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<\/p>\nRich McPhillips Jr. opened the 2026 IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series season with his first Top Alcohol Dragster victory, taking the Ironman trophy at Motorsports Park \u2013 formerly Galot Motorsports Park \u2013 in dominant fashion across three elimination rounds on Saturday.<\/p>\n
McPhillips qualified sixth with a 3.547-second pass at 225.11 mph in Q2 after posting a 3.552 at 223.80 mph in the opening session.<\/p>\n
On race day, McPhillips ran a 3.459 at 231.04 mph in Round 1 to defeat Joey Severance (3.482, 220.84 mph), a run that established a new elapsed time track record at the facility. He followed with a 3.477 at 228.61 mph in the semifinals over Jackie Fricke (3.676, 222.18 mph) before closing out Jamie Noonan in the final, 3.493 at 229.78 mph to Noonan\u2019s 3.545 at 229.04 mph.<\/p>\n
The victory marked McPhillips\u2019 third IHRA final-round appearance \u2013 the most of any Top Alcohol Dragster competitor in the newly revived series. His two prior finals came in 2025 at Darana Dragway 42 in West Salem, Ohio, and Darana Dragway in Milan, Michigan.<\/p>\n
The win carries added family significance. Rich McPhillips Sr. was part of an IHRA victory in 1989 as car owner and crew chief for driver Peter Gallen in Alcohol Funny Car at Bristol Dragway, and won his own Ironman from the driver\u2019s seat in Pro Fuel Dragster in 2010 at Grand Bend, Ontario.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t explain what it means to win,\u201d\u00a0McPhillips Jr. said.\u00a0\u201dWhen the scoreboard lights up, it\u2019s a great feeling. The great thing about running eighth mile is you\u2019re able to see who wins. I have to thank all of my guys \u2013 Kenneth, my Pop, Larry, Earl, and Bill. We were short crew guys and they all stepped up. This is a team effort and we raced a great team tonight. It\u2019s been a couple years since I\u2019ve gotten a trophy, so it feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n
McPhillips Racing\u2019s next outing is a dual-car effort featuring drivers Anthony Troyer and Melanie Johnson at the NHRA Winter Nationals at In-N-Out Burger Dragstrip in Pomona, California.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on March 24, 2026. <\/p>\n
The post McPhillips Jr. Claims IHRA Top Alcohol Dragster Win at Darana Motorsports Park<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rich McPhillips Jr. opened the 2026 IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series season with his first Top Alcohol Dragster victory, taking the Ironman trophy at Motorsports Park \u2013 formerly Galot Motorsports Park \u2013 in dominant fashion across three elimination rounds on Saturday. McPhillips qualified sixth with a 3.547-second pass at 225.11 mph in Q2 after posting a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}