Dallas Glenn beat Matt Hartford in the final round of Pro Stock to win the NHRA New England Nationals on Sunday. (Photo: Luc Saucier | The Podium Finish)
EPPING, N.H. – Rain washed away the final round of both Top Fuel and Funny Car on Sunday afternoon at the NHRA New England Nationals, presented by bproauto, but not before a weekend of high speeds and high hopes, most of which blew away like the pollen that filled the New Hampshire air.
At the track where John Force picked up his final funny car win, his John Force racing team is guaranteed another win next week when Jack Beckman and Jordan Vandergriff face off in the delayed final round of Funny Car. On the Top fuel side of things, Leah Pruett looks to secure her first diamond Wally of the NHRA’s 75th anniversary season and break the stranglehold that Kalitta Motorsports teammates Shawn Langdon and Doug Kalitta have had on the class, as she will square off with Langdon in the delayed final round.
The Pro Stock class was able to get in the final round, as Dallas Glenn continued the dominant season for KB Titan Racing with a win over Matt Hartford to secure his third win of the 2026 season.
The New England crowd braved a threatening forecast, hot temperatures and pollen so thick that the race teams had to take it into consideration. They almost got through the weekend unscathed by Mother Nature before the rain rolled in Sunday afternoon, ending the event early.
Glenn Gets First Epping Win
Dallas Glenn earned his third Wally of the season on Sunday, as he took the RAD Torque Systems Chevy up against some of the heaviest hitters in the class.
“Overall, it was a great day. Every race was a great race,” Glenn said. “I just can’t thank everyone at KB Titan enough, who keep their heads down and keep plugging away at it. (Crew Chief) Dave (Connolly) said he was going to be aggressive, and I knew I had hit the tree pretty good the round before, so I just kind of left everything alone. The car felt great.”
The car was great in the final round, where Glenn cut a .002 light, then outran Hartford with a 6.543 second pass to Hartford’s 6.550.
“Honestly, I didn’t have the most confidence coming into this race,” Glenn said. “Historically, I don’t feel like this has been one of my best tracks. The starting line is fairly tricky, and (teammate) Greg (Anderson) – for whatever reason – just flows naturally here. I know Greg is good here.”
In the semifinals, Glenn came face to face with Anderson in a rematch of last week’s NHRA Potomac Nationals. He was up to the task, as he jumped off the line first and ran a 6.556 second pass to beat Anderson, who ran 6.548 seconds, on a hole shot.
“Greg had passed me (in the point standings) with all those bonus points he’s been getting (in qualifying), so I had to get him back,” Glenn joked. Anderson had taken the point lead during qualifying, but the win put Glenn back on top at the season’s midpoint.
Glenn, Anderson Continue Dominance in Pro Stock
Anderson and Glenn continued to stifle the Pro Stock competition over the weekend, with Anderson earning the No. 1 qualified spot, and winning the Mission Foods 2 Fast, 2 Tasty Challenge, before Glenn rebounded to win the race. But it was far from easy for Glenn, who ran the gauntlet all day.
His day started out with a challenge from upset-minded Shane Tucker. Tucker ran a stout 6.579 second pass to keep him honest, but Glenn drove around him en route to a 6.567 second pass.
In the second round, Glenn went up against Elite Motorsports rival and multi-time world champion Erica Enders. He was able to get around her with a 6.562 second pass to Enders’ 6.581, before meeting Anderson in the semifinals.
The win over Hartford in the finals began at the start line, with a brilliant .002 light.
“I didn’t know it was .002,” he said. “I must have hit it pretty good, and the car was working the way it was supposed to. Seeing .002, I was like, ‘Phew. Glad I didn’t go red.’ That’s really close to being .001 red and throwing it away.”
Glenn, the defending NHRA Pro Stock champion, said he has not taken the dominant run that he and his KB Titan teammates – particularly Anderson – have been on for granted. He said the entire team continues to work and build to stay on top.
“Just like the two Kalitta boys (Doug Kalitta and Shawn Langdon in Top Fuel), any time you have two great cars and two fantastic drivers, you’re bound to have some really good drag races,” Glenn said. “In our camp, we’ve got a lot of really good race cars, and a lot of really good race car drivers.”
He said that any time he and Anderson square off, their competitive nature kicks in and they want to beat one another. They may be teammates, but they are currently vying for Pro Stock supremacy as well.
