![]() ![]() ![]() Chad Green, seeking his first career event win in Funny Car, eliminated Cruz Pedregon, Paul Lee and Ron Capps (defending series champion) to advance to the final round. Todd got past Blake Alexander, Bob Tasca III (#1 qualifier) and Matt Hagan in his march to the final round. Todd collected his first event win in more than two years. With this fifth win of the season, Ashley takes over the championship point lead. But Ashley was not going to go away that easy, as he got past Brown at the finish line to take a 3.778 at 328.78 mph to 3.787 at 327.90 mph win. In the final round, Brown got away first (0.059 to 0.067) and looked to have a sure victory. On the other side of the ladder was Justin Ashley, who took out Doug Kalitta, Austin Prock (#1 qualifier) and Josh Hart in his path to the final round. Torrence, who was starting to get that championship swagger back, exploded his supercharger on the starting line in the second round of elimination it was a single/bye run. Brown ended up qualifying third and advanced to the final round, taking out Brittany Force and Steve Torrence along the way. But, reacting quickly and with great skill, his car suffered no further damage. of downforce, his car could have gone completely out of control. Three-time NHRA Top Fuel champion, Antron Brown, had to use remarkable skill to keep control of his dragster, when the rear wing on his car nearly broke off. The crew chiefs had to dig down deep into their back of tricks just to get their cars to make competitive full track runs. It took several hours and continuous effort by the NHRA track and safety team (Safety Safari) to get the track back to somewhat normal conditions. But, track conditions would not cooperate, as a mechanical failure in a different race class caused havoc with the track. Brittany Force and her team were the favorites, as she – thanks to her crew chief, David Grubnic – owned eight of 10 of the quickest elapse times and highest speeds in the category. With $30,000 up for grabs for the first driver/team in the nitro categories to go 300 mph by the 1/8-mile mark (approximately half track), the crew chiefs were licking their chops. In fact, the conditions looked like they could provide for some record runs. The weather in Sonoma was warm, but not as hot as projected for the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals. It was a difficult race weekend in Wine Country, full of adversity. ![]()
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