The five drivers still alive for the regular season title were seeded 1 Capps, 3 Beckman, 5 Hagan, 7 Vandergriff and 10 Todd. Capps and Hagan sat in the same half of the ladder and met in the semifinals, which is where the championship was decided.

Pro Stock

Hartford closed qualifying at 6.572, his fourth straight session on top, and the 16 car field was covered by .074. Greg Anderson and Dallas Glenn drew opposite halves of the ladder and could not meet before the final, which was the pairing that would have decided the regular season title. It never happened: Anderson lost round two. Greg Stanfield fell to ninth and drew Eric Latino. Deric Kramer was the first alternate at 6.661.

Pro Stock Motorcycle

Matt Smith took the No. 1 spot back in the final session at 6.757, 200.98, the only run over 200 mph in the class all weekend. Gaige Herrera qualified second and Richard Gadson fourth, so the two riders racing for the regular season title sat on opposite halves and could not meet before the final. Hector Arana Jr. got in 15th and drew Herrera. Hector Arana was the first alternate at 7.091.

Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge

The last bonus race of the season ran Saturday, two rounds inside the qualifying sessions, and it produced the story of the weekend in Pro Stock.

Cody Anderson won the first race of any kind in his Pro Stock career, and his father clinched the season long Challenge championship in the same round he lost. Greg Anderson went into Saturday tied with KB Titan teammate Dallas Glenn in the Challenge standings. He ran 6.648 in round one against Greg Stanfield, was quicker, and lost anyway: Stanfield left with a .017 to Anderson’s .055 and took it on a holeshot, 6.672 to 6.648. The point Anderson banked for showing up to the round was the point that broke the tie. It is his second straight #2Fast2Tasty championship.

Two lanes over, Cody was beating Chris Vang in a round where both cars ran 6.668 and the margin was six thousandths. In the final he left on Stanfield, .020 to .049, and drove to a 6.642 at 204.91 against a 6.645. Stanfield had just knocked off the winningest driver in the history of the class, and the kid beat him on the tree.

“Greg Stanfield is a bad dude,” says Cody Anderson. “He’s very hard to beat, and to be able to do that is a real honor. To be able to leave on Greg Stanfield is a big deal, and to get two win lights is a huge confidence boost. Hopefully, I can keep the momentum going.”

“It’s such a cool deal that Mission puts on this bonus race for us, and I’m just so darn grateful for the opportunity to have a day like today,” says Greg Anderson. “And Cody, he’s progressed at every race we’ve gone to this year. People are probably getting tired of me telling them that he’s the real deal and that he’s going to be there by the end of the year, but it sure looks like he’s holding up his end of the bargain. There are a lot of tough racers in this class, and I’ll put him right up against any one of them.”

Cody qualified third for Monday, two spots ahead of his father. He is a Rookie of the Year contender who went to the semifinals at Brainerd two weeks earlier, and he had two win lights at Indianapolis before eliminations started. He lost round two Monday to Erica Enders.

In the other three classes: Leah Pruett beat Doug Kalitta in the Top Fuel final, 3.873 to a tire smoking 4.502, after beating Maddi Gordon in round one while Kalitta beat Justin Ashley. Her 3.873 was the quickest run of the Q3 session and carried four qualifying bonus points with it. Austin Prock beat J.R. Todd 3.921 to 4.006 in Funny Car, having gone through points leader Matt Hagan in round one. Gaige Herrera beat Richard Gadson in Pro Stock Motorcycle when the points leader went red by two thousandths, and Herrera’s 6.842 was quick enough to take the provisional No. 1 spot in the class at the same time.

Sportsman and the Hemi Challenge

The pros get the television window. The sportsman classes are why Indy takes six days, and why more than 860 cars were parked on a 267 acre property. Thursday’s class eliminations alone awarded as many as 100 class Wallys, per NHRA, on top of the eliminator titles below.

Sportsman and specialty eliminations, final rounds

Every sportsman and specialty Wally awarded at the 72nd running, with the semifinal and final round data off the timing system. Index class entries read reaction time, dial or index, elapsed time and margin. Every winner took home a 75th anniversary diamond Wally.

Top Alcohol Dragster

Low ET of the class went to Tindle at 5.181 and top speed to Megan Smith at 278.06. No. 1 qualifier Anthony Troyer lost round one to No. 16 John Ausherman.

Top Alcohol Funny Car

Bellemeur won the semifinal on a holeshot, giving up three hundredths on elapsed time and taking it on the tree. Low ET went to Mick Steele at 5.443 and top speed to Bellemeur at 266.58.

Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown

Twenty four cars entered. Libersher had low ET at 7.650 and Mark Pawuk top speed at 180.16. Allegrucci qualified No. 1 and lost the final on elapsed time after leaving first.

Pro Modified

Full round by round results for the JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Modified eliminator are in the eliminations section above. J.R. Gray beat Justin Bond in the final, 5.701 to 5.759.

Comp Eliminator

NHRA expanded Comp to a 64 car field for Indy. Thomas ran 6.950 on a 7.36 index, .410 under, and Taylor shut off. Mason McGaha raced Comp and Pro Stock in the same weekend and lost the Comp quarterfinal to Thomas on a red light.

Super Stock

144 cars entered for a 128 car field. Reynolds went red by seven thousandths in the final and D’Agnolo drove it out .013 over his dial.

Stock Eliminator

147 cars entered for a 128 car field. Both finalists broke out. Pierdolla left .021 quicker and was .041 under his dial to Thurston’s .047 under.

Right Trailers Top Sportsman

Baxter ran dead on his 6.60 dial in the semifinal against Bryan Richardson, who broke out. Gbur broke after staging in the final.

Right Trailers Top Dragster

Sackman left on a .003 in the final and Bayer broke out by three thousandths. A record 28 drivers ran in the 6.10s and the bump landed at a record 6.278.

Super Comp

Thorp broke out by .017 under the 8.90 index in the final. Harris was .006 over.

Super Gas

Both cars broke out under the 9.90 index. Pratt was .038 under to Kropfeld’s .035, and three thousandths decided the Wally.

Right Trailers Outlaw Street

Outlaw Street made its first U.S. Nationals appearance and Scott Taylor won it, the first winner in the class at this race. Canion had low ET at 3.692 and went red in the final. Ryan Martin ran top speed at 208.39.

Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge

Steve Comella won it Friday night. The full ladder and every round are below.

