POMONA, CA – November 9, 2022 (Motor Sports NewsWire) – A truly spectacular season in the Top Fuel ranks has come down to one last epic duel at this weekend’s 57th annual Auto Club NHRA Finals at legendary Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, where a championship will be crowned to close out the 2022 campaign in NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series.
Brittany Force’s incredible comeback at the most recent race in Las Vegas, where she won and made up nearly 90 points, puts her a mere seven points ahead of Justin Ashley heading into the finale, with Mike Salinas, Antron Brown and four-time defending world champion Steve Torrence still lurking as well.
But Force and her team put themselves in contention to clinch a second world championship with their Vegas mastery, adding to what has already been a brilliant year in her 11,000-horsepower Monster Energy/Flav-R-Pac dragster. Force has claimed five wins, nine No. 1 qualifiers, the fastest run in Top Fuel history and numerous track records, but she knows there’s still work to be done in Pomona.
“I’m really proud of our entire team and we’ve had a great season,” Force said. “We’ve just got to keep doing what we’ve been doing. This team has been winning races and setting track records and now it comes down to the final race, as we knew it would. We’ve got to keep repeating what we’ve been doing and it’s going to be an exciting weekend. It’s a lot of pressure, but I’m trying to find a way to enjoy it a little bit and I am looking forward to Pomona and seeing where this ends up.”
Torrence (Top Fuel), Bob Tasca III (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) won last year’s race, while Torrence, Ron Capps (Funny Car), Anderson and Smith all claimed world titles in Pomona as well. This season’s final event will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 (FS1), including eliminations at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 13, and with points-and-a-half on the line, anything can happen.
Salinas is just 66 points back of Force, with Brown and Torrence trailing the leader by 78 and 87 points, respectively. That puts each within three rounds of Force, while Ashley can control his own destiny with a second Pomona victory in 2022.
“We’re keeping everything the same,” Ashley said. “There’s no reason to change what got us here and we’ve got to focus on being the best version of ourselves and bring out our ‘A’ game. The easiest thing to do is to get caught up in all…
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