THURSDAY. Sportsman class eliminations are running. More than 860 cars are on the property, roughly 70 more than last year. Cruz Pedregon Racing opens its doors in Brownsburg tonight from 5 to 8:30. The pros hit the track Friday at 6:15 p.m. ET for Q1, and with 23 Funny Cars entered, that session may be the most consequential 40 minutes of the entire NHRA season.
Live From Indy
Newest first. Updated through Monday’s finals.
Cruz Pedregon Racing throws open the doors at 462 Southpoint Circle in Brownsburg from 5 to 8:30 p.m., ten minutes from the racetrack. Admission is free, the car and motorcycle show is $20 a vehicle with every dollar going to Hailey’s Army for Children, and the autograph session at 7 p.m. pulls in a guest list that runs well past the Funny Car pits: Justin Ashley, Chad Green, TJ Zizzo, Julie Nataas, Jasmine Salinas, Jianna Evaristo, Ryan Oehler, Clayton Howey, Krista Baldwin, plus street racing names Murder Nova and Ryan Martin. Pedregon hands out cash to his three favorite cars in the show.
Class eliminations in Super Stock and Stock are underway, with roughly 100 more Wallys going out before the weekend is done. Stock drew 147 cars for a 128 car field. Super Stock drew 144 for 128. Fifteen current or former world champions are in the Super Stock field alone. Jason Line leads the Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge after round one at 8.451.
The Big Go opened before 8 a.m. with Stock and Super Stock qualifying, Super Comp time trials and the first round of Hemi Challenge qualifying. More than 860 cars are entered across every category, up roughly 70 from the 2025 count. NHRA is handing out commemorative 75th anniversary diamond Wallys to every winner this weekend.
Regular Season Championship Watch
This is the last race before the Countdown, it pays a point and a half, and a driver can bank up to 195 points in a weekend. That combination is why every number below is still live. Standings are current through Brainerd. This module updates after every session.
Qualifying
The full qualifying order for all four NHRA Mission Foods pro classes plus JBS Equipment Pro Mod, every car in the field, posts here after Q1 Friday night and updates after every session through final qualifying Sunday afternoon.
Eliminations
Round by round results post here beginning Sunday with Pro Mod and the All-Star Funny Car Callout, then Monday for the four Mission Foods pro classes. Winners, final round data and the complete elimination table land here Monday night.
Storylines
Eighty-four pro cars. More than 860 total entries, roughly 70 more than last year. Five qualifying sessions instead of four, a point and a half on every round, an extra day at the racetrack and nearly $400,000 riding on where four drivers finish. The Big Go has always carried more weight than the number of Wallys it hands out, and the 72nd running arrives with more genuinely unsettled business than any race on the 2026 calendar.
Aaron Stanfield put the appeal plainly. “I think everyone looks forward to this race. The U.S. Nationals marks the end of the regular season and it marks it in a big way: points and a half, extra qualifying and an extra day at the track,” says Stanfield. “Winning the U.S. Nationals puts you in the history books. Besides winning the championship, a victory at The Big Go is probably the next biggest thing you could do in NHRA.”
The bump spot is the story nobody is talking about loudly enough
Twenty-three Funny Cars are on the entry list. Sixteen make the show. Do that math and you get the most interesting subplot at Indy in a decade, because it has been roughly that long since this class had enough quality cars on the property to genuinely threaten anybody. NHRA’s Kevin McKenna has spent the season reporting that this is the weekend the Funny Car bump spot finally goes into the threes, and on this week’s NHRA Insider podcast he doubled down on it with the entry list in hand. Pencil in 13 or 14 tour regulars for a three, he figures, and you only need two or three part-timers to do the same thing.
Tony Pedregon, who lives 15 minutes from the racetrack and has won this race, is not arguing. The part-timers who can do the damage are already identified: Bobby Bode, whose car ran well at Brainerd, Julie Nataas in Del Worsham’s car, and Hunter Green. Host Brian Lohnes put the consequence in plain language on the podcast: if you are a regular touring car that averages a 12th to 14th qualifying position, be afraid, be very afraid, because that is a dangerous place to live.
Top Fuel has the same problem with 22 dragsters. TJ Zizzo is here. Tripp Tatum is here. Jasmine Salinas is here. The 16 spots run out fast, and Lohnes said he would bet money that a top 10 car goes into Sunday not yet qualified.
Friday night at 6:15 is worth more than any other session this year
Q1 goes off Friday evening. The forecast climbs toward 90 on Saturday, backs into the low 80s Sunday and turns cloudy and cooler for Monday’s eliminations. That means the racetrack Friday night is a different racetrack than the one they get Saturday afternoon, which is different again from Sunday, which is different again from Monday.