Sunday eliminations, round by round

Top Alcohol Dragster lost its No. 1 qualifier in round one. Anthony Troyer, who led the field at 5.227, went 5.583 and lost to No. 16 John Ausherman’s 5.387. Angelle Sampey went 5.402 from the 14th spot and put out No. 3 Shawn Cowie. Megan Smith beat No. 5 Jackie Fricke when Fricke went 8.451. Richie Crampton ran 5.298, the quickest lap of the round, to beat John Paul Gutierrez. Shaunda Blinzler, TJ Tindle, Brandon Greco and Corey Michalek also advanced.

Top Alcohol Funny Car went red twice in the first round. Jim Whiteley left .008 too soon and lost to Doug Gordon, and Stan Sipos went red by .269 in a lane where Christine Foster was also red by .033, which gave Foster the win light. Mick Steele took the round one bye in a 15 car field and ran 5.443. Sean Bellemeur, Bob McCosh, Annie Whiteley, Shane Westerfield and Chris Foster all advanced.

Round two put four cars in each alcohol semifinal. TJ Tindle ran 5.181 at 276.52 in Top Alcohol Dragster, quicker than anything the class ran in qualifying, and beat John Ausherman. Megan Smith went 5.262 at 278.06 to put out Corey Michalek. Richie Crampton beat Angelle Sampey 5.269 to 5.414 and Brandon Greco beat Shaunda Blinzler. In Top Alcohol Funny Car, Shane Westerfield took Bob McCosh on a holeshot, .039 to .074, losing the race by two thousandths on elapsed time and winning it by twelve. Sean Bellemeur ran 5.468 at 265.27, the quickest lap of the round. Annie Whiteley advanced when Chris Foster went red by .045, and Mick Steele beat Doug Gordon.

The Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown drew 24 cars and round one belonged to the top half. No. 1 qualifier Jonathan Allegrucci took the bye and ran 7.691. Alex Anderson left .006 and ran 7.716. Mark Pawuk ran 7.727 at 179.80 to beat Kim Shirley, and his son Kyle Pawuk lost to Ricky Hord in the same round. The closest race of the round went to Taylor Dietsch, who beat Tony Scott Jr. by a thousandth, 7.726 to 7.725, on a .012 starting line advantage.

Stock Eliminator
147 entries for a 128 car field. Fred Elsass led Q1 at 1.489 under the index in a ’72 Maverick, U/SA. Hunter Pierdolla won it.

Super Stock
144 entries for a 128 car field. Mike Johnstone led Q1 at 1.063 under. Fifteen current or former world champions were in the field. Peter D’Agnolo won it.

Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown
Twenty four cars entered. Qualified Friday and Saturday, ran Sunday. Scott Libersher won it.

Top Alcohol Dragster
Full slate for 16 spots. Qualified Friday and Saturday, eliminations Sunday. Richie Crampton won it.

Top Alcohol Funny Car
15 entries for 16 spots. Shane Westerfield came in defending and reached the final. Sean Bellemeur won it on a new car.

The Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge is the longest running continuous specialty race in NHRA history, contested by Hemi powered 1968 Super Stock Dodge Darts and Plymouth Barracudas that still wheelstand off the starting line. Jason Line led round one qualifying at 8.451, ahead of four time Hemi champion Steve Comella (8.468), Eric Bell (8.478), James Daniels (8.552), Eldon Baum (8.560) and Charlie Westcott Jr. (8.585), who brought the War Fish Barracuda back out. Comella closed qualifying on top at 8.415 and beat Line in the final.

Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge, final qualifying

Fifteen cars qualified. Eliminations ran Friday at 9:30 a.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., with the final going off in the 6:15 p.m. block alongside Pro Stock qualifying. Comella took the bye in round one and won the race from the No. 1 spot.

Mink is the oldest competitor in the building. He won the Southern Nationals at Atlanta in 1982.

Comella won it, and he won it on a red light with identical numbers. Steve Comella and Jason Line both ran 8.430 in the final. Line left first and left too soon, going red by .013, which handed the Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge to the No. 1 qualifier. Comella took the trophy, a Hemi cylinder head on a wooden base, back to a car he qualified at 8.415.

The double-duty entries were worth tracking in the pits. Billy Torrence and Shawn Langdon both ran Super Comp alongside their Top Fuel cars. Chris Vang ran Pro Stock and Super Comp. Mason McGaha ran Pro Stock and Comp Eliminator in a B/Altered. Gary Pritchett ran Stock and Super Comp.

Comp Eliminator
43 entries, and NHRA expanded the field to 64 cars for Indy. Pat Nahan led after Q2 at .605 under the index. Mason McGaha was second at .585 under while also driving a Pro Stock car. Royce Freeman ran a B/AA Camaro built to the 2027 Pro Stock rules package, with new fuel injection, a new hood scoop and an automatic transmission. Donald Thomas won it.

Taylor Chomiski races Indy with a name on the car

One entry in that Comp field is worth knowing. Taylor Chomiski is a second generation racer out of a real family operation: his father Gary builds the engines and runs the tune-up, David “Chief” Trujillo is the car chief, and the Blind Frog Ranch Cobalt has already been busy this season. A Division 4 win at No Problem Raceway, a Cajun SPORTSnationals semifinal a few days after that, and a Las Vegas final three weeks later. He comes into Indy 13th in national Comp points and second in Division 4, running E/SM.

The summer got hard. Family friend Duane Ollinger of Blind Frog Ranch died in the first week of June, and the team spent part of July in Amarillo at his celebration of life rather than at a racetrack. Ollinger’s name is on the car this weekend.

“Duane was an incredible man, and he positively impacted a lot of people through many different walks of life,” says Chomiski. “He made a difference in a lot of lives, and we’re honored to race with his name on our car at the U.S. Nationals. I know he’ll be riding with us every pass.”

Chomiski is a two time NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series national event winner and a four time divisional winner. He has been to Indy before and he knows how it goes wrong. In 2025, by his own account, the team beat itself.

“One warm-up, one procedure, one round at a time,” says Chomiski. “There’s only one U.S. Nationals Diamond Wally up for grabs.”

Right Trailers Top Dragster
Nearly 40 cars for 32 spots. A record 28 drivers ran in the 6.10s and the bump spot landed at a record 6.278. Al Peavler led after Q2 at 6.126. Daria Vang ran 6.098 and lost it to the 6.10 class ceiling. Zach Sackman won it and Peavler lost the semifinal.

