EPPING, N.H. — It is difficult to imagine traveling faster than 330 mph and losing a drag race by a few inches, but that was the story for Tony Stewart during Sunday’s NHRA New England Nationals.
Racing his Tony Stewart Racing Direct Connection Dodge Top Fuel car in his fifth consecutive NHRA Top Fuel final round, Stewart suffered a narrow defeat to Brittany Force.
Stewart, the driver known as “Smoke,” qualified second on Saturday at 3.694 in the TSR Direct Connection Dodge//SRT dragster and drove to the final round with wins over Rit Pustari with a 3.699, Justin Ashley with a 3.733 and current World Champion Antron Brown with a 3.711. Then, in the final round, Stewart posted a spectacular 0.049 reaction time off the starting line, but Force ran over 340 mph to nip Stewart at the finish line by a mere 0.0074 seconds.
With Stewart’s fifth straight final round appearance, the NASCAR Hall of Famer, who has won NHRA Top Fuel races at Las Vegas and Chicago this year, extended his NHRA Mission Top Fuel points lead to 71 over Shawn Langdon as the 20-race series moves to Bristol (Tenn.) Dragway June 6-8.
“I’m very happy with the weekend,” said Stewart. “We gained points in qualifying in two of the rounds. We came into eliminations today as the number two qualifier, which was great. We had a solid day. We fell a little short in the finals, but I’m happy with my lights in the semifinals and the finals. I’m proud of my reaction times, and I’m proud of our team for making five finals in a row. We’re the only team in Top Fuel that has made it past the first round in every race.
“Neal (Strausbaugh – crew chief), Mike (Domagala – co-crew chief), Ryan (McGilvry – car chief), Phil (Shuler – Hagan’s co-crew chief) and all the guys are just crushing it right now. We have a racecar now. We’re showing up to race and that’s exactly where I want to be. We’re running with the big dogs and we’re more consistent than a lot of them. So, we’ll look forward to going to NASCAR country next weekend at Bristol and having some fun.”