Pedregon’s read: if you do not fire a shot Friday night, you spend the next four sessions chasing your tail. Teams that get down the track and hit their number Friday earn the wiggle room to experiment. Teams that do not spend the weekend watching a bump spot they cannot control. And because so many cars need to get down a racetrack that is being run on all day by 860 entries, some tuners will be less aggressive than they would like to be, which is its own kind of trap.
Lohnes framed it as the single biggest test of a crew chief’s ability on the schedule, and it is hard to argue. Four days, four different racetracks, one setup book, and no room to be wrong.
Five Funny Cars, 74 points, one weekend
Ron Capps led this thing in mid August. Matt Hagan led it out of Brainerd. In between, four different drivers had a legitimate claim on the regular season Funny Car championship, and none of them have shaken loose. Hagan sits on 938. Jordan Vandergriff is 7 back. Capps is 12 back. J.R. Todd is 22 back. Jack Beckman is 74 back and, because Indy pays a point and a half, Beckman is not out of it either.
Pedregon’s top three to win the race: Hagan, Austin Prock and Capps. Prock is the reigning world champion and the defending Indy winner, he is sixth in points in his first season at Tasca Racing, and his last five races read four semifinals and a runner-up. That is not a hot streak, that is a program arriving. The PlayNHRA oddsmakers have him at or near the top of the board.
The strangest wrinkle belongs to Vandergriff. He is second in the championship and he is not in the All-Star Funny Car Callout, because the qualifying window for that field opened at Indy last year, before he was in the car. Second in points, frozen out of the $80,000 side event. Asked about it on the Insider podcast, he told Lohnes he wants to race everything he can possibly race.
Kalitta against Kalitta in Top Fuel
Shawn Langdon controlled the first half of the Top Fuel season. Doug Kalitta took it from him and has not given it back. The two Kalitta Motorsports teammates are separated by 67 points with 195 available, which is the cleanest way to say that this is a two car race and both cars park in the same pit.
Pedregon’s view is that Kalitta is as good as he has ever been and that Langdon’s team, not Langdon’s talent, is what has fallen off. He also flagged Maddi Gordon as the car that has genuinely improved, crediting a more aggressive approach from Rob Flynn. Gordon is fifth in points in her first full season with a Top Fuel Wally already on the shelf. Tony Schumacher, whose 10 U.S. Nationals wins are the most of any active driver, is in the field. So are Tony Stewart, Antron Brown, Leah Pruett, Clay Millican and defending event winner Justin Ashley.
The KB Titan problem, and the man who could spoil it
Greg Anderson and Dallas Glenn were 8 points apart coming out of the summer, teammates and rivals in the same building. Anderson won Brainerd and made it 85. Twenty Pro Stock cars are entered and the class runs its usual knife fight, but the regular season championship is an internal KB Titan matter that comes down to which of the two goes further on Monday.
The interesting question is who spoils it. Pedregon and McKenna both landed on Greg Stanfield. He is third in points with two wins, his deficit is largely a function of the first six to eight races, and since then he has run on par with Glenn. He also races for a team that now has one clear championship horse to back, and Elite Motorsports knows how to concentrate resources when it matters. Matt Hartford stays the wild card, quick enough to beat anybody and inconsistent enough on the starting line to beat himself.
Elite arrives with real Indy pedigree regardless. Erica Enders has won this race four times, most recently in 2025. Jeg Coughlin Jr. has won it four times. Aaron Stanfield doubled up here in 2024, taking both Pro Stock and Factory X.
“From the time I was a kid, waiting for National Dragster to come in the mail, the U.S. Nationals has always been the pinnacle of NHRA Drag Racing,” says Coughlin. “We have made several transitions in our approach and we’re looking to settle in for improved runs and putting ourselves in championship contention.”
Pro Stock Motorcycle comes back for the one that counts
The bikes have been off the tour for three races. They come back at Indy, with a point and a half, to settle a regular season championship that belongs to Vance & Hines either way. Richard Gadson carries an 83 point lead over teammate Gaige Herrera and 111 over Angie Smith. Herrera will be counting points in qualifying, because 83 with a point and a half is doable and not likely in the same breath.
Nineteen bikes are entered, the biggest Pro Stock Motorcycle field of the season, and the non-full-timers are where the trouble lives. Malcolm Phillips Jr. has joined the Ryan Oehler operation. Mark Paquette is back. The upset pick on the Insider podcast was Clayton Howey, on Vance & Hines power with the Klontz team, whose lights have been excellent in a partial season. Herrera holds the Indy track ET record at 6.738 from August 2025.
