Photo: Shawn Langdon won for the third straight time in Arizona
Fans from all around came out and braved the higher than normal temperatures to watch the final day of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Arizona Nationals held at the Firebird Motorsports Park in Chandler. The three day event drew thousands as the NHRA is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, making it even more special to win.
Photo: Maddi Gordon won her first round race reaching a speed of 324.83 mph
Shawn Langdon beat Leah Pruett in the Top Fuel dragster event by .53 seconds with a speed of 325 mph. Langdon beat the rising 21 year-old star Maddi Gordon, with Pruett beating Doug Kalitta in the semifinals. Langdon had the top speed of the day in his first race reaching a speed of 329.02 mph. Gordon is becoming a fan favorite in just her second start in Top Fuel. She is a third generation driver and became the 100th woman to win a national NHRA event after taking over the driver duties after her father Doug, who retired in 2024.
Langdon continues to like Arizona more and more as he earned his third straight win at the Arizona Nationals. Langdon said, “I like it here. I wish NHRA would add another event here. The car was great all day today. Thanks to my crew, who had to work out in the heat all day. There are some little things on the car that arose throughout the day, but even though you win the race you are still looking to try and make the car better.” Langdon’s fastest time of the day of 3.859 seconds came in the second round in a win over Tony Schumacher.
Photo: The crew of Ron Capps checks out the car right before his run
Things were a little trickier on the day for Funny Car winner Ron Capps, who came through unscathed in his quarterfinal win over Daniel Wilkerson when his engine blew up at the end of the track. The force cracked up the body creating a fire as he went into the right guard wall. Capps quickly bailed out as emergency personnel rushed to the scene. Capps said, “Thank God we have all the new safety stuff in there because a few years ago that would have probably, well who knows, especially with the head padding. I’ve been there before, with the explosion, a concussion, and the body is gone and when I’m seeing trees around the track, it is not a good thing in a funny car, so I was just hanging on.” His team did an excellent job under pressure and got busy putting his other car into action and amazingly it all worked out.
Photo: Capps (L) and Wilkerson on their 2nd run of the day with Capps taking the win as his car blew apart at the end
Capps beat Spencer Hyde by just over 2 seconds with a top speed of 303.23 mph to win the Wally trophy. Capps said, “This is awesome. I wish I could chop this up into 6000 pieces to share with all the NAPA auto stores. Everybody said I was having bad luck out there but look where we ended up.”
The Funny Car winner beat Jason Rupert easily in the first round, then had that near disaster in the second. A semifinal win over Paul Lee in his new ride set him up for the finals and being able to come through with the win.
Photo: Dallas Glenn won Pro Stock seen here with his front tires off the ground at the start
Dallas Glenn won Pro Stock by being a half a second better than Cody Coughlin. Glenn said, “I feel a lot more relaxed this year and I feel like I got the weight of the world off my shoulders from last year.”
Photo: One of the trophies given out to the winners
Tim Seymour pulled out the win by .23 seconds over Evan Kowalski in the Super Stock category. There were five rounds in the Stock Eliminator with Justin Lamb coming out on top over Leo Glasbrenner. In the six rounds of Super Comp, Douglas Johnson nipped Tanner Theobald by .012 seconds in the the closest of margins on the entire day.
Val Torres Jr. beat Chris Gabbard in Super Gas. In Top Dragster, Cooper Chun beat Dylan Hough. The Top Sportsman winner was Rob Mendenhall, who beat Will Yakimetz. Justin Bond beat Steve Jackson in the Pro Mod in a four round event.
NHRA will be back at the Firebird Motorsports Park in 2027. Usually held in March, the exact dates will be released later this year.