Right Trailers Top Sportsman
32 car field. Glenn Butcher led at 6.264 from Jim Thorp at 6.339, with 21 cars in the sixes and the bump at 7.466. World champions Darian Boesch, Allen Firestone and Jimmy Lewis were all in the field. Brandon Baxter won it.

The Point and a Half, Explained

Indy does not score like the other 13 regular season races. Here is exactly what is available.

The practical read: a driver 74 points back can erase it, and a leader who stumbles in qualifying can lose a season’s worth of work in one weekend. The Countdown to the Championship, NHRA’s six race playoff, opens Sept. 18 through 20 at Martin, Michigan.

Storylines

Eighty-four pro cars. More than 860 total entries, roughly 70 more than 2025. Five qualifying sessions instead of four, a point and a half on every round, an extra day at the racetrack and nearly $400,000 riding on where four drivers finished. The Big Go has always carried more weight than the number of Wallys it hands out, and the 72nd running arrived with more genuinely unsettled business than any race on the 2026 calendar. It settled three regular season championships on the racetrack and moved two of them.

Aaron Stanfield put the appeal plainly. “I think everyone looks forward to this race. The U.S. Nationals marks the end of the regular season and it marks it in a big way: points and a half, extra qualifying and an extra day at the track,” says Stanfield. “Winning the U.S. Nationals puts you in the history books. Besides winning the championship, a victory at The Big Go is probably the next biggest thing you could do in NHRA.”

Who won the Big Go

Shawn Langdon won it. He qualified No. 1 on a number he ran in the first session Friday night, beat Clay Millican, Justin Ashley and Leah Pruett to get to Monday afternoon, and closed it with a 3.804 at 333.99 over Tony Stewart. It is his fifth win of 2026, the 27th of his career and his third U.S. Nationals title in Top Fuel, on top of the Super Gas Wally he won here in 2010.

“These are hard to come by and the competition is so good,” says Langdon. “It’s nice to get back in the winner’s circle. My guys have been working so hard and it’s awesome to see the Kalitta group doing so well as a whole. It’s always great to win Indy.”

The other three went to a driver who needed them for different reasons. Jack Beckman swept the weekend for John Force Racing, taking the All-Star Callout on Sunday and the Funny Car Wally on Monday. Dallas Glenn won Indy for the first time in his career and had to do it to keep his regular season championship. Matt Smith beat his wife in the Pro Stock Motorcycle final, the 45th win of his career. J.R. Gray took Pro Modified from the No. 3 spot.

Three of the four professional regular season titles were decided Monday and two of them changed hands. Doug Kalitta held Top Fuel by eight. Matt Hagan took Funny Car from Ron Capps in the semifinal. Glenn took Pro Stock back from Greg Anderson in the final. Richard Gadson clinched Pro Stock Motorcycle in the quarterfinals. Points reset Sept. 18 at Martin, Michigan.

The bump spot is the story nobody is talking about loudly enough

Twenty-three Funny Cars are on the entry list. Sixteen make the show. Do that math and you get the most interesting subplot at Indy in a decade, because it has been roughly that long since this class had enough quality cars on the property to genuinely threaten anybody. NHRA’s Kevin McKenna has spent the season reporting that this is the weekend the Funny Car bump spot finally goes into the threes, and on this week’s NHRA Insider podcast he doubled down on it with the entry list in hand. Pencil in 13 or 14 tour regulars for a three, he figures, and you only need two or three part-timers to do the same thing.

Tony Pedregon, who lives 15 minutes from the racetrack and has won this race, is not arguing. The part-timers who can do the damage are already identified: Bobby Bode, whose car ran well at Brainerd, Julie Nataas in Del Worsham’s car, and Hunter Green. Host Brian Lohnes put the consequence in plain language on the podcast: if you are a regular touring car that averages a 12th to 14th qualifying position, be afraid, be very afraid, because that is a dangerous place to live.

Top Fuel has the same problem with 22 dragsters. TJ Zizzo is here. Tripp Tatum is here. Jasmine Salinas is here. The 16 spots run out fast, and Lohnes said he would bet money that a top 10 car goes into Sunday not yet qualified.

Where it stood after four sessions. The Funny Car bump was 4.098, not a three, and it had moved every session: 4.713 after Q1, 4.205 after Q2, 4.119 after Q3, 4.098 after Q4. Seven of the 23 cars were going home. Chris King was first alternate by .014. Julie Nataas, one of the three part-time cars named on the podcast, was 22nd. Bobby Bode, another of the three, was 16th and in it.

Top Fuel is where the bet paid. The bump went 3.934 to 3.844 in one session Sunday, three cars qualified out of the outside spots, and the field closed with Tony Schumacher, Jake Sanders, Dan Mercier, Krista Baldwin, Lex Joon and Jacob Opatrny on the outside. Doug Kalitta sat 18th after Friday night and qualified third. Billy Torrence sat 18th after Q3 and qualified fourth.

How it finished. The prediction was that the Funny Car bump would go into the threes for the first time. It did not. The bump closed at 4.089 and John Smith took it on his first full pass of the weekend, with Julie Nataas 15th on the same number and Bobby Bode first alternate at 4.098. Seven of the 23 Funny Cars went home and Chris King, who was in the show Saturday night, finished 18th. The threat was real and the number was not: the class had the cars, the racetrack never gave the back half of the field the conditions to use them. Both cars that took the bump lost round one, Smith to Ron Capps and Nataas to Austin Prock.

Top Fuel is where the story actually landed, and it landed on the man who was outside the show Friday night. Doug Kalitta sat 18th after the first session and qualified third. He then went 3.681 at 341.68 in round one, low ET and top speed of the meet, beat Tripp Tatum in round two to lock up the regular season championship, and smoked the tires in the semifinal against Tony Stewart. Kalitta finished as a semifinalist and as the Top Fuel regular season champion by eight points. Billy Torrence, who sat 18th after Q3, qualified fourth and lost round one to Maddi Gordon.

Friday night is worth more than any other session this year

NHRA split the pros into two blocks Friday. Pro Stock Motorcycle and Pro Stock get Q1 at 6:15 p.m. Funny Car and Top Fuel do not run until 7:30 p.m., with Pro Mod going at 5 p.m. That matters, because the nitro cars now get the coolest air of the evening and the most consequential 40 minutes of the season lands after dark. NHRA’s Friday run schedule carries a forecast high near 96, and it backs into the low 80s Sunday and turns cloudy and cooler for Monday. The racetrack Friday night is a different racetrack than the one they get Saturday afternoon, which is different again from Sunday, which is different again from Monday.

