NHRA pros at Norwalk

Results compiled by Kay Burk
Photos by Richard Muir

It took eight tries but Funny car legend John Force added another racetrack and NHRA national to his winning collection. Force raced to victory on July 6 at the 8th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals securing his unprecedented 140th Funny Car win and moving into the No. 2 position on the Mello Yello Funny Car point standings.

Antron Brown (Top Fuel), Erica Enders-Stevens (Pro Stock) and Andrew Hines (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also were winners at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio, near Cleveland.

TOP FUEL

The cherry on top of the ice cream that the northern Ohio facility is famous for is that it is a hometown race not only for one of Brown's crew chiefs, Brian Corradi, but for longtime sponsor Matco Tools as well. The company, headquartered in Stow, Ohio, about an hour away from the Norwalk track, announced earlier this week a sponsorship extension with Don Schumacher Racing and Brown through the 2017 NHRA season.

"It's our primary sponsor Matco's home race," Antron said. "They're right down the road in Stow. The president of Matco, Tim Gilmore, was here and the vice president of marketing John Green and their families were here with all our Matco distributors and we just knew we needed to win this race and that's what makes it special."

The win capped off an outstanding weekend for the Matco Tools team after qualifying third for Sunday's eliminations. Before earning their fifth event win in 13 races this season, the team clocked their best pass of the weekend, a 3.756-second lap at 324 mph in the opening round of eliminations.

But it wasn't an easy day for the team who closed within less than three round wins behind Top Fuel points leader Doug Kalitta. After warming up the 10,000-horsepower dragster for the final round against reigning Top Fuel champion Shawn Langdon, the well-trained crew members noticed a problem with the dragster after excess smoke was coming from the engine.