Two-time Top Fuel world champion Brittany Force won for the first time in 39 races on Monday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, defeating reigning world champion Doug Kalitta in the final round of the 24th annual Ford Performance NHRA Nationals.
Austin Prock (Funny Car), Aaron Stanfield (Pro Stock) and Gaige Herrera (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also won the 19th of 20 races during the 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season and the fifth of six races in the Countdown to the Championship playoffs.
Force went 3.703-seconds at 332.54 mph in her 11,000-horsepower Chevrolet Accessories dragster to defeat Kalitta, who smoked the tires off the starting line. It is Force’s 17th career win and her first since the fall race in Las Vegas in 2022. The victory also comes on a weekend when her father, 16-time world champion John Force, returned to the track for the first time since his crash in June at Richmond.
After qualifying No. 1 and running three times in the 3.60s, Force continued to flash the form that led to a world title two years ago. She defeated Josh Hart, Shawn Reed and Clay Millican to reach the finals and then powered the win in the final round, culminating in an emotional celebration on the top end and a John Force Racing double-up.
“We’ve been piecing this together since the Countdown began and we were seeing this progress with No. 1 qualifiers and going rounds on race day. We knew it was coming,” Force said. “We knew we were closing in on it and we were getting close, and I had a good feeling about Vegas. We’ve been successful here in the past, and it’s one of my favorite tracks on the circuit and my whole family was here. My dad was here. I just had a good feeling about it, and to come here and win, our team needed that. We’ve always stayed positive, always stayed confident, but it does hurt when you go two seasons without winning.
“Having my dad here for the first time since his crash, it wasn’t pressure, it was more heart behind every single person on the team. We always want to come out here and win, but with him being here this weekend, after everything he’s been through, there was definitely more heart behind it. We wanted to get him in that winner’s circle.”
Kalitta advanced to the finals for the sixth time this year and 118th in his career after defeating Ida Zetterstrom, Antron Brown and Shawn Langdon. Justin Ashley remains in the points lead and he’ll take a 44 and 45-point…
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