NHRA Nationals notes: Justin Ashley adds to family success at Norwalk

NORWALK — Summit Motorsports Park is a special place for the Ashley family, and with four clean passes in eliminations Sunday in his SCAG Power Equipment Top Fuel Dragster, Justin Ashley made it even more so. Eighteen years after Justin's father, Mike Ashley, drove a Funny Car to an event win on the same track, Justin earned his second win of the season and 17th of his Top Fuel career by beating Clay Millican in the Summit Racing Equipment finals. "It's very exciting," Justin Ashley said. "Norwalk means a lot to me personally. My father won a Funny Car here in 2007, and ever since we started racing in Top Fuel, it was a dream of mine to win right here. That's what we did today. It's special, and the team did a great job all weekend. "We qualified No. 1, navigated our way down the racetrack all race day long on a surface that was very slippery and very tricky. The people who win these races are the ones that go A to B, and that's what we did today. I'm just glad it worked out. Really proud of Mike Green and Tommy DeLago and our whole team. They really deserve this win, and I'm happy that they could be along for the ride." Ashley lost to Shawn Langdon in the finals of the American Rebel Light Virginia NHRA Nationals last week. However, less than 24 hours later, he was awarded the victory because of a disqualification due to nine bolts missing from Langdon's bell housing. When Ashley and Langdon met in the semifinals this week, Ashley didn't leave anything to a tech inspection. He ran a 3.935-second pass at 317.57 miles per hour and earned the round win. Ashley was happy with the victory over Langdon, but he was far from satisfied, especially after qualifying at the top of the ladder and having lane choice in each of the four elimination rounds. Millican had a tough time getting car repairs done in the pit area, but made it to the starting line in the finals, and without a warmup, fired up the car in the staging area seconds before going through his burnout. "I'll tell you a funny story about Clay," Ashley said. "I actually got my Top Fuel license here in Norwalk, and he was one of the people that signed it. He's got this positive, infectious personality that you just can't help but love. I was happy to see that they made it up for the final. "No one wants to win a race that way. We would've waited as long as they would've let us wait to run it heads up. He's a really tough competitor. He's a great guy, he's a great driver. I can continue to learn a lot from him. Being able to get past him was really, really special. They've got a great team over there. It was an awesome final round." The win helped Ashley quite a bit from a season standpoint. He entered the nationals 121 points behind front-running Tony Stewart and 70 points in back of Langdon for second place. However, with the win over Langdon and Stewart falling to Millican in the other semifinal, Ashley was able to improve his standing and close the gap on the top two spots. Ashley trails Stewart by 77 points and is within 25 of Langdon, which puts the Top Fuel regular-season championship within striking distance. "I don't think it's something that we're openly talking about, but I think it's something that we want to accomplish," Ashley said. "I don't think it needs to be said. I think the communication is there in general, and we take it one race at a time. If we want to reach the ultimate goal of winning a championship, we know we have to take it one race at a time, and the first step is to go into the Countdown on the No. 1 position. "We've got a long way to go. The toughest thing is getting those other competitors out early because they're really good, those in front of us. But our whole SCAG Power Equipment Team, we're going to work diligently to try and make sure we do everything we can think of to give ourselves an opportunity to be there. With points-and-a-half at Indy, anything could happen." A driving Force What a difference a year makes. Last year's Summit Racing Equipment Nationals was anything but a normal event, as Funny Car legend John Force was in the hospital recovering from serious injuries after experiencing a horrific crash the week before. Austin Prock ran in that Funny Car event, but was eliminated in the semifinals. This year, Force was at the track and stood with the team right behind the starting line as he watched Prock earn his 12th career win in 30 Funny Car events and complete his second set of back-to-back event victories this season. "It was definitely special," Prock said. "The energy was definitely in a better place this year. Last year, I probably shouldn't have even been behind the wheel for some of those runs. My mental state was not in the best capacity. To get it done with the Force family back in the house, that was a big deal." Long time coming It had been 4,318 days since John Hall won an NHRA event championship, but after nearly 12 years of waiting, there was a reason to celebrate. Hall had a surge of power early in the run, and that allowed him to pass Richard Gadson and cross the finish line by nearly one full motorcycle length to seal his third career event victory, and first since the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis during the 2013 season. Hall had not been in the finals of an event since Sonoma last summer, and competed in just his fifth career championship round Sunday. "I definitely wasn't (in control)," Hall said with a smile. "I probably did everything I could to lose that