MESA, Ariz. — Is it a traction-control tempest in a teapot? Or is it the tip of a hazardous iceberg for the NHRA as it navigates the Countdown to the Championship waters?
Reigning and four-time Top Fuel champion Antron Brown started the latest flap during a FOX interview the second of six playoff races Sept. 21 at Concord, N.C. He told reporter Amanda Busick, “A lot of racers are talking out there with some unapproved devices, so I’d just like to see what that’s all about and what’s really happening out there, who’s got them, and what’s happening.
“Everybody knows who’s got them. We’d just like to know and have a little bit more clarity on that. And because the chips are high, competitions are high, and we’re all out here just trying to get a round win, and it’s hard to make it happen when you have competition this tight and other people have unfair advantages.”
Pressed for specifics, Brown named Tony Stewart. Brown referred to the previously unannounced disqualification of Stewart’s final qualifying run (Q4) at Reading, Pa., the Saturday before — which didn’t affect Stewart’s starting order in the opening race of the Countdown but did erase his single bonus point for being third-quickest of the session.
Brown said, “We know from a standpoint on the PRO side that the TSR team with Tony Stewart had some unapproved device on their car and got kicked out, and we just don’t know what it is. We just like to know what it is and what it did and what it does. Just a little bit more clarity on it, and that’s what makes this sport what it is—how close this competition is and all the hard work that we spend money, testing, making our vehicles go up and down the race track — and we just want to keep a level playing field for everybody.”
Stewart replied, “Everybody and every sanctioning body and every form of motorsports takes the rulebook they’re given and looks for the gray areas and tries to find how to maximize everything they can do. And every team in here does that. But I can promise you, we didn’t have anything on this car that we felt like was just blatantly illegal.”
And Stewart said, “Well, I got a ton of respect for Antron, obviously. That’s why on the PRO board, we all voted him to vice-president, so I got a ton of respect for him. But I’d love to sit there and know what everybody in the pit area has in their cars. But that’s why we have a sanctioning body that has a tech department. So, no different than anybody else that’s had runs thrown out because of things.
“That’s why they have tech. So I appreciate Antron’s passion and everybody else in this pit area, but they can come tear this thing down anytime they want. They’re more than welcome to it.
“I just wish Antron, if he was that upset, he’d have come and talked to us about it. But I respect him, and I respect this sport and the people in it, but that’s why we have a tech department. So it’s our job to sit there and build these things to go as fast as we can make them go,” Stewart said.
The NHRA Technical Department issued a statement Sept. 19 — six days after Stewart’s Q4 disqualification in an attempt to clarify rules about electrical components but revised it. According to digital magazine Competition Plus, more than one Top Fuel team has expressed concern about the NHRA’s lack of transparency and its sketchy communication with teams and what publisher Bobby Bennett called the “cloak of secrecy” on the sanctioning body’s part.
Who knows what will come of it all throughout the final four races of 2025? But what would the NHRA be without some intrigue and a little finger-pointing among friends?