Pedregon’s read: if you do not fire a shot Friday night, you spend the next four sessions chasing your tail. Teams that get down the track and hit their number Friday earn the wiggle room to experiment. Teams that do not spend the weekend watching a bump spot they cannot control. And because so many cars need to get down a racetrack that is being run on all day by 860 entries, some tuners will be less aggressive than they would like to be, which is its own kind of trap.

Lohnes framed it as the single biggest test of a crew chief’s ability on the schedule, and it is hard to argue. Four days, four different racetracks, one setup book, and no room to be wrong.

How it finished. Friday night held up. Shawn Langdon’s 3.727 from the first session was still the No. 1 qualifying run after four more, and he won the race from there. Jack Beckman ran 3.937 Friday night, never improved on it, qualified third and won the Funny Car Wally. Nobody who missed Friday night qualified better than fourth in either nitro class. The one exception was Doug Kalitta, who went 5.031 Friday, sat 18th, and spent the next three sessions climbing to third. It cost him nothing: he won the regular season championship anyway.

Presented by PEAK

Five Funny Cars, 74 points, one weekend

Ron Capps led this thing in mid August. Matt Hagan led it out of Brainerd. In between, four different drivers had a legitimate claim on the regular season Funny Car championship, and none of them have shaken loose. Hagan sits on 938. Jordan Vandergriff is 7 back. Capps is 12 back. J.R. Todd is 22 back. Jack Beckman is 74 back and, because Indy pays a point and a half, Beckman is not out of it either.

Pedregon’s top three to win the race: Hagan, Austin Prock and Capps. Prock is the reigning world champion and the defending Indy winner, he is sixth in points in his first season at Tasca Racing, and his last five races read four semifinals and a runner-up. That is not a hot streak, that is a program arriving. The PlayNHRA oddsmakers have him at or near the top of the board.

The strangest wrinkle belongs to Vandergriff. He is second in the championship and he is not in the All-Star Funny Car Callout, because the qualifying window for that field opened at Indy in 2025, before he was in the car. Second in points, frozen out of the $80,000 side event. Asked about it on the Insider podcast, he told Lohnes he wants to race everything he can possibly race.

How it finished. All five of them were still alive Monday morning and the championship came down to one semifinal. Ron Capps went to Indy three points up on Matt Hagan, drew him in the semifinals, smoked the tires and went 9.500. Hagan ran 4.020 and took the regular season title by 27. Beckman, the one who was 74 back, won the race and finished third, 13 out. Vandergriff lost round two to Austin Prock and finished fourth. J.R. Todd lost round one to Vandergriff on a holeshot, 3.908 to 3.908, and finished fifth. Final: Hagan 1,083, Capps 1,056, Beckman 1,043, Vandergriff 1,014, Todd 966. Five drivers inside 117 points after 14 races.

The independents who had to earn Friday night

Twenty three Funny Cars are entered for 16 spots, and the seven that go home are not the seven you would pick off a points sheet. Three of the cars that ran Friday night belong to teams without a championship budget behind them, and all three got down the racetrack in the first session.

Spencer Hyde put the Jim Head Racing entry ninth at 4.013. Head has been running nitro cars for more than 40 years, first as a driver and now as an owner, and he has done it on his own terms the entire time. Hyde is the ninth quickest car in the class after one session at the race that pays a point and a half.

Chris King brought a new car. The Howards Cams and Competition Products Chevrolet is the piece his team has been building toward on a small budget, and King ran 4.136 to sit 13th after Q1. King is a firefighter. He races a handful of national events a year and picked this one.

Julie Nataas came back to nitro Funny Car for this race in the Hedingers Equipment Toyota GR Supra, and she ran 4.529 in Q1 to sit 15th. Hedingers has backed Randy Meyer Racing for years. Nataas has a Top Alcohol Dragster world championship and she keeps finding her way into a nitro seat.

Three sessions later the three of them have gone in three directions. Spencer Hyde is the No. 4 qualifier at 3.944, ahead of Matt Hagan, J.R. Todd and Jordan Vandergriff, with four bonus points banked in a car that does not have their budget. Chris King is out. He sat 15th and in the show Saturday night at 4.112, the bump ran past him to 4.098 in Q4, and he is first alternate by .014. Julie Nataas is 22nd and has not made a full pass since Q1.

That is the whole class in three cars: on the weekend everybody wants, the teams without a corporate program are the ones with the most to gain and the least room to miss. King has one session to get back in. So does John Smith, who made his first full pass of the weekend in Q4, went 4.089 and is 15th on a number that has been beaten in three straight sessions.

How the three of them finished. Spencer Hyde qualified fourth, the best of his career at this race, and lost round one to Paul Lee when the Jim Head Mustang went 4.119. He also drew Matt Hagan in the Callout and lost that. Five session bonus points and a fourth place start out of a one car operation is the number worth keeping. Julie Nataas got back in the show in the last session at 4.089, seeded 15th, and drew Austin Prock in round one. She went 4.515 and went home. Chris King never got back in. He was first alternate at 4.098 and watched Monday from the fence.

John Smith, the fourth independent in the conversation, took the bump on his first full pass and drew Ron Capps. He went 4.759. The 16 car Funny Car field at the 2026 U.S. Nationals had four cars in it that arrived without a championship budget, and three of them qualified.

Kalitta against Kalitta in Top Fuel

Shawn Langdon controlled the first half of the Top Fuel season. Doug Kalitta took it from him and has not given it back. The two Kalitta Motorsports teammates are separated by 67 points with 195 available, which is the cleanest way to say that this is a two car race and both cars park in the same pit.

Pedregon’s view is that Kalitta is as good as he has ever been and that Langdon’s team, not Langdon’s talent, is what has fallen off. He also flagged Maddi Gordon as the car that has genuinely improved, crediting a more aggressive approach from Rob Flynn. Gordon is fifth in points in her first full season with a Top Fuel Wally already on the shelf. Tony Schumacher, whose 10 U.S. Nationals wins are the most of any active driver, was bumped out of the field in Q4 and did not get back in. He finished 19th at 3.883, .039 outside the bump.

Qualifying has gone Kalitta’s way. He was 18th and outside after Friday night, ran 3.825 in Q2 and 3.746 in Q4, and is the No. 3 qualifier with seven bonus points to Langdon’s four. Langdon has not improved on the 3.727 he ran in the first session and has not needed to. Langdon takes the No. 1 spot and Kalitta the extra session bonus points, which is close to a wash. They are still 67 points apart, both are in the show, and they park in the same pit.