Pro Mod runs race two of the Road to the Championship
The JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series presented by Elite Motorsports drew 21 pre-entries and gets four qualifying sessions across Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning before Sunday afternoon eliminations. Derek Menholt carried the points lead out of the regular season and into the five race Road to the Championship, where Indy is stop two behind Norwalk, with Rockingham, St. Louis and Las Vegas to follow.
The 2026 season has spread the wins around. Justin Bond took Phoenix. Jason Collins won South Georgia in his second career start and added Bristol. Mike Stavrinos won Charlotte on a holeshot. Menholt became the first two time winner at Chicago. Kevin Rivenbark took Norwalk. Nobody has run away with anything, which is exactly the environment that makes a point and a half at Indy matter.
The Callout, the Hemi Challenge and a first timer
Sunday is stacked before eliminations ever start. The NHRA All-Star Funny Car Callout runs three rounds at 12:45, 2:15 and 3:40 p.m. ET, with FS1 carrying an hour and a half of it Sunday night at 7 p.m. ET and roughly $80,000 to the winner. The Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge, the longest running continuous specialty race in NHRA history, puts Hemi powered 1968 Super Stock Darts and Barracudas on the property Wednesday through Friday. The Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown brought more than two dozen cars. And the Right Trailers Outlaw Street class makes its first U.S. Nationals appearance.
Seventy five years, and a diamond Wally
NHRA’s 75th anniversary celebration lands at the biggest race on its calendar, and this is the largest gathering of anniversary legends the tour will see all season. Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, Kenny Bernstein, Joe Amato, Shirley Muldowney and Darrell Gwynn are among the names scheduled to appear. Winners in every category take home a commemorative 75th anniversary diamond Wally, a black pedestal with a diamond crystal base and a chrome figure, and the supply of them runs out for good at Pomona in November. The Rat Trap and Bradford’s Fiat nitro Fuel Altereds run exhibition passes Friday and Sunday, push start cackle cars go down the property both days with legends behind the wheel, and the reworked Nitro Mall carries the anniversary merchandise.
Schedule
All times Eastern. Schedule per the NHRA pre-event fact sheet and subject to change on site.
Wednesday, September 2
· NHRA Lucas Oil Series (SS, STK, two qualifying sessions; SC, SG three time-trial sessions) 8 a.m.
· Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge qualifying 4 p.m.
Thursday, September 3
· Lucas Oil Series SS and STK class eliminations 8 a.m.
· Comp, TD, TS qualifying 12 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
· SC eliminations 9 a.m.
· SG eliminations 5:30 a.m.
· Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge qualifying 11:45 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
· Cruz Pedregon Racing Open House and Car Show, Brownsburg, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
Friday, September 4
· Lucas Oil Series qualifying and eliminations 9 a.m.
· Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car qualifying 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
· Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge eliminations 10:15 a.m., 12:45, 2:45, 5:15 and 7 p.m.
· Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown qualifying 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
· JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod qualifying 5:20 p.m.
· NHRA Mission Foods qualifying 6:15 p.m. (Q1)
· The Wes Buck Show live from Nitro Alley
Saturday, September 5
· Lucas Oil Series eliminations 8 a.m. and 5:50 p.m.
· Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car qualifying 10 a.m.
· Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown qualifying 11 a.m., eliminations 5:35 p.m.
· JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod qualifying 11:30 a.m. and 2:40 p.m.
· NHRA Mission Foods qualifying 12:30 p.m. (Q2) and 3:30 p.m. (Q3)
Sunday, September 6
· Lucas Oil Series eliminations 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.
· Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car eliminations 10 a.m. and 5:25 p.m.
· Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown eliminations 10:45 a.m. and 6:10 p.m.
· JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod qualifying 11:10 a.m., eliminations 4:45 p.m.
· NHRA All-Star Funny Car Callout eliminations 12:45, 2:15 and 3:40 p.m.
· NHRA Mission Foods qualifying 12 p.m. (Q4) and 2:45 p.m. (Q5, final qualifying)
Monday, September 7
· Pre-race ceremonies 9 a.m.
· SealMaster Track Walk before eliminations
· NHRA Mission Foods eliminations begin 10 a.m.
