{"id":736,"date":"2025-10-13T17:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T17:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/736\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T17:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T17:58:08","slug":"five-things-we-learned-in-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/736\/","title":{"rendered":"Five things we learned in Dallas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 40th annual Texas NHRA FallNationals was much more than a birthday party for the famed facility, but a celebration of the intensity of the Countdown to the Championship and the spirit of determination. Here\u2019s are our five big takeaways from the event.<\/p>\n

Points leaders for a reason\"\"<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t enter the second half of the Countdown to the Championship playoffs with the points lead without having The Right Stuff, and all four of the Mission Foods frontrunners not only extended their leads but did it with event wins.<\/p>\n

Doug Kalitta, whose Mac Tools machine has been in six of the last seven final rounds, and in all four in the Countdown, seems typically unshakeable and crew chief Alan Johnson is making no mistakes.<\/p>\n

Austin Prock, always his own worst critic and likely to tear himself down for mistakes that others would find less painful, continues to thrive under the pressure he puts on himself and the nimble tuning of his family\u2019s wrenching prowess on the Prock Rocket.<\/p>\n

Dallas Glenn may not be \u201cDouble-oh\u201d Dallas Glenn anymore (he\u2019s actually fifth in class reaction-time average), but he\u2019s still unflappable and his car has gone down the track 110 out of 117 runs this season.<\/p>\n

Richard Gadson, who rode in the shadow of Dallas Glenn last year, is definitely riding the hell out of his RevZilla Suzuki and he and his crew chief, former world champ Eddie Krawiec, have jelled into a formidable force. It\u2019s hard to believe that his and Herrera\u2019s bikes aren\u2019t almost identical and if that\u2019s true, he\u2019s outriding the two-time world champ right now.<\/p>\n

First championships a real possibility\"\"<\/p>\n

Dallas Glenn and Richard Gadson may not be playing second fiddle to their more-famous teammates Greg Anderson and Gaige Herrera much longer. Both left the FallNationals with bigger leads than which they entered after their closest pursuers both went out in the semifinals.<\/p>\n

Glenn was a thin 25 points ahead of Anderson before the event and left 60 markers ahead. Gadson\u2019s lead over his teammate Herrera was 29 and now it sits at 72.<\/p>\n

Glenn is used to seeing Anderson in the other lane in the final, but this time it was Aaron Stanfield after Anderson\u2019s semifinal loss to Stanfield.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just have to take everything one round at a time, and do everything I can and let the crew chiefs do their job. Don’t worry about what they’re doing, and don’t worry about the engine guy’s doing. Just do everything I can. If I can continue to do that, continue to turn on win lights, continue to have a little bit of luck on my side, I think we can wrap it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gadson and crew chief Eddie Krawiec took advantage of Herrera\u2019s unexpected -.005 semifinal red-light against Brayden Davis and added their fourth win of the season<\/p>\n

\u201cI want this championship bad, and I hope my riding shows it,\u201d said Gadson. \u201cThey say the first win is the sweetest, but they just keep getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Team Kalitta: Final-round machine\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do I look in this thing?\u201d Doug Kalitta asked after wearing his event-winning cowboy hat into the media center. \u201cI haven\u2019t had a chance to look. I probably look pretty goofy.\u201d<\/p>\n

No, Doug, you look like a guy about to be crowned champion again.<\/p>\n

Kalitta has not only been to all four final rounds of the Countdown to build his lead to massive proportions, but he\u2019s also been in six of the last seven rounds dating back to back-to-back wins in Sonoma and Brainerd.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlan [Johnson, crew chief] has a good handle on that thing. I’ve watched him a lot of years, and I’m really thankful to be driving the car that he’s tuning, that’s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The craziest part of that great run is Reading, where a parts failure caused him to careen into Tony Stewart\u2019s lane in a violent collision in the shutdown area. Just as the Mac Tools team did in 2023 when they blew a tire in Reading and went on to win the event en route to Kalitta\u2019s first championship. Alan Johson and Mac Savage and crew bounced back with a backup car and reached the final, where only a parts failure may have stopped them from beating Shawn Reed.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Reed winning] was the coolest thing that came out of that race because, trust me, we wanted that things, but we had a wire break on the clutch controller and smoked the tires, and Shawn ended up winning, but have to admit, anytime you’re racing somebody that gets their first win, that’s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bellemeur is back\"\"<\/p>\n

Not that he and the Killer Bs \u2013 tuner Steve Boggs and owner Tony Bartone \u2013 ever went away, but after a foray into experimentation with an injected nitro combination earlier this year, they\u2019re back to dominating with their reliable blown alcohol combination and collected their fifth win of the year in their drive for a fifth world championship in the last eight seasons.<\/p>\n

Bellemeur\u2019s win was his 48th, and all of them have taken place in the last 10 years after he won his first at this event, as a fill-in driver, back in 2015. He\u2019s now won the event seven times and it\u2019s not even his best track. He\u2019s won 10 times at zMAX Dragway (counting both the spring and fall events) and eight times at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

While no one will ever approach class legend Frank Manzo\u2019s 17 world championships and 108 wins, Bellemeur \u2013 although the humble Californian will deny it \u2013 may be on pace to someday supplant four-time champ and 70-time winner Pat Austin as the class\u2019 second-best driver and will almost assuredly find a place on the list of NHRA\u2019s Top 75 Drivers that will be announced in 2026.<\/p>\n

Billy Meyer is still a Funny Car driver\"\"<\/p>\n

Decades ago, Billy Meyer was \u201cthe Waco Kid,\u201d a hard-driving teenage sensation<\/a> in the nitro Funny Car ranks. He grew into his own, helped introduce the 18-wheeler craze to the pit area, and won 18 NHRA national events before hanging up his fireboots in 1988.<\/p>\n

By then, of course, he\u2019d already opened Texas Motorplex, the first post-tension all-concrete dragstrip in the world and the playground for national records for years.<\/p>\n

Thirty-seven years after his last nitro-fueled pass down the dragstrip, Meyer saddled up in a Stampede of Speed-themed Funny Car Firdya night and, looking like he\u2019d never left the cockpit, laid down a pretty burnout. He wasn\u2019t going to make a run, of course, but the fans didn\u2019t care. They roared, and Billy smiled.<\/p>\n

He had so much fun that he did it again Saturday, this time an even longer and smokier burnout that didn\u2019t end until he reached halftrack. Shades of the \u201870s.<\/p>\n

Just proves that you can leave the cockpit, but the nitro never leaves your veins.<\/p>\n

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