How it finished. Both cars went to Monday 68 apart, which meant Langdon had to go three rounds further than Kalitta. He went two. Kalitta ran the two best numbers of the meet in round one, a 3.681 at 341.68 against Will Smith, beat Tripp Tatum in round two and then smoked the tires against Tony Stewart in the semifinal, going 5.473. Langdon beat Clay Millican, Justin Ashley and Leah Pruett and closed it with a 3.804 at 333.99 over Stewart in the final.

Kalitta won the regular season championship by eight points, 1,352 to 1,344. He also had low ET and top speed of the meet and did not turn on a win light in the round that decided it. Langdon got the Wally, his fifth win of the season, his 27th career win and his third U.S. Nationals title in Top Fuel, plus Brian Husen’s first Indy win as a crew chief. Two teammates, one pit, one trophy each.

The KB Titan problem, and the man who could spoil it

Greg Anderson and Dallas Glenn were 8 points apart coming out of the summer, teammates and rivals in the same building. Anderson won Brainerd and made it 85. Twenty Pro Stock cars are entered and the class runs its usual knife fight, but the regular season championship is an internal KB Titan matter that comes down to which of the two goes further on Monday.

The interesting question is who spoils it. Pedregon and McKenna both landed on Greg Stanfield. He is third in points with two wins, his deficit is largely a function of the first six to eight races, and since then he has run on par with Glenn. He also races for a team that now has one clear championship horse to back, and Elite Motorsports knows how to concentrate resources when it matters. Matt Hartford stays the wild card, quick enough to beat anybody and inconsistent enough on the starting line to beat himself.

Elite arrives with real Indy pedigree regardless. Erica Enders has won this race four times, most recently in 2025. Jeg Coughlin Jr. has won it four times. Aaron Stanfield doubled up here in 2024, taking both Pro Stock and Factory X.

“From the time I was a kid, waiting for National Dragster to come in the mail, the U.S. Nationals has always been the pinnacle of NHRA Drag Racing,” says Coughlin. “We have made several transitions in our approach and we’re looking to settle in for improved runs and putting ourselves in championship contention.”

How it finished. Greg Anderson needed one round win Monday and did not get it. Jeg Coughlin Jr. left on him in round two, .042 to .052, and took it by a thousandth on elapsed time, 6.622 to 6.621. That handed the regular season championship back to Dallas Glenn on the condition that Glenn win the race, and Glenn won the race: Mason McGaha, Matt Latino, Erica Enders and then Coughlin, 6.599 to 6.629. It is his first Indy Wally, his fourth win of 2026 and the 25th of his career.

Glenn took it by five points, 1,235 to 1,230. The spoiler pick was Greg Stanfield and he finished third at 1,025 after going red in round two against Matt Hartford. Hartford was the wild card and he qualified No. 1 for the fourth straight session, then gave up .062 on the starting line to Coughlin in the semifinal and lost with the quicker car. Coughlin won three rounds on holeshots, took out Chris Vang, Anderson and Hartford, left first again in the final and lost by three hundredths.

Pro Stock Motorcycle comes back for the one that counts

The bikes have been off the tour for three races. They come back at Indy, with a point and a half, to settle a regular season championship that belongs to Vance & Hines either way. Richard Gadson carries an 83 point lead over teammate Gaige Herrera and 111 over Angie Smith. Herrera will be counting points in qualifying, because 83 with a point and a half is doable and not likely in the same breath.

Nineteen bikes are entered, the biggest Pro Stock Motorcycle field of the season, and the non-full-timers are where the trouble lives. Malcolm Phillips Jr. has joined the Ryan Oehler operation. Mark Paquette is back. The upset pick on the Insider podcast was Clayton Howey, on Vance & Hines power with the Clontz team, whose lights have been excellent in a partial season. Herrera arrives having won the last two U.S. Nationals. Herrera holds the Indy track ET record at 6.738 from August 2025.

How it finished. Gadson needed one round win Monday and got it in the quarterfinals, leaving .083 on Ryan Oehler and holding on with the slower bike, 6.856 to 6.841. That clinched the regular season championship and the $15,000 that goes with it. He lost the semifinal to Matt Smith. Herrera’s bid for a third straight Indy win ended in the other semifinal, where Angie Smith beat him by two thousandths, 6.794 to 6.791.

Matt Smith beat his wife in the final, 6.791 at 198.58 to a 6.834, for his third win of 2026, the 45th of his career and his fourth at Indy. He qualified No. 1 at 6.757, 200.98, the only run over 200 mph anybody made all weekend, and ran 200.26 in the semifinal. Final standings: Gadson 795, Matt Smith 726, Herrera 723, Angie Smith 715. Clayton Howey, the upset pick, beat Steve Johnson in round one to clinch a Countdown spot and lost round two to Matt Smith on a .001 light.

Pro Mod runs race two of the Road to the Championship

The JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series presented by Elite Motorsports drew 21 pre-entries and gets four qualifying sessions across Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning before Sunday afternoon eliminations. Derek Menholt carried the points lead out of the regular season and into the five race Road to the Championship, where Indy is stop two behind Norwalk, with Rockingham, St. Louis and Las Vegas to follow.

The 2026 season has spread the wins around. Justin Bond took Phoenix. Jason Collins won South Georgia in his second career start and added Bristol. Mike Stavrinos won Charlotte on a holeshot and comes back to Indy as the defending event winner. Menholt became the first two time winner at Chicago. Kevin Rivenbark took Norwalk. Nobody has run away with anything, which is exactly the environment that makes a point and a half at Indy matter.

Qualifying went to the last session. Justin Bond put the Elite Motorsports entry on top at 5.654, 255.00, low ET and top speed of the meet. Derek Menholt spent Saturday outside the field, ran 5.732 Sunday morning and qualified fifth, which drew him Kevin Rivenbark. The final session moved almost the whole ladder: Tony Wilson went from outside the top 10 to third, Mike Castellana fell from 10th to first alternate, and Chip King held the bump at 5.815.

The math behind it was simple. Indy was stop two of five in the Road to the Championship, and Menholt’s regular season lead did not carry the insulation it did in July. Rockingham, St. Louis and Las Vegas followed.

How it finished. J.R. Gray won it from the No. 2 spot, going 5.701 at 252.47 past Bond’s 5.759 in the final. He beat Alex Laughlin, Mike Thielen and Billy Banaka to get there and never had to run the quickest number in the round. Bond ran 5.669, 5.684 and 5.688 in his first three rounds, the three best laps anybody made on Sunday, and then ran a 5.759 in the one that counted.