TV / Streaming
- Sunday, Sept. 6, 3 p.m. ET on FS1: Two hours of qualifying coverage
- Sunday, Sept. 6, 7 p.m. ET on FS1: One and a half hours of NHRA All-Star Funny Car Callout coverage
- Sunday, Sept. 6, 10:30 p.m. ET on FS1: Two hours of qualifying coverage
- Monday, Sept. 7, 12 p.m. ET on FS1: Two hours of finals coverage
- Monday, Sept. 7, 2 p.m. ET on FOX: Three hours of finals coverage
- NHRA.TV: Streaming coverage running from Wednesday morning through the weekend, including the sportsman categories that never make the broadcast
Tickets are available at NHRA.com/tickets. Parking is free all weekend, children 12 and under get in free, and the SealMaster Track Walk runs before Monday’s eliminations.
The Point and a Half, Explained
Indy does not score like the other 13 regular season races. Here is exactly what is available.
| 150 | Points to the winner (100 at every other regular season event) |
| 195 | Maximum points a single racer can earn at this event |
| 15 | Points for making a qualifying attempt (10 at every other event) |
| 5 | Qualifying sessions, with 1-2-3-4 bonus points to the top four qualifiers in each |
| 3 to 10 | Points awarded by final qualifying position |
The practical read: a driver 74 points back can erase it, and a leader who stumbles in qualifying can lose a season’s worth of work in one weekend. The Countdown to the Championship, NHRA’s six race playoff, opens Sept. 18 through 20 at Martin, Michigan.
Sportsman and the Hemi Challenge
The pros get the television window. The sportsman classes are why Indy takes six days, and why more than 860 cars are parked on a 267 acre property this week. Roughly 100 additional Wallys go out before Monday.
| Class | Entries | Field | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stock Eliminator | 147 | 128 | Fred Elsass led Q1 at 1.489 under the index in a ’72 Maverick, U/SA |
| Super Stock | 144 | 128 | Mike Johnstone led Q1 at 1.063 under. Fifteen current or former world champions in the field |
| Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown | 24+ | 16 | Qualifies Friday and Saturday, runs Sunday |
| Top Alcohol Dragster | Full slate | 16 | Qualifies Friday and Saturday, eliminations Sunday |
| Top Alcohol Funny Car | 15 | 16 | Shane Westerfield defends after a strong Brainerd. Sean Bellemeur on a new car |
The Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge is the longest running continuous specialty race in NHRA history, contested by Hemi powered 1968 Super Stock Dodge Darts and Plymouth Barracudas that still wheelstand off the starting line. Jason Line led round one qualifying at 8.451, ahead of four time Hemi champion Stephen Comella (8.468), Eric Bell (8.478), James Daniels (8.552), Eldon Baum (8.560) and Charlie Westcott Jr. (8.585), who brought the War Fish Barracuda back out.
Worth tracking in the pits: the double-duty entries. Billy Torrence and Shawn Langdon are both running Super Comp alongside their Top Fuel cars. Chris Vang is in Pro Stock and Super Comp. Mason McGaha is in Pro Stock and Comp Eliminator in a B/Altered. Gary Pritchett is in Stock and Super Comp.
The Wes Buck Show Live From Nitro Alley
Drag Illustrated broadcasts The Wes Buck Show live from Nitro Alley on Friday, and NHRA is simulcasting it across its own platforms. It is the first partnership of its kind between Drag Illustrated and the sanctioning body, and it puts the show in front of a combined social audience north of 1.8 million.
Live from the middle of the nitro pits on the biggest weekend of the year, with the people actually racing the event walking past the set. Jess Milante produces.
PEAK
There is no bigger stage in drag racing than the U.S. Nationals, and there is no brand more woven into the fabric of this sport at every level than PEAK. From the nitro pits at Indy down to the Saturday night bracket car that needs to make it home Monday, PEAK products are in the trailer.
That is why PEAK is the presenting sponsor of the 2026 Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals Event Hub on DragIllustrated.com. Friday’s first qualifying session through Monday’s winner’s circle, every qualifying ladder, every round result, every storyline and every photograph on this page is brought to you by PEAK.
Seventy two runnings of the Big Go. One page that keeps the whole thing in one place. Presented by PEAK.
Photo Gallery
Scenes from the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals. Photography by Jess Milante and AJ Bohlander for Drag Illustrated. Updated through the weekend.
