NORWALK, Ohio (June 28, 2025) – Justin Ashley and the SCAG Power Equipment Toyota Top Fuel dragster team officially earned their first No. 1 qualifying position of the season while Daniel Wilkerson and his SCAG Ford Mustang picked up their second consecutive Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge victory Saturday at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park.
Ashley and his Mike Green and Tommy DeLago led SCAG Toyota team laid down a 3.752-second pass at 330