Menholt lost round two to Mike Stavrinos, the defending event winner, when the Corvette went 6.354. Bond left Indianapolis with the Road to the Championship points lead at 923, seven ahead of Stavrinos and 10 ahead of Banaka, with Menholt fourth at 908. Round by round results are in the eliminations section above.

NHRA threw out Jason Collins’ runs. Then a title rival loaned him a blower.

The loudest thing that happened in the JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod pits at Indy did not happen on the racetrack. NHRA threw out all three of Jason Collins’ qualifying runs after a spot check of the screw supercharger on the Scott Tidwell Racing entry. The ruling came down Saturday night. NHRA gave the team one more attempt, moved out of Sunday morning and into the afternoon, and Collins shook the tires and ran 6.858. He was the slowest of the five cars that went home from a 21 car entry, and he did it at stop two of the five race Road to the Championship as a two time winner this season.

NHRA has not published the technical details. Rather than let the pits fill in the blanks, team owner Scott Tidwell went on camera Sunday and answered the question directly, speaking with Courtney Enders.

“The facts of what they said was wrong is the blower we were running was not exactly how it was built at PSI and shipped to us,” says Tidwell. “They said any modifications void the part number and also the SFI rating. The blowers are the same blowers that we’ve had and we’ve ran before.”

Tidwell does not dispute that the part was different from how it left the manufacturer. He disputes that there is a rule covering it.

“They showed me what they feel like was a modification to my blower and I don’t disagree with that,” says Tidwell. “The problem is the rule book doesn’t cover anything to do with that. So basically we have been thrown out for a rule that don’t exist that will probably exist after this. There will probably be something in there, and should be.”

“But the bottom line is we had no idea we were running a not legal blower. Did we know we were running the best blower we could get? Yes. Did we know it was illegal? Absolutely not, or we wouldn’t run it over here.”

Tidwell says the blower had been through NHRA inspection repeatedly and had been recertified within the last few months. He also says NHRA did not present it to him as a performance issue.

“NHRA didn’t say we had a performance advantage,” says Tidwell. “They actually said it’s more from the SFI safety side is what was explained to me. I don’t have anything in writing except for your runs are thrown out and we are going to allow you to attempt Q4, which I think speaks for itself.”

He also went at the specific rumors by name, which is the reason he did the interview at all.

“I’ve heard through the pits we had strip plates, we had this, had that. I’ve heard it all. None of that’s true,” says Tidwell. “I heard we wouldn’t even let them look at our blowers. That’s not true either. And that’s why I wanted to come over here to clear some things up.”

Which brings up the part of this worth remembering after the ruling is forgotten. Both of the team’s blowers were deemed ineligible, which left Collins with a car and nothing to put on it. Justin Bond loaned him one off his own spare.

“We have a really dear friend in Justin Bond,” says Tidwell. “He was willing to loan us a blower off of his car, off of his spare, and we’ll always be grateful for that. We put it on the car. It appears to be just as good.”

Bond qualified No. 1 at 5.654, 255.00, low ET and top speed of the meet, and drove to the final round on Sunday. He is racing Collins for a championship. He handed him the part anyway.

Collins made his attempt at four in the afternoon, first car out, on the hottest racetrack the class saw all weekend. “I’m not already making excuses, I’m just saying,” Tidwell said before the run. “It’s a fact that it’s going to be probably the worst track conditions we’ve been on since we’ve been here.”

NHRA has not issued a public technical bulletin on the ruling. Drag Illustrated will update this section when it does.

The Callout, the Hemi Challenge and a first timer

Saturday carried a bonus race of its own. The Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge ran round one in the 12:30 and 2 p.m. sessions and settled in the 4 p.m. window, which meant the nitro classes were racing for money in the middle of a qualifying day they could not afford to waste.

Sunday was stacked before eliminations ever started. Jack Beckman went in as the No. 1 seed in the Callout after topping Friday qualifying. The NHRA All-Star Funny Car Callout ran three rounds at 12:45, 2:15 and 3:40 p.m. ET, with FS1 carrying an hour and a half of it Sunday night and roughly $80,000 to the winner. The Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge, the longest running continuous specialty race in NHRA history, put Hemi powered 1968 Super Stock Darts and Barracudas on the property Wednesday through Friday, and Steve Comella won it. The Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown brought 24 cars and Scott Libersher won it. And the Right Trailers Outlaw Street class made its first U.S. Nationals appearance, won by Scott Taylor.

Beckman won it. The No. 1 seed went through Chad Green, J.R. Todd and Matt Hagan and closed it out with a 3.980 at 323.19 after Hagan slowed to a 4.290. Ron Capps and Austin Prock both lost in round one, Capps to Alexis DeJoria on a tire smoking 6.820 and Prock to Todd. The Callout paid money and not championship points, so the Funny Car standings went into Monday exactly where qualifying left them. Beckman won the U.S. Nationals the next day and swept the weekend. Round by round results are in the eliminations section.

Seventy five years, and a diamond Wally

NHRA’s 75th anniversary celebration landed at the biggest race on its calendar, and this is the largest gathering of anniversary legends the tour will see all season. Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, Kenny Bernstein, Joe Amato, Shirley Muldowney and Darrell Gwynn are among the names scheduled to appear. Winners in every category take home a commemorative 75th anniversary diamond Wally, a black pedestal with a diamond crystal base and a chrome figure, and the supply of them runs out for good at Pomona in November. The Rat Trap and Bradford’s Fiat nitro Fuel Altereds run exhibition passes Friday and Sunday, push start cackle cars go down the property both days with legends behind the wheel, and the reworked Nitro Mall carries the anniversary merchandise.

Every winner at the 72nd U.S. Nationals took one home. Eighteen went out across the professional, sportsman and specialty eliminators, on top of the roughly 100 class Wallys awarded Wednesday and Thursday in Stock and Super Stock.

Three tribute cars, and one that unveils Friday night

Nitro Funny Car turned 60 in 2026. NHRA turned 75. The country turned 250. Four teams looked at that math and decided Indy was the place to say something about it, and the result was four of the best looking race cars in the country parked on the same property. One of them won the race.

Paul Lee has the deepest one. His car wears a modern interpretation of the 1976 Bicentennial scheme Tom “the Mongoose” McEwen campaigned 50 years ago, and it is not a copy job. Kenny Youngblood drew the original livery in 1976. Youngblood redrew this one himself, with digital artist Greg Flowers, to fit a modern Funny Car body. Youngblood also designed the graphics on Lee’s first Funny Car, which is the kind of detail that explains why this particular car exists.

