TSR Nitro Remains in Top Three in Top Fuel and Funny Car Points After NHRA Southern Nationals

TSR Nitro Remains in Top Three in Top Fuel and Funny Car Points After NHRA Southern Nationals

By DodgeGarage 05/04/2026 02:00 PM
Racing
6 min read
NHRATony Stewart Racing

When the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series arrived at South Georgia Motorsports Park for this track’s national event debut, nobody quite knew what the Adel, Georgia facility would deliver. The Southern Nationals has deep roots in Georgia, but this was a new address, a new surface and a blank sheet of paper for every team. By the time Sunday’s eliminations reached the semifinal rounds, the new venue had provided everything fans experiencing the first NHRA event at this track could have hoped for, including tire-smoking drama in every class, and a first-time matchup between father and son in Funny Car.

The weekend opened with two qualifying rounds on Friday under favorable skies, and the Nitro cars wasted no time making an impression on the South Georgia crowd. TSR’s Matt Hagan put the Johnson’s Horsepowered Garage Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat into the No. 4 spot on the Funny Car ladder with a 3.933-second pass at 328.78 mph – a solid run on an unknown track. On the Top Fuel side, Leah Pruett wheeled her American Rebel Beer dragster to a 3.804 at 331.64 mph to qualify eighth.

Saturday morning, the weather had other plans. Persistent rain and cool temperatures through the morning and early afternoon forced NHRA to cancel the third qualifying session, leaving teams with a single late day run to improve their positions before the fields were locked. Doug Kalitta used that session to make the loudest statement of the weekend. The reigning Top Fuel champion and 2026 points leader ripped off a 3.657 at 342.37 mph in the Mac Tools dragster to earn the No. 1 qualifying position and his 67th career top spot in front of a sellout crowd. In Funny Car, J.R. Todd answered with a 3.887 at 339.29 mph to set the new SGMP track speed record and land himself at the top of the Funny Car ladder. With the weather finally clearing and the fields locked, track records were expected to fall when eliminations got underway Sunday morning.

Pruett entered race day with more background at SGMP than most of her competitors realized. Her experience at the facility spanned multiple test sessions in various cars, including development work on the Dodge Challenger SRT® Demon platform, and she carried that familiarity into the first round against Josh Hart and the John Force Racing Speedmaster entry. Hart had posted a competitive 3.855 in qualifying, but Pruett matched the moment with a 3.864 at 322.96 mph to advance. The quarterfinal draw, however, put her directly across from Doug Kalitta and the Mac Tools car that had been the best machine on the property all weekend. Pruett’s crew gave her everything they thought the track could handle, but Kalitta’s run was simply more than she had an answer for, and his 3.798 to her 3.864 ended the day early for the TSR Top Fuel effort in the quarterfinals. Pruett exits South Georgia still sitting third in the championship standings, with every indication that the momentum she has built across five races is real.

In the Funny Car class, Hagan’s debut of the Shelor Motor Mile livery on the Charger Hellcat coincided with a first-round win that, admittedly, left something to be desired on the scoreboard. His matchup against Jack Beckman, the 2012 Funny Car champion and an 11-time event winner, was as marquee a first-round draw as the ladder could have produced. Hagan took the win, but the 3.988 elapsed time told the story of a car that hadn’t fully cracked the code of SGMP’s surface in round one. He surrendered lane choice heading into the quarterfinals against Alexis DeJoria, the John Force Racing sophomore who has been one of the surprise packages of the 2026 season. Hagan smoked the tires early in the run, and DeJoria kept her Bandero Quality Tequila Chevrolet on a clean pass to advance. For a driver sitting second in the Funny Car standings with 15 events still ahead, the quarterfinal exit stings but does not define. South Georgia was a bit of a step back, but the foundation this team has built through five races is too strong to read much into one quarterfinal exit on a track very few teams had figured out.

The Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Car story at SGMP also included Cruz Pedregon, who brought the Snap-on Tools Dodge to Georgia, ready to race. Pedregon has been running the Hellcat body all season as the rebuilt Cruz Pedregon Racing program takes shape around veteran crew additions Terrance “Rip” Reynolds and Chris “Warrior” Kullberg. He qualified fifth with a 3.948, carrying lane choice into a first-round matchup against DeJoria from the No. 10 spot. Despite the positional advantage, Pedregon was outgunned as DeJoria’s 3.946 took the win as Cruz experienced a bit of trouble during his run.

South Georgia Motorsports Park handed Tony Stewart Racing a mixed report card when comparing this weekend’s results with where the team currently sits in the Top Fuel and Funny Car standings. Leah Pruett had a respectable but ultimately frustrating weekend, qualifying eighth, winning in the first round against a capable opponent, Josh Hart, before running into the best car at the facility, Doug Kalitta’s Mac Tools dragster, in the quarterfinals. Her third-place position in the Top Fuel championship standings remains intact, and five races into her return season, the trajectory is pointing in the right direction. Hagan’s day was shorter than the team would have liked, a first-round win over Beckman followed by a tire-smoking quarterfinal exit against DeJoria, but second place in the Funny Car standings with 15 races remaining is not a bad position to be in at this stage of the 2026 NHRA season.

South Georgia Motorsports Park delivered on every level for its NHRA national event debut. Two consecutive sellout crowds, a rain delay that tested everyone’s patience, and a Nitro show that gave this part of Georgia exactly what it came to see. The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series now turns north to Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Illinois, for the Gerber Collision and Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals presented by PEAK. For TSR Nitro, the target is the same it has been since Gainesville – put the Johnson’s Horsepowered Garage Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat back in the winner’s circle and keep Leah Pruett’s American Rebel Beer dragster pointed at a first win of the 2026 season.

Close-up view of the rear end of a Dodge Charger racing car in a pit area, showing aerodynamic components, sponsor logos, and the Instagram handle @dodgemoparmotorsports prominently displayed on the bumper.
A smiling female race car driver in a blue and orange racing suit and a black “American Rebel” cap stands outdoors with a racing track and sponsor banners in the background.
A dragster car burns rubber at the starting line of a racetrack, creating smoke, with a crowd of spectators watching from blue and green bleachers under a clear blue sky.
A smiling man wearing a black American Rebel Light racing shirt with various sponsor logos stands with his arm slightly raised in front of a dark background.
A black drag racing car with American Rebel branding speeds down a track as a large crowd watches from bleachers; NHRA flags are visible in the background.
A race car driver in a colorful helmet and full racing suit stands beside a dragster, with team members nearby. The scene is set on a racetrack with cars and equipment in the background.
A black and white Dodge drag racing car with Bond-Coat branding emits smoke from its tires as it accelerates on a racetrack, with crew members and spectators in the background.
Two people sit on electric bikes at a race track. The woman wears a patterned cap and black jacket, while the man wears glasses and a black and green shirt. A large screen and several people are visible in the background.
A patriotic-themed drag racing car with Snap-on branding lines up on the track, surrounded by crew members in racing uniforms, ready for a race.
A drag racing car with American Rebel branding burns rubber at the start line, producing smoke. Spectators fill the grandstands in the background, watching the event under a partly cloudy sky.

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