“As long as we both do our jobs, we’re going to put on a great show for the fans,” he said. “I come out here to get win lights, and my main goal for all these regular season points races is, at minimum, semis. And if I’m not getting to the semis, then I need to put my head down and figure out. Is it me? Is it the car? Is it a combination? What do we need to do to get into the semis, to get into that 2 Fast, 2 Tasty challenge? Then, once we get to the semis, anything else is a bonus.”
Mission accomplished so far in 2026, as Glenn has been to the semifinals in every race this season.
Jordan Vandergriff will have to wait until Bristol next week to square off with teammate Jack Beckman in the final round of the rain delayed NHRA New England Nationals. (Photo: Al Saucier | The Podium Finish)
JFR Teammates Beckman, Vandergriff Seek Meaningful Win
In 2024, John Force won the New England Nationals, and after the race, he announced that he would soon be stepping out of the driver’s seat. He anointed Austin Prock as the next driver of the Peak Chevrolet at that event, as they celebrated an emotional win together.
Fate moved that timeline up two weeks later in Virginia, when a crash left Force badly injured, ultimately forcing him out of the car before he officially retired last year. In another blow, Prock, his hall of fame father Jimmy Prock, and rising star brother Thomas Prock defected to Bob Tasca racing after the season, leaving the seat of the Cornwell Tools Funny Car open.
Enter Jordan Vandergriff.
In Epping, two years after Force’s final win, Vandergriff and teammate Beckman, who stepped into the Peak Chevrolet after Force’s injuries, capped a nearly perfect weekend for John Force Racing with a matchup in the final round of Funny Car. Vandergriff entered the day as the No. 1 qualifier, with Beckman No. 2 in the same car that Force won with in 2024, and teammate Alexis Dejoria started in the No. 3 qualified spot before bowing out in the second round.
“The disappointment is we’ve built some great momentum the past couple of weeks, and we wanted to keep that going in the final today,” said Beckman in a press release from John Force Racing. “Our car has been down the track 14 of the last 15 runs. That Cornwell car’s been wicked consistent, too. I think with the track getting better and better here throughout the day, we could have set the two lowest ET’s of the weekend, which our PEAK Chevy took in the semifinals today. But we’re not going to race in the rain and we’ll pack our cars and have three reasons to go right after it in Bristol.”
Jack Beckman will face off with teammate Jordan Vandergriff to decide the NHRA New England Nationals next weekend in Bristol after the final round was delayed due to rain. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
“We have an all JFR final and this is definitely what John would have wanted,” said Vandergriff in a press release from John Force Racing. “So, thank you to Cornwell Quality Tools for getting me here. I hate it for all the great fans here in Epping who stuck it out because they deserved to have everything get wrapped up here but it was not to be.”
The delayed final round will make for a high stakes set of qualifying sessions for the JFR teammates next week in Bristol.
“We’re going to have qualifying, the Mission Foods 2 Fast 2 Tasty Challenge, the final round against Vandergriff for this race, and the Bristol race,” Beckman said. “That’s four reasons to push hard right off the bat.”
Leah Pruett will face Shawn Langdon in the rain delayed final round of top fuel from the New England Nationals. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
Pruett and Langdon Grudge Match Set for Bristol
Pruett is sick of waiting for her first diamond Wally of the 75th NHRA season. She was on the verge of taking one home from Epping when the rain interfered, but she will get her shot at Langdon, who has dominated the Top Fuel category, next weekend in Bristol.
“It’s going to be a week of anticipation trying to wrap up the final round for Epping,” Pruett said in a Tony Stewart Racing press release. “But we kicked off this race weekend in great fashion. We missed the No. 1 qualifier by just a little bit. It’s more important than ever this year with the low car count to get that number one spot with a bye in the first round.”
For Langdon, the race being pushed back to Bristol may feel like delaying the inevitable as he or teammate Kalitta have won six of the eight races in 2026 (four for Langdon, two for Kalitta). But Pruett will have a lot to say about that.
“Obviously, we would have loved to have run the Epping final (On Sunday), but we can’t control mother nature, so it is what it is,” Langdon said. “The Kalitta Air Careers car was really good in Epping, and we felt really good about our chances in the final. It’s out of our control so we just regroup and get the job done in Bristol.”
Shawn Langdon will look to win the New England Nationals next week in Bristol, after the final round in Epping was rained out. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