“Tom McEwen helped shape the sport into what it is today,” says Lee. “His personality, innovation, and ability to connect with fans changed drag racing forever.” Lee also called McEwen “a close friend of mine as well as my drag racing mentor,” and the scheme his all-time favorite.

English Leather comes back with it. The Dana Classic Fragrances brand sponsored McEwen’s Funny Car in 1976 and has not been on a racetrack since. “It’s especially meaningful that 50 years later, English Leather has stood the test of time as well,” says Joann Petz of Dana Classic Fragrances.

The car made its public debut during Friday night’s qualifying session, which put the unveiling and the most consequential 40 minutes of the NHRA season in the same window. Youngblood was at the Heritage display with Lee, signing a limited run of “Blood Did It” CARtoons of the car.

There is one more layer, and it belongs to this racetrack specifically. McEwen won the 1978 U.S. Nationals in an English Leather Funny Car, beating Don Prudhomme in the final on a career-best 6.05, weeks after his 14-year-old son Jamie died of leukemia. McEwen told RACER years later that one of the last things Jamie said to him was that he wanted his dad to go to Indy and beat Prudhomme. “We were both crying,” McEwen said of the finish line. “It was pretty emotional.” It is the most emotional win in the history of this race, and 48 years later the brand that was on that car comes back through the gate.

Jack Beckman has the flames. His PEAK Chevrolet SS wears John Force’s 1996 livery, the year Force won his sixth championship with 13 wins, 16 final rounds, 13 No. 1 qualifiers and 65 round wins. That is still the most dominant season modern Funny Car has produced, and the modern car carries “John Force 16-time Champion” down the side. Beckman unveiled it on Monument Circle downtown.

“I still have a lot of ‘pinch me’ moments,” says Beckman. “Standing in Monument Circle, rolling back the car cover to unveil the car that represents the most dominant season in modern Funny Car racing was one of them.”

He was not there for the paint. Beckman came in fifth in the regular season standings, 74 points behind Matt Hagan with 195 available, having won this race twice, in 2015 and 2020, plus four All-Star Callouts. He ran a Brute Force tribute here in 2025. He left Indianapolis with a third Indy Wally, a fifth Callout and third in the regular season standings.

Alexis DeJoria took the strangest one in the collection. Her Bandero Café Chevrolet SS wears Night Stalker, the scheme Force put on a rear-engine, chain-drive Funny Car built by Jack Chrisman that tried to debut at Irwindale in 1973. The name and the caped goblin came off a 1972 television movie starring Darren McGavin. Force brought the scheme back for the 2009 Night Under Fire at Norwalk and won.

“The car her dad always loved the most was the Night Stalker,” says Force. “Alexis loved the idea so that’s the paint scheme her Bandero Café Chevy will be running.” DeJoria’s reasoning was simpler. “I wanted to do it to show support for my new boss and my new team,” says DeJoria.

Tony Schumacher pulled the cover off the fourth one Friday, and his is the only one that is not a Funny Car. His Rick Ware Racing dragster wears a vintage scheme honoring Greg and Mike Peek, the Colorado brothers whose Peek Brothers Racing operation put him in a Top Fuel car for the first time in 1996. Team sponsor ACC gave up its own real estate on the car to make room for it.

“We did a vintage, old school paint job, as a tribute to the people that got me started 30 years ago,” says Schumacher.

The place he is standing matters as much as the paint. Schumacher’s first race in a Top Fuel car was the 1996 U.S. Nationals, right here, and he went to the final round in his debut.

“Thirty years ago, we went to the final round at my first race ever, and since then have won this race 10 times,” says Schumacher. “It’s been an amazing ride.”

Ten wins is the most any active driver has at Indy, and the most anyone has, period. The last one came in 2016. Clay Millican, on the other side of the same Rick Ware pit, qualified 16th and lost round one to Shawn Langdon.

Four cars, four eras, two classes, one weekend. Nobody hands out points for paint. Twenty three Funny Cars entered for 16 spots and 22 dragsters for another 16, and the prettiest cars in the country had to earn their way into the show like everybody else. Three of the four did.

All three Funny Car tributes qualified and the dragster did not. Jack Beckman was the No. 3 qualifier at 3.937 in the John Force 1996 livery, on a number he ran Friday night. Alexis DeJoria was sixth at 3.947 in Night Stalker. Paul Lee was 13th at 4.037 in the McEwen English Leather scheme, a climb from 16th and last after Q1. Tony Schumacher did not make the show. He improved to 3.883 in the final session and finished 19th in the Peek Brothers dragster, .039 outside the bump, at the racetrack where he went to the final round in his first Top Fuel start 30 years earlier.

The paint won the race. Jack Beckman took John Force’s 1996 flames to the winner’s circle twice in two days, the All-Star Callout on Sunday and the U.S. Nationals on Monday. He beat Jeff Arend, Alexis DeJoria, Austin Prock and Matt Hagan on Monday and never ran slower than 3.965. Thirty years after Force ran that livery to a sixth championship, the car wearing it swept the biggest weekend of the season.

The other two Funny Car tributes both won a round and both lost to a car that went to the final. Alexis DeJoria beat Chad Green in round one in the Night Stalker scheme, 3.937 to 3.977, then lost round two to Beckman. Paul Lee put the McEwen English Leather car past Spencer Hyde in round one with a 3.925, his first three of the meet, and lost round two to Hagan. Lee’s round one win ended Jim Head’s shot at a third Indy win as a car owner. Tony Schumacher never got the Peek Brothers dragster into the field, .039 outside the bump at the racetrack where his career started 30 years ago.

The Wes Buck Show Live From Nitro Alley

Drag Illustrated also brought the Power 100 issue to the Carlyle Tools hauler, where cover subjects Ron Capps and Maddi Gordon saw it in print for the first time.

Event Hub Presenting Sponsor

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That is why PEAK is the presenting sponsor of the 2026 Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals Event Hub on DragIllustrated.com. Friday’s first qualifying session through Monday’s winner’s circle, every qualifying ladder, every round result, every storyline and every photograph on this page is brought to you by PEAK.

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Photo Gallery

Scenes from the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals. Photography by Jess Miliante and AJ Bohlander for Drag Illustrated. Updated through the weekend.

