Jasmine Salinas made the most of a last-minute opportunity to add her home race, the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals, to her part-time schedule when she raced to her first career NHRA Top Fuel final round Sunday afternoon at Sonoma Raceway. The second-generation driver who grew up in nearby San Jose put on one of the best driving performances of her young career to defeat championship contenders like Josh Hart, points leader Shawn Langdon, and Leah Pruett to meet two-time and reigning world champion Doug Kalitta in the final round. Though she didn’t turn on the final win light, Salinas and her part-time Valley Services/Scrappers Racing Top Fuel team showed that they bring full-time energy to the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series.
Salinas got off to a promising start right out of the gate in Friday’s first qualifying session when she laid down a 3.751-second pass at 331.77 mph to sit fifth. She was in line to make a pass in the second qualifying session, but an oildown early in the session pushed racing up against the local curfew and NHRA officials sent the remaining Top Fuel entries back to the pits. When qualifying continued on Saturday, Salinas smoked the tires early in the third session before closing out qualifying with a 4.254-second pass in Q4. She clinched the No. 7 starting position on the strength of her first qualifying pass.
Salinas lined up against No. 8 qualifier Josh Hart in the opening round of eliminations on Sunday morning. Hart got the starting line advantage, but Salinas blew past him to turn on the win light with a solid run of 3.756 seconds at 319.90 mph, while Hart ran into tire smoke in the other lane. That sent Salinas into the quarterfinals to face points leader Shawn Langdon. She moved first, and despite shutting off early, she held on to get the win with a 3.775 E.T. at 309.91 mph to Langdon’s 3.776 E.T. at 335.32 mph. Salinas was on her starting line game once again in the semifinals as she left ahead of Leah Pruett. That holeshot advantage made the difference when Salinas beat Pruett’s quicker 3.751 E.T. with her 3.772-second pass at 334.98 mph. The margin of victory was just .002 seconds – one of the closest races of the season.
Salinas saved her best reaction time for last. She cut a .056-second reaction time in the final round to leave on Kalitta. Salinas held the lead until around half-track when a dropped cylinder slowed her to a 3.815 E.T. at 319.14 mph. Kalitta won with a 3.731-second pass at 339.96 mph.
“All year, as a team, we’ve been saying that if we can get past the first round, we know we can win the race,” said Salinas, who was joined all weekend by her family, including her father and team owner, Mike Salinas. “We got pretty close today, but we’ve been knowing what this car is capable of. We just haven’t been able to come out and show it to everybody. This weekend definitely showed everybody that we’ve got the right car, the right driver, the right team. When it’s your day, it’s your day, and today was a really great day, but we’re gonna get our day soon.”
A strong qualifying effort and a final-round appearance in the team’s fourth NHRA appearance of the season proved that Salinas and her Scrappers Racing team are heading in the right direction. The team will build on that momentum at the next stop on the NHRA Mission Foods Series tour in Seattle.
“Everything has to come together in order to make the car go from A to B,” Salinas said. “The driver’s got to be there. The team’s got to be there. We’re a part-time team and we’re flying new guys in every other race and that can present challenges, but we showed this weekend that we’ve got a great group of guys and a great group of people that believe in us. I’ve been working on a lot of things for myself as a driver, and the mental part has been a huge thing. I’m a strong believer that confidence comes from earning it and proving it to yourself, and I think every single time I come out here, I keep proving it to myself. This was a great weekend. It really showed what I’m capable of.”
Salinas will get another shot at her first career Top Fuel victory at the upcoming Muckleshoot Casino Resort NHRA Northwest Nationals, July 24-26, at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington.
This story was originally published on July 20, 2026. 
The post Jasmine Salinas Advances to First Career Top Fuel Final Round in Front of Home Crowd at Sonoma first appeared on Drag Illustrated.
