Aaron Stanfield and the Johnson\u2019s Horsepowered Garage \/ Melling Performance \/ Janac Brothers Racing team rallied to victory Sunday at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park.<\/p>\n
After a lethal display on the starting line through the weekend, including a sharp .001 reaction time in the second round, Stanfield took the victory in the final round on a holeshot, cutting a near-perfect .002 reaction time to hold off a hard-charging Matt Hartford. Stanfield\u2019s 6.626-second elapsed time at 208.75 mph was just enough to defeat Hartford\u2019s quicker 6.597 at 207.98 mph by a thin margin of victory of .0064 seconds. It was Stanfield\u2019s 16th career Pro Stock victory, overall 35th NHRA national event win, and his second victory of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely knew I was going to have to be pretty good on the tree. Matt\u2019s been driving good here and he\u2019s had a bad race car. I knew I would have to grab some on the tree, and the old hot rod did just enough to pull the win off,\u201d Stanfield said. \u201cEvery time Matt and I race, it\u2019s a good race. I\u2019ll be honest though, it\u2019s no secret that it doesn\u2019t matter who I line up against, once I put the helmet on, I\u2019m trying to rip your head off. It feels great as a driver whenever you\u2019re able to do your job and pull off a holeshot win like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I guess I just wake up on the right side of the bed, and I felt really focused this morning, and I did feel like I was going to have a decent driving day,\u201d Stanfield continued. \u201cThe combination of having a clutch linkage in that perfect spot where the fuel is perfect, it puts me in a spot where I can drive good. I try to go up there and do the same thing every time, even in qualifying. I try to be as consistent as I can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stanfield balanced a massive workload over the weekend, pulling double duty behind the wheel of the JHG \/ Melling \/ Janac Brothers\u2019 Pro Stock Car and the ProFlow Pumping Solutions \/ Modern Racing \/ Elite Motorsports Pro Modified car. He also, through the family business, Stanfield Racing Engines, tuned Factory Stock Showdown entries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told (teammate) Erica [Enders] before we ran first round, I said, \u2018We\u2019re lucky I don\u2019t put my helmet on backwards.\u2019 But it\u2019s definitely a balancing act and it would not happen without a lot of great people around me in every aspect of racing I\u2019m involved in,\u201d Stanfield explained. \u201cSurround yourself with great people, and that is for sure what I\u2019ve done. And I eat, sleep, and breathe drag racing. So that definitely helped.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stanfield\u2019s win is a massive boost for Elite Motorsports as they continue their battle to close the gap on the competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it means the world to all the guys and gals on the Elite team, and, you know, that\u2019s probably the biggest motivation I have is to go out there and do the absolute best I can do, because I know the sacrifice, I know how hard they work,\u201d Stanfield said. \u201cI want to lay it all on the line and do my absolute best for them. We still have a little ways to go. But this team, after every race, they hurry up and get back home and they\u2019re on the dyno trying to find some more power. We\u2019ll be back on top; it\u2019s just a matter of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series 2026 schedule takes a two-week break before hitting the West Coast for the Denso Spark Plugs NHRA Sonoma Nationals at Sonoma Raceway July 17-19, race one of the two-race Western Swing.<\/p>\n
The post Aaron Stanfield Picks Up Second Win of the Season in Norwalk<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aaron Stanfield and the Johnson\u2019s Horsepowered Garage \/ Melling Performance \/ Janac Brothers Racing team rallied to victory Sunday at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park. After a lethal display on the starting line through the weekend, including a sharp .001 reaction time in the second round, Stanfield took […]<\/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-104112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104112","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=104112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}