An Unstoppable Force
Brittany Force once again decimated the playing field in the Top Fuel category.
When asked about being the fastest person alive in automotive racing history, Force said, “It’s still surreal to me. Going out to the ropes and signing for the fans, writing the 343, I feel like I made a mistake, like ‘This does not look right on paper,’ to have a mile per hour like that.”
Her Sonoma Raceway record is something Force and her crew will always remember, she said, and they are printing out as many timeslips as possible so everyone can have a copy.
She credits her performance to the fine tuning the team put into her car between her championship season and last year’s. Force said they’ve simply figured it out.
“It listens. It listens to exactly what we want it to do,” she said. “Our ultimate goal is putting a good ET on the board, and the mile per hour keeps catching up with us. They keep
showing up on the board.”
On top of her herculean record, Force gained her first Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty challenge win of the year, with an ET of 3.869 at 324 mph. “We got two win lights on and got the job done. So really excited for our teams. Thankful to Mission for putting this on and letting us have a race within a race on Saturday,” she said.
The Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty challenge is a race within a race that allows for drivers to earn bonus points towards the championship at the end of the year.
“On any other weekend you’re looking at, ‘are you trying to win this thing [the challenge] or are you trying to get qualified?’” Force said, “This weekend we were already in a good position, so we didn’t have to worry about it. We’re just going to try to make a solid run down the racetrack, turn the win light on, and it worked in our favor.”
Humble, Force said the Sonoma County fans make her job easy.
“I always thought, ‘Sonoma, it’s Wine Country. More chill. Laid back,’” She said. “But these fans are rowdy. They’re ten deep in our pit, just screaming and hollering, not just for me, but they want my crew guys to sign their shirts.”
This is Force’s 55th Yellow Hat qualifier, meaning she will start in pole position heading into Sunday’s elimination rounds.
Blow Up on the Track
On the first race of Q4 for the Funny Car category, Buddy Hull blew up near the back half of the drag strip, kissing the left concrete wall, then running flat into the first net before going into the sand pit at the end of the strip.
For a painstaking 30 seconds Hull’s condition was uncertain, until he hopped out of his car, holding up his arm. With the track showered in debris, and the car tangled into the net, it took officials over 2-and-a-half hours to safely clean up and re-string a new net.
Funny Car
Heading into Sunday’s finals, Matt Hagan maintains his first place position by .004 of a second in ET, with Spencer Hyde in second.
Funny Car driver Ron Capps won the Funny Car Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty challenge.
Capps reflected on his familiarity with the weather. “I came here as a kid, and when that wind starts blowing, it brings that cool air from over the mountain,” referencing the wind flags which were blowing full bore to the east. “In a Funny Car, you really gotta be ready for that because it feels like there’s three cylinders out on one side.” Capps said.
Capps was also a part of the on-track entertainment following Hull’s Funny Car explosion, handing out t-shirts to fans in the main grandstand area and Thunder Alley.
Another Record Broken
Dallas Glenn jumped Greg Anderson once again for the track record of fastest Pro Stock car at Sonoma Raceway, throwing down a 6.471 ET at 211.17 mph. This is his fourth number one qualifier of the year.
In his final qualifying run, he also won the Pro Stock categories Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty challenge.
A Red Light victory
In the Final round of the GETTRX All Star Pro Stock Motorcycle Callout racing series, Richard Gadson fouled by .001, throwing up a dreaded red light on the tree and giving Matt Smith the check for $25,000.
Smith said the track was super sticky with proper sun coverage. He felt if he got lucky enough to race with a tailwind, his team could break the track record they hold here.
Circumstances were reversed however, as they fought a headwind all day. “I was like, ‘we’re not going to go fast,’” Smith said, so he resorted to mind games with his opponent.
“I love it when people have staging battles with me, because I feel like I get in their head,” He said. “I looked over before we both pre-staged, he [Gadson] looked over and I blew him a kiss, and he just started shaking his head. So I knew right then I got in his head.”
Last year, Smith won the GETTRX All Star Pro Stock Motorcycle Callout racing series on Saturday and the 2024 DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals on Sunday and he was confident about a repeat performance.
“I got a good bike and I’ve been great on the lights all weekend,” Smith said. “I’ve been consistent and I’ve got a fast bike. So as long as I keep my fast bike going, and I can go 20-30 [in reference to his reaction time by the thousandth of a second] on the tree, I’ll be hard to beat. But if somebody beats me, you know, then they deserve to win.”
Gadson, despite losing to Smith in the callout series, maintains first heading into Sunday’s elimination rounds. He will don his first yellow hat, which signifies his pole position. “That’s what I’m gonna hold on to for right now,” he said. “It’s just something that I’ve always wanted. I’ve been talking to the boys a lot about it lately, hoping it motivated them a little bit too. So I am wearing a yellow hat for the first time.”
Gadson also reflected on his loss to Smith, “I’ve been kicking his butt too. You know, it just didn’t work out well this time.” In terms of his plans for Sunday, “I’m gonna be just as aggressive [as Saturday] and hope the lights green. Same thing. The Game Plan doesn’t change.”
The DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals concludes Sunday. Gates open at 8:30 a.m. with a track walk scheduled for fans at 9:15 a.m.
