{"id":104709,"date":"2026-09-03T04:44:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T04:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/2026-cornwell-quality-tools-nhra-u-s-nationals-schedule-storylines-live-coverage\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T04:44:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T04:44:05","slug":"2026-cornwell-quality-tools-nhra-u-s-nationals-schedule-storylines-live-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/2026-cornwell-quality-tools-nhra-u-s-nationals-schedule-storylines-live-coverage\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals: Schedule, Storylines & Live Coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Latest Update<\/span>
\nTHURSDAY.<\/strong> 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.<\/div>\n
Jump to Section<\/span> Latest<\/a> |<\/span> Live From Indy<\/a> |<\/span> Championship Watch<\/a> |<\/span> Qualifying<\/a> |<\/span> Eliminations<\/a> |<\/span> Storylines<\/a> |<\/span> Schedule<\/a> |<\/span> TV \/ Streaming<\/a> |<\/span> The Point and a Half<\/a> |<\/span> Sportsman & Hemi Challenge<\/a> |<\/span> Wes Buck Show Live<\/a> |<\/span> Partner Spotlight<\/a> |<\/span> Photo Gallery<\/a> |<\/span> By the Numbers<\/a> |<\/span> Track Records<\/a> |<\/span> Event History<\/a> |<\/span> Track Info<\/a><\/div>\n

Live From Indy<\/h2>\n

Newest first. Updated through Monday\u2019s finals.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Thursday, Sept. 3 \u00b7 Evening<\/div>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Thursday, Sept. 3 \u00b7 Morning<\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Wednesday, Sept. 2<\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Regular Season Championship Watch<\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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Top Fuel \u00b7 Kalitta leads by 67<\/div>\n
Doug Kalitta (1,232) has won three of the last races run and holds 67 points on Kalitta Motorsports teammate Shawn Langdon (1,165). Leah Pruett (974) is third. With 195 available, Langdon controls his own weekend. Nobody behind him does.<\/div>\n
Funny Car \u00b7 Five drivers, 74 points<\/div>\n
Matt Hagan (938) took the lead at Brainerd. Jordan Vandergriff is 7 back. Ron Capps is 12 back. J.R. Todd is 22 back. Jack Beckman is 74 back, and with a point and a half in play, 74 back is not out. This is the fight of the weekend, and roughly $150,000 goes to the man who wins it.<\/div>\n
Pro Stock \u00b7 Anderson leads by 85<\/div>\n
Greg Anderson (1,140) won Brainerd and pushed his lead over KB Titan Racing teammate Dallas Glenn (1,055) to 85. Greg Stanfield (942) is third with two wins on the year. The two men at the top share a shop.<\/div>\n
Pro Stock Motorcycle \u00b7 Gadson leads by 83<\/div>\n
The class rejoins the tour at Indy after three races off, and the regular season title is a Vance & Hines matter. Richard Gadson holds 83 points on teammate Gaige Herrera and 111 on Angie Smith. Nineteen bikes are entered, the biggest field of the season.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Qualifying<\/h2>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n

Eliminations<\/h2>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n

Storylines<\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Aaron Stanfield put the appeal plainly. \u201cI 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,\u201d says Stanfield. \u201cWinning 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bump spot is the story nobody is talking about loudly enough<\/h3>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Friday night at 6:15 is worth more than any other session this year<\/h3>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Pedregon\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Lohnes framed it as the single biggest test of a crew chief\u2019s ability on the schedule, and it is hard to argue. Four days, four different racetracks, one setup book, and no room to be wrong.<\/p>\n

Five Funny Cars, 74 points, one weekend<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Pedregon\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Kalitta against Kalitta in Top Fuel<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Pedregon\u2019s view is that Kalitta is as good as he has ever been and that Langdon\u2019s team, not Langdon\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The KB Titan problem, and the man who could spoil it<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 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,\u201d says Coughlin. \u201cWe have made several transitions in our approach and we\u2019re looking to settle in for improved runs and putting ourselves in championship contention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pro Stock Motorcycle comes back for the one that counts<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Pro Mod runs race two of the Road to the Championship<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The Callout, the Hemi Challenge and a first timer<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Seventy five years, and a diamond Wally<\/h3>\n

NHRA\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Schedule<\/h2>\n

All times Eastern. Schedule per the NHRA pre-event fact sheet and subject to change on site.<\/p>\n

Wednesday, September 2<\/strong>
\u00b7 NHRA Lucas Oil Series (SS, STK, two qualifying sessions; SC, SG three time-trial sessions) 8 a.m.
\u00b7 Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge qualifying 4 p.m.<\/p>\n

Thursday, September 3<\/strong>
\u00b7 Lucas Oil Series SS and STK class eliminations 8 a.m.
\u00b7 Comp, TD, TS qualifying 12 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
\u00b7 SC eliminations 9 a.m.
\u00b7 SG eliminations 5:30 a.m.
\u00b7 Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge qualifying 11:45 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
\u00b7 Cruz Pedregon Racing Open House and Car Show, Brownsburg, 5 to 8:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

Friday, September 4<\/strong>
\u00b7 Lucas Oil Series qualifying and eliminations 9 a.m.
\u00b7 Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car qualifying 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
\u00b7 Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge eliminations 10:15 a.m., 12:45, 2:45, 5:15 and 7 p.m.
\u00b7 Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown qualifying 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
\u00b7 JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod qualifying 5:20 p.m.
\u00b7 NHRA Mission Foods qualifying 6:15 p.m. (Q1)<\/strong>
\u00b7 The Wes Buck Show live from Nitro Alley<\/p>\n

Saturday, September 5<\/strong>
\u00b7 Lucas Oil Series eliminations 8 a.m. and 5:50 p.m.
\u00b7 Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car qualifying 10 a.m.
\u00b7 Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown qualifying 11 a.m., eliminations 5:35 p.m.
\u00b7 JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod qualifying 11:30 a.m. and 2:40 p.m.
\u00b7 NHRA Mission Foods qualifying 12:30 p.m. (Q2) and 3:30 p.m. (Q3)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sunday, September 6<\/strong>
\u00b7 Lucas Oil Series eliminations 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.
\u00b7 Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car eliminations 10 a.m. and 5:25 p.m.
\u00b7 Flexjet Factory Stock Showdown eliminations 10:45 a.m. and 6:10 p.m.
\u00b7 JBS Equipment NHRA Pro Mod qualifying 11:10 a.m., eliminations 4:45 p.m.
\u00b7 NHRA All-Star Funny Car Callout eliminations 12:45, 2:15 and 3:40 p.m.
\u00b7 NHRA Mission Foods qualifying 12 p.m. (Q4) and 2:45 p.m. (Q5, final qualifying)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Monday, September 7<\/strong>
\u00b7 Pre-race ceremonies 9 a.m.
\u00b7 SealMaster Track Walk before eliminations
\u00b7 NHRA Mission Foods eliminations begin 10 a.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n

TV \/ Streaming<\/h2>\n