By the Numbers
| 72 | Annual running of the U.S. Nationals, contested every year since 1955 |
| 14 of 14 | Final race of the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods regular season |
| 860+ | Total entries, roughly 70 more than the 2025 count |
| 84 | Professional entries across the nitro and pro classes |
| $400,000 | Approximate money on the line, with roughly $150,000 to the regular season champions in Top Fuel and Funny Car |
| 22 / 23 / 20 / 19 / 21 | Entries in Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, Pro Stock Motorcycle and Pro Mod. The 19 bikes are the season high |
| 16 | Spots in each pro field. Do the subtraction |
| 5 | Qualifying sessions instead of the usual four |
| 10 | Tony Schumacher’s U.S. Nationals wins, the most of any active driver |
| 7 | Greg Anderson’s U.S. Nationals Pro Stock wins, the most of any active Pro Stock driver |
| 700 | Feet above sea level at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park |
Event History
The U.S. Nationals has been contested annually since 1955. It started on an abandoned airstrip in Great Bend, Kansas, moved through Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Detroit, and landed at what is now Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in 1961 on the strength of a handshake between track founder Tom Binford and NHRA founder Wally Parks, made under a tree in the pits at Detroit Dragway. It is the only major motorsports event in America contested on Labor Day.
Don “Big Daddy” Garlits won it eight times in Top Fuel. Shirley Muldowney won it in 1982. Don “The Snake” Prudhomme won it seven times and is one of a handful of drivers to take it in both Top Fuel and Funny Car, a list that also includes Kenny Bernstein, Jim Head and Ed McCulloch. Antron Brown has won it in multiple classes, Top Fuel and Pro Stock Motorcycle. Bob Glidden, the Indiana native, went to the final round in 13 consecutive seasons from 1977 through 1989 and won the race nine times. Tony Schumacher has the most wins with 10, the last coming in 2016.
Five women have won at Indy: Shirley Muldowney twice, Ashley Force Hood twice in Funny Car, Alexis DeJoria once in Funny Car, Erica Enders four times in Pro Stock and Angelle Sampey twice in Pro Stock Motorcycle.
2025 event winners
| Class | Winner |
|---|---|
| Top Fuel | Justin Ashley |
| Funny Car | Austin Prock |
| Pro Stock | Erica Enders |
| Pro Stock Motorcycle | Gaige Herrera |
Most event victories, active drivers
| Driver | Wins | Class |
|---|---|---|
| Tony Schumacher | 10 | Top Fuel |
| Greg Anderson | 7 | Pro Stock |
| Cruz Pedregon | 3 | Funny Car |
| Matt Smith | 3 | Pro Stock Motorcycle |
Track Records
| Class | ET Record | MPH Record |
|---|---|---|
| Top Fuel | 3.640, Brittany Force, Sept. 2022 | 343.51, Brittany Force, Sept. 2025 |
| Funny Car | 3.799, Matt Hagan, Sept. 2017 | 338.77, Matt Hagan, Sept. 2017 |
| Pro Stock | 6.491, Greg Anderson, Aug. 2025 | 211.79, Dallas Glenn, Sept. 2025 |
| Pro Stock Motorcycle | 6.738, Gaige Herrera, Aug. 2025 | 201.73, Jianna Evaristo, Sept. 2025 |
National records
| Class | ET Record | MPH Record |
|---|---|---|
| Top Fuel | 3.623, Brittany Force, Sept. 2019, Reading, Pa. | 345.00, Shawn Langdon, May 2026, Valdosta, Ga. |
| Funny Car | 3.793, Robert Hight, Aug. 2017, Brainerd, Minn. | 341.68, Austin Prock, Nov. 2024, Pomona, Calif. |
| Pro Stock | 6.443, Greg Anderson, March 2025, Gainesville, Fla. | 215.55, Erica Enders, May 2014, Englishtown, N.J. |
| Pro Stock Motorcycle | 6.627, Gaige Herrera, Oct. 2023, Dallas | 205.04, Matt Smith, July 2021, Sonoma, Calif. |
Track Info
| Facility | Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, Indianapolis, Ind. |
| Getting there | From I-465, exit Crawfordsville Road (Hwy. 136), head west four miles through Clermont. Main entrance is on the left, one half mile past Raceway Road. From I-74, go south on Ronald Reagan Parkway, exit 68, turn south, then east on U.S. 136 |
| Course | Championship dragstrip, 700 feet above sea level, running south to north |
| Distance | 1,000 foot Top Fuel and Funny Car competition; quarter mile Pro Stock, Pro Stock Motorcycle, Pro Mod, Factory Stock Showdown and Lucas Oil Series |
| History | Built on a 267 acre farm bought in 1958 by 15 Indianapolis area businessmen at $5,000 each. NHRA purchased the facility in 1979. New racing surface with a 660 foot concrete launch pad in 2001, soft barrier walls in 2005, Lucas Oil entitlement in 2011, Top Eliminator Club in 2016, new Wally Parks Tower completed in 2025 |
Coverage of the 2026 Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals updates through Monday’s finals.
This story was originally published on September 2, 2026. 
The post 2026 Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals: Schedule, Storylines & Live Coverage first appeared on Drag Illustrated.