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By the Numbers

Event History

The U.S. Nationals has been contested annually since 1955. It started on an abandoned airstrip in Great Bend, Kansas, moved through Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Detroit, and landed at what is now Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in 1961 on the strength of a handshake between track founder Tom Binford and NHRA founder Wally Parks, made under a tree in the pits at Detroit Dragway. It is the only major motorsports event in America contested on Labor Day.

Don “Big Daddy” Garlits won it eight times in Top Fuel. Shirley Muldowney won it in 1982. Don “The Snake” Prudhomme won it seven times and is one of a handful of drivers to take it in both Top Fuel and Funny Car, a list that also includes Kenny Bernstein, Jim Head and Ed McCulloch. Antron Brown has won it in multiple classes, Top Fuel and Pro Stock Motorcycle. Bob Glidden, the Indiana native, went to the final round in 13 consecutive seasons from 1977 through 1989 and won the race nine times. Tony Schumacher has the most wins with 10, the last coming in 2016.

Five women have won at Indy: Shirley Muldowney twice, Ashley Force Hood twice in Funny Car, Alexis DeJoria once in Funny Car, Erica Enders four times in Pro Stock and Angelle Sampey twice in Pro Stock Motorcycle.

2026 event winners

2025 event winners

Most event victories, active drivers

Shawn Langdon’s 2026 win was his third at Indy in Top Fuel, on top of the Super Gas Wally he took here in 2010. Jack Beckman’s was his third in Funny Car, after 2015 and 2020. Matt Smith’s was his fourth in Pro Stock Motorcycle and his third since 2022. Dallas Glenn won it for the first time. Scott Taylor became the first Outlaw Street winner in U.S. Nationals history.

Track Records

Nothing fell at the 72nd U.S. Nationals. The best numbers of the weekend were Doug Kalitta’s 3.681 and 341.68 in Top Fuel, Jack Beckman’s 3.885 and J.R. Todd’s 336.07 in Funny Car, Troy Coughlin Jr. and Matt Hartford at 6.568 with Erica Enders at 209.36 in Pro Stock, and Matt Smith at 6.744 and 200.98 in Pro Stock Motorcycle. Smith came the closest, six thousandths off Gaige Herrera’s track ET record. The records below are unchanged.

National records

Track Info

This page is the Drag Illustrated archive of the 2026 Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals, held Sept. 2 through 7, 2026, at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. Coverage ran live from Wednesday morning through Monday’s finals and was consolidated into this record after the event. Results verified against official NHRA timing data.

Event Schedule, As Run

All times Eastern, per the NHRA fact sheet. Kept here as the record of how the six days were laid out.

Wednesday, September 2
· NHRA Lucas Oil Series (SS, STK, two qualifying sessions; SC, SG three time-trial sessions) 8 a.m.
· Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge qualifying 4 p.m.

Thursday, September 3
· Lucas Oil Series SS and STK class eliminations 8 a.m.
· Comp, TD, TS qualifying 12 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
· SC eliminations 9 a.m.
· SG eliminations 5:30 a.m.
· Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge qualifying 11:45 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
· Cruz Pedregon Racing Open House and Car Show, Brownsburg, 5 to 8:30 p.m.

Friday, September 4
· Super Comp E2, Top Dragster Q3, Comp Eliminator Q3, Super Gas E2, Top Sportsman Q3, Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge E1, Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car Q1, Factory Stock Showdown Q1, 9:30 a.m.
· Hemi Challenge E2, Super Gas E3, Top Alcohol Q2, Factory Stock Showdown Q2, 3 p.m.
· Outlaw Street Q1, Hemi Challenge E3, JBS Equipment Pro Mod Q1, 5 p.m.
· Pro Stock Motorcycle Q1 and Pro Stock Q1, 6:15 p.m., plus the Hemi Challenge final, nitro Fuel Altered exhibition and Cacklefest
· Funny Car Q1 and Top Fuel Q1, 7:30 p.m.
· The Wes Buck Show live from Nitro Alley

Saturday, September 5
· Stock and Super Stock eliminations, Top Alcohol Q3, Factory Stock Showdown Q3, Outlaw Street Q2, JBS Equipment Pro Mod Q2, 8 a.m.
· Top Fuel Q2 and Funny Car Q2, plus Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge round one, 12:30 p.m.
· Pro Stock Q2 and Pro Stock Motorcycle Q2, plus Mission #2Fast2Tasty round one and Pro Mod Q3, 2 p.m.
· Top Fuel Q3 and Funny Car Q3, plus the Mission #2Fast2Tasty final, 4 p.m.
· Pro Stock Q3, 5:15 p.m.

Sunday, September 6
· Lucas Oil Series eliminations 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.
· Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car eliminations 10 a.m. and 5:25 p.m.
· Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown eliminations 10:45 a.m. and 6:10 p.m.
· JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod qualifying 11:10 a.m., eliminations 4:45 p.m.
· NHRA All-Star Funny Car Callout eliminations 12:45, 2:15 and 3:40 p.m.
· NHRA Mission Foods qualifying 12 p.m. (Q4) and 2:45 p.m. (Q5, final qualifying)

Monday, September 7
· Pre-race ceremonies 9 a.m.
· SealMaster Track Walk before eliminations
· NHRA Mission Foods eliminations begin 10 a.m.

TV and Streaming, As Aired

• Sunday, Sept. 6, 3 p.m. ET on FS1: Two hours of qualifying coverage
• Sunday, Sept. 6, 7 p.m. ET on FS1: One and a half hours of NHRA All-Star Funny Car Callout coverage
• Sunday, Sept. 6, 10:30 p.m. ET on FS1: Two hours of qualifying coverage
• Monday, Sept. 7, 12 p.m. ET on FS1: Two hours of finals coverage
• Monday, Sept. 7, 2 p.m. ET on FOX: Three hours of finals coverage
• NHRA.TV: Streaming coverage running from Wednesday morning through the weekend, including the sportsman categories that never make the broadcast

Tickets for NHRA events are available at NHRA.com/tickets. Parking was free all weekend at Indianapolis, children 12 and under got in free, and the SealMaster Track Walk put fans on the racing surface before Monday’s eliminations.

Live From Indy, The Running Log

The Drag Illustrated running log from the 72nd U.S. Nationals, kept as filed, newest entry first. It ran from Wednesday, Sept. 2 through Monday evening, Sept. 7. Entries reflect what was on the board at the time they were posted. Where a later session changed a result, the corrected number is in the qualifying and eliminations sections above.

This story was originally published on September 2, 2026.