Matt Hagan's NHRA Lead Shrinks to 72 Points After a Tire-Smoking Semifinal in St. Louis
Austin Prock won the Midwest Nationals to climb within 106 points, while TSR teammates Leah Pruett and Tony Stewart both fell in the Top Fuel quarterfinals.
Matt Hagan's streak of finals ended Sunday at the NAPA Auto Parts NHRA Midwest Nationals, but his hold on the Funny Car points lead did not. The Tony Stewart Racing driver went up in tire smoke against Jordan Vandergriff in the semifinals at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis. He leaves with a 72-point advantage and three races to go.
Hagan won at Rockingham a week earlier and took an 84-point lead into St. Louis. Vandergriff clawed back 12 of those points on Sunday, and the race winner added a new name to the title fight.
Hagan started from third on the grid after a 3.882-second qualifying run. His Dodge//SRT Hellcat then beat Terry Haddock with a 3.935 and Spencer Hyde with a 3.925, while both opponents struggled for grip. Dodge says it was his sixth consecutive semifinal. Against Vandergriff, though, Hagan's car lost traction early and coasted to a 6.158. According to Hagan, the team had fitted a fresh supercharger before that round, and it likely made more power than the track could take.
"It's going to come down to the last race in Pomona," Hagan said.
Prock is back in the fight
The day belonged to Austin Prock. The two-time defending Funny Car champion beat Ron Capps, J.R. Todd, and No. 1 qualifier Jack Beckman. NHRA notes that all three started the day ahead of him in points. In the final, Prock beat Vandergriff with a 3.909 at 332.84 mph, according to NHRA's results. It is his second win of 2026.
That leaves five drivers within 132 points of each other. Hagan has 2,402 points, Vandergriff 2,330, Prock 2,296, Beckman 2,279, and Todd 2,270. Hagan, who clinched the regular-season title at Indianapolis, already shares the Funny Car record of four championships with Don Prudhomme and Kenny Bernstein. A fifth title would break that tie.
Pruett and Stewart stop in the quarterfinals
In Top Fuel, Leah Pruett won her opening round on reaction time. Her 3.735 beat Kyle Wurtzel's slightly quicker 3.733 because she left the starting line first. Her reward was Shawn Langdon, who beat her 3.714 to 3.770 and went on to win his fourth straight race. Pruett said valvetrain trouble in the warmup forced the team to back off the tune-up, and it ended up too conservative.
Tony Stewart, Pruett's husband and team owner, survived a first round in which neither he nor Josh Hart made a clean pass. Stewart won 5.322 to 7.912, then lost to Will Smith, 3.721 to 3.762. Smith went on to his first career final. Stewart stays third in Top Fuel with 2,234 points, just 10 ahead of Pruett. Both trail Langdon by more than 200 points. In 17 races this season, the couple has yet to meet in eliminations.
Dodge also scored in Factory Stock Showdown. Lee Hartman finished the final held over from the rain-delayed Michigan race. He beat David Janac with a 7.511 at 176.67 mph, which NHRA lists as the quickest pass in class history and Hartman's first national event win. The class title went to Ford, as Jonathan Allegrucci clinched the championship in his Mustang Cobra Jet on Sunday.
The series moves to the Texas NHRA FallNationals at Texas Motorplex near Dallas on Oct. 16–18. Nitro qualifying starts Friday at 5:15 p.m. CDT. Sunday's eliminations air on FS1 at 4 p.m. EDT.
