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<\/p>\nReigning Top Fuel world champion Doug Kalitta made the quickest run of 2026 in front of a sellout crowd on Saturday at South Georgia Motorsports Park, powering to his first No. 1 qualifier of the season at the NHRA Southern Nationals.<\/p>\n
J.R. Todd (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also qualified No. 1 at the fifth of 20 races during the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season.<\/p>\n
Kalitta, the current points leader, went 3.657-seconds at 342.37 mph in his 12,000-horsepower Mac Tools dragster in front of a capacity crowd, picking up his 67th career top spot in NHRA\u2019s debut at the facility. The veteran is after back-to-back wins after getting the victory last weekend in Charlotte as he continues to roll early in the season.<\/p>\n
After Saturday\u2019s spectacular run, he\u2019ll get a bye run to open eliminations on Sunday and Kalitta was thrilled with how the team performed in front of a crowd that waited out a lengthy rain delay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is for the fans, they definitely held in there,\u201d Kalitta said of the sellout crowd. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long day, but it was just one of those deals, with a big storm coming through. I\u2019m just glad that we ran and will have good weather for tomorrow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat thing left and it started to square the tire, and then it just kind of cleared up and just ran. I could tell it was running strong and running hard. Alan (Johnson, crew chief), he\u2019s the master, I can tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n
A day after his record-breaking run of 345.00 mph on Friday, Shawn Langdon followed it up with the second-fastest run in NHRA history on Saturday, going 344.91 and is qualified second with a 3.683. Billy Torrence took the third spot after going 3.710 at 338.00.<\/p>\n
In Funny Car, J.R. Todd stayed atop the field and earned his second No. 1 qualifier in the past three races thanks to Friday\u2019s stellar run of 3.887 at 339.28 in his 12,000-horsepower DHL Toyota GR Supra.<\/p>\n
Todd earned the 16th top spot of his career and said the team made an aggressive attempt during Saturday\u2019s lone qualifying session. He didn\u2019t make it down the track on that run, but the past champion still takes plenty of confidence into raceday, where he\u2019ll open eliminations against Daniel Wilkerson.<\/p>\n
Todd has done just about everything but win a race during what has been a strong 2026 season, something he hopes to change on Sunday in NHRA\u2019s debut at SGMP.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn that last run, Dickie [Venables, crew chief] and Todd Smith said, \u2018We\u2019re going to throw down\u2019. We had nothing to lose because we were on the pole. I was a little unsure that 3.88 from yesterday would hold up, but once we saw Matt Hagen run in front of us and saw what they did, we felt good,\u201d Todd said. \u201cIt was trying to run, but it just got loose. We were definitely trying to put a 340 [mph] on the board. That would be cool, but either way, I\u2019ll take a win over 340 any day. We put ourselves in a good position.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese fans are dedicated. The fans were so appreciative and thanked us for being there. I was like, \u2018No, thank you for having us here\u2019. That\u2019s how the fans are here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chad Green jumped to second in the final session with a 3.894 at 323.89 and Jordan Vandergriff took third with Friday\u2019s 3.924 at 325.14.<\/p>\n
Pro Stock\u2019s Greg Anderson picked up his fourth straight No. 1 qualifier, as nobody came close to topping his run of 6.498 at 210.60 from Friday in his HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro.<\/p>\n
Anderson made the best run in Saturday\u2019s qualifying session, giving the six-time champ his 144th career No. 1 qualifier. He\u2019ll open eliminations against Troy Coughlin Jr., looking to win for the second time this season and possibly jump into the points lead with a big day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a marathon day, but to get that extra run, we\u2019re very appreciative. The air was good yesterday and better again today, and it should be even better tomorrow,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cWe\u2019re just struggling to match our cars up with the starting line and there\u2019s no excuse for that. We\u2019ll figure it out by tomorrow.\u00a0\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll make the right adjustments. They\u2019ll be fine tomorrow. The crew chiefs are going to have to make a lot of decisions that they may not want to make. Drivers have to be ready for anything, not just cut a good light, but it just could be a pedal-fest out there. You never know. So you\u2019ve got to find a way to get the finish line first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eric Latino took second thanks to Friday\u2019s 6.508 at 209.75 and Aaron Stanfield qualified third with a run of 6.525 at 210.60.<\/p>\n
Matt Smith\u2019s 6.669 at 203.03 on his Denso Auto Parts Buell held up from Friday, as the six-time world champion continues to be the only rider in Pro Stock Motorcycle to reach the 6.60s this season. He earned his second straight No. 1 qualifier of the season and the 61st in his career.<\/p>\n
Smith made a strong run to close out Saturday during the lone qualifying session, going 6.728 at 199.29 and takes plenty of momentum into Sunday, where he\u2019ll attempt to pick up his first victory of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am looking forward to raceday tomorrow,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI like my chances in the first round (with a bye). You know, this is the South, and I\u2019ve run so many races down here in Georgia and there\u2019s a lot of motorcycle racing fans down here, and they stuck around to watch us today. We put on a good show. This is a great facility, a fast facility and hopefully there\u2019ll be a good fanbase turnout tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charlotte winner Gaige Herrera qualified second with a run of 6.705 at 202.30 and reigning world champ Richard Gadson took third after going 6.730 at 201.37.<\/p>\n
Eliminations for the NHRA Southern Nationals begin at 11 a.m. ET on Sunday at South Georgia Motorsports Park.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on May 2, 2026. <\/p>\n
The post Kalitta, Todd, Anderson, and M. Smith Roll to No. 1 Positions in Front of Sellout Crowd at NHRA Southern Nationals<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reigning Top Fuel world champion Doug Kalitta made the quickest run of 2026 in front of a sellout crowd on Saturday at South Georgia Motorsports Park, powering to his first No. 1 qualifier of the season at the NHRA Southern Nationals. J.R. Todd (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) […]<\/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-103528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103528","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=103528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}