HAGAN DOUBLES UP AT THE WINTERNATIONALS AS TSR NITRO LIGHTS UP POMONA

The 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series has already established itself as a season worth watching. Tony Stewart Racing’s nitro teams are right in the thick of it. The year opened at the NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville. Leah Pruett made her long-awaited return to the cockpit of the TSR Dodge/Direct Connection Top Fuel dragster. She qualified third and turned heads immediately, proving she hadn’t missed a step. Matt Hagan, racing in his 19th season in Dodge machinery, qualified fifth. He exited in the quarterfinals, using Gainesville as a calibration point for the championship run ahead.

At the FMP NHRA Arizona Nationals in Chandler two weeks later, TSR Nitro showed its full potential. Pruett elevated her game to a No. 2 qualifying position and drove all the way to the final round. Hagan qualified fourth and reached the semifinals. Heading into Pomona for the Winternationals, Pruett sat fourth in Top Fuel points. Hagan held fifth in Funny Car. Both had momentum building and a clear eye on the championship picture.

And then came Pomona.

The 66th annual Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip is one of the most storied events on the NHRA calendar. It’s known as the birthplace of drag racing and has a way of separating contenders from pretenders. This year, it carried an extra layer of history. This weekend marked the 1,000th Funny Car race in NHRA history. Southern California delivered, though not without a fight. Rain threatened the weekend from the start. It forced a lengthy delay to Saturday’s third qualifying session after Tony Schumacher’s car shed its rear end and sent gear lube across the track at the 300-foot mark. The NHRA Safety Safari came out for a lengthy cleanup. Sunday’s original 10 a.m. start time was pushed back to 12:35 p.m. due to morning showers that soaked the racing surface. When the clouds finally moved on and the Pomona air cooled to race-day perfection, it set the table for a memorable afternoon.

Before a single round of eliminations was run, Leah Pruett had already made a statement. On the final pass of Friday qualifying, she jumped to the top of the Top Fuel field with a 3.724-second pass at 329.75 mph in her Rinnai Tankless Water Heaters dragster. It was her 16th career No. 1 qualifier and her first since returning to competition. The run held through Saturday, giving Pruett the pole and a valuable first-round bye heading into Sunday.

“We’re thrilled with where our performance is at, and the confidence and momentum are building with this team,” Pruett said. “Yeah, I’m happy. I have my own work to do, but man, we’re moving and grooving and looking forward to eliminations.”

Pomona is home ground for Pruett, who grew up in Redlands, about 40 miles from the track. She had been here before in a moment that still carries weight: the 2023 NHRA Finals. There, she raced Doug Kalitta for the Top Fuel championship in the final round and came up one win short. She brought those memories into this weekend with clear eyes. “That chapter has closed. So much life has taken place since then,” she said. “The Winternationals carries with it new beginnings, with new orders of business that are far greater than just one round at one racetrack against one team.”

In Sunday’s second round, Pruett faced a critical test against a red-hot Justin Ashley, whose reaction times had been among the best of the weekend. Ashley caught Pruett on a holeshot, 3.720 to 3.703, ending her day early. Despite the defeat, the weekend’s overall performance confirmed what the TSR team already knows: Pruett is back, she is fast, and she is not done adding to her trophy case.

Matt Hagan and Pomona have a complicated yet wonderful history. He is the winningest active Funny Car driver at this facility, with seven victories across both the Winternationals and Finals. He had made seven final round appearances at the Winternationals alone. He won in 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2023. Coming in, he knew the track had been good to him. He and the TSR Nitro team were counting on it again.

It started Saturday with the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. In the opening round, Hagan dispatched Arizona Nationals runner-up Spencer Hyde. He then took on Paul Lee in the final. The four-time world champion delivered, powering his Johnson’s Horsepowered Garage Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat to a 3.940 at 329.58 mph to win the challenge convincingly. That was trophy number one.

Sunday’s eliminations were a Matt Hagan/TSR Nitro showcase from start to finish. Hagan opened with a 3.892 over Spencer Hyde, avenging his loss to Hyde at the previous race. In the second round, Jason Rupert was nearly perfect on the starting line with a .013 reaction time. However, his car lost traction early, and Hagan drove through with a 3.90 to reach the semifinals. There, carrying lane choice over J.R. Todd, Hagan ran a 3.88 to put Todd away. That set up a final round matchup with Ron Capps, who had won seven straight round victories and held the low elapsed time of the meet.

Capps had lane choice and had been on a historic run. Hagan had other plans. He went 3.876 at 330.39 mph to hold off Capps’ 3.893 in an epic side-by-side battle. Hagan claimed his fifth Winternationals win, the 56th of his career, and put his name in the record books as the winner of the 1,000th Funny Car race in NHRA history. He walked out of Pomona with the Wally and the 2Fast2Tasty Challenge trophy. Two trophies in one weekend are always a good thing.

In the winner’s circle, Hagan captured the feeling perfectly. “I was telling Tony that sometimes you just wake up and you know today’s going to be good, and it was great. To win with the boss man to double up, and Leah was No. 1 qualifier, and winning the 1,000th Funny Car event and the #2Fast2Tasty yesterday, the only thing we didn’t leave with was the change under the bleachers.”

He wasn’t done. “This racetrack has shown me so much love over the years. Racing Capps, man, it was like back in the day, throwing it down, because we always used to throw down. So it just kind of felt natural. It’s a magical place because champions are crowned here, and tonight reminded me of the championship deals. The lights were on, and I’ve won a couple of times under the lights here. It just felt right.”

With this win, Hagan moves into a tie for the Funny Car points lead at 251 points with Capps, setting up what should be a compelling rivalry as the season builds toward the Countdown.

One more story deserved recognition at Pomona on Sunday, and it came from an unlikely angle for TSR fans. After Tony Stewart stepped out of the TSR Dodge Top Fuel dragster when Leah Pruett reclaimed her seat for 2026, he found a new home with Elite Motorsports in the R+L Carriers Top Fuel car. Still every bit the competitor, Stewart made his presence felt all weekend. On Sunday, he went rounds against Will Smith, Josh Hart, and Shawn Langdon before meeting Justin Ashley in the final. Ashley, who had been a machine on the starting line all weekend — posting three consecutive .025 reaction times en route to the championship round — faced Stewart in the finals. Stewart answered with a weekend-best 3.683 at 332.51, tracking down Ashley for the win and delivering Elite Motorsports its first-ever Top Fuel victory.

It was Stewart’s first win at Pomona and the third of his NHRA career, coming a year after he finished as the Winternationals runner-up at this same track.

The fact that the win came while driving for another organization doesn’t diminish it one bit for the extended TSR family. Tony Stewart won. Matt Hagan swept the weekend in Funny Car. Leah Pruett qualified in the top spot at her home track. On a rain-delayed Sunday afternoon in Southern California, the Tony Stewart Racing program put on a show worth remembering.

The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series heads to zMAX Dragway in Charlotte next for the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals, April 24-26. The momentum is real, and it’s pointing in the right direction.