race. I didn't even see the time slip, but I've heard rumors that I had an .080 light. I was real close to the center line and the win light came on. I'm like, 'Are you kidding me?' "I'm happy. Sometimes, it's just your day." Castle makes final Columbia Station's Keith Castle was the last local driver standing in the Top Sportsman category and nearly drove to his first career event win after some trouble right before the finals. While in the staging area, Castle's crew had to remove and make adjustments to get the engine to fire. The team had enough time to get the engine running thanks in no small part because his opponent, Chris Osborn, showed good sportsmanship in waiting rather than forcing the issue. Once on the track, Castle had a better reaction time, but it was Osborn who earned the victory to deny Castile his first event championship. No repeats Antron Brown (Top Fuel), Bob Tasca III (Funny Car), Aaron Stanfield (Pro Stock) and Gaige Herrera (Pro Stock Motorcycle) all hoisted Wally trophies at last year's nationals, but not of them made it to the finals this year. Brown was out in the first round of Top Fuel eliminations, while Tasca won one race before a second-round setback to Prock. After getting a holeshot win in the first round, Aaron Stanfield was knocked out of the field by top qualifier Greg Anderson in the Pro Stock Division. In a sense, Herrera defeated himself, as he launched .014 seconds early and was disqualified in the semifinals. Top Fuel upset It's not every day that the last two Top Fuel World Champions face each other in the first round of eliminations, but that's exactly what happened when Doug Kalitta had a great day of qualifying Saturday and snuck into the 16-team field as the No. 15 seed. Kalitta drew Brown, the No. 2 qualifier and reigning NHRA Top Fuel World Champion, in the first round. Kalitta had a .010 advantage at the Christmas Tree, and he rode that early advantage to a 3.816-second pass at 327.43 miles per hour for the upset victory. Kalitta, the 2023 Top Fuel World Champion and Saturday's winner of the #2Fast2Tasty Champion, ran so well against Brown that he earned lane choice in his second-round matchup against Millican. Despite running low elapsed time (3.900 at 324.36 miles per hour) of the second round, Kalitta lost on a holeshot against Millican. Playing hurt The sport of racing comes with an inherent risk of getting injured, and the more times on the track, the more those chances go up. Prior to nationals, Ron Capps ran in a midget race at Indianapolis Raceway Park and experienced a wreck at the start of the event. He hit the wall and suffered rib injuries, which he addressed with Massel following the second-round win over Dave Richards. "It hurts to laugh," Capps said before admitting he was going to see on-site medical personnel before the semifinals. Capps fell to Prock in the semifinals. Family affairs It was a family affair, and an All-Ohio matchup, in the first round of the Pro Stock Division eliminations when Cody Coughlin faced off against his uncle, Jeg Coughlin Jr., a five-time NHRA Pro Stock World Champion. With his father, John Coughlin, tuning the car, Cody ran a 6.611-second pass at 206.67 miles per hour, which gave him a victory over his uncle by four-one-hundredths of a second. The father-and-son combination of Greg and Aaron Stanfield each won first-round matchups in Pro Stock. However, Greg was knocked out by Cory Reed and Aaron was eliminated by Anderson by 37-ten-thousands of a second in the second round. Expensive weekend Stewart was plagued with engine issues throughout the weekend, and that continued in the first round of eliminations Sunday. After blowing up two engines Friday, including one that came with a huge fireball as he hustled down the track in the first round of qualifying, Stewart had another engine issue in opening-round eliminations Sunday. While Stewart shared some humor about his needing to mow lawns and babysit for those in attendance to pay for the new engine components Friday night, he was all business Sunday. Despite the round win, Stewart declined the post-race interview, and instead, the driver of the TSR Dodge/SRT Direct Connection Top Fuel Dragster headed to the pit area to figure out what is causing the issues and get the machine ready for the second round. Stewart rewarded his crew with a second-round win against Steve Torrence before being eliminated in the semifinals. Ice cream queen Summit Motorsports Park is known for its low-priced pints of ice cream, which were in high demand with the high temperatures that blanketed Norwalk throughout the last week. As has become a tradition in recent years, a select group of drivers were chosen to participate in the Norwalk Ice Cream Eating Contest. For the last two years, Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Jianna Evaristo won the competition, and she decided to go for the three-peat against Herrera (Pro Stock Motorcycle), Cory Reed (Pro Stock), Ida Zetterström (Top Fuel) and Spencer Hyde (Funny Car). Despite some new strategies from the opposition, including Zetterström going with a push-pop style of eating, Evaristo won the contest for a third straight year. On the track, Evaristo had another reason to celebrate, thanks to an .041 reaction time at the start and 6.908-second pass in her first-round matchup against Steve Johnson, she earned a second-round competition against her crew chief, Matt Smith. Evaristo lost to Smith on a photo finish. Contact Matt Florjancic at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.