Top Fuel privateer Shawn Reed clinched his first round win of the 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season on Sunday during the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas. In his fourth outing competing in a four-wide format, Reed lit up the scoreboards when he powered his Reed Trucking & Excavating machine to the quickest run of his quad, defeating his three round-one opponents. A clutch issue in the second round prevented him from moving on, but Reed leaves Las Vegas pleased with the team’s continued forward progress as they prepare for the upcoming stretch of summer races.
The team made a statement in the weekend’s opening qualifying session with crew chief Rob Wendland tuning the Reed Trucking & Excavating dragster to a 3.953-second pass at 309.77 mph in the unseasonably hot conditions, which saw temperatures soar into the 90s all weekend long. The run held up to be the second-quickest of the round, awarding the team with two bonus points for their efforts. In Friday’s second session, Reed made another clean pass to close out the first day of qualifying. He hazed the tires during Saturday’s first run but clocked his best run of the weekend, a 3.847-second pass at 322.65, during the final session to settle into the No. 7 seed on the Top Fuel elimination ladder.
On Sunday, a 3.851 E.T. at 321.58 mph propelled Reed to the finish line first, defeating Josh Hart, former world champ Brittany Force, and Terry Totten to advance. In the second elimination round, Reed lost traction early, slowing to a 4.514-second pass while Antron Brown and Jasmine Salinas recorded three-second runs to get the round win.
“Whether it’s hot weather or cool weather, I feel like we have a good handle on our tune-up, we just still have a gremlin in the clutch,” said Reed, who enjoyed early pre-season success when he won the PRO Superstar Shootout event in February. “Rob will find it and we’ll figure it out. It shouldn’t have done what it just did that round, but heck that was pretty cool with Antron, Jasmine, Josh Hart, and me; it was nice to get to the final eight.
“It was a good weekend overall; we got our first round win of the year. There will be many more of those, I promise you that. We’ll head on to Charlotte and see if we can add some more round wins over there.”
The Reed Trucking & Excavating team will return to the team’s race shop in Brownsburg, Ind. where they will prepare for the upcoming NHRA Four-Wide Nationals, the second of three four-wide style races in 2025. Reed will look to reclaim his spot within the Top 10 when he returns to zMAX Dragway, April 25-27. He currently occupies the No. 11 spot on the Top Fuel leaderboard and is less than one round win from the ninth-ranked driver.
This story was originally published on April 14, 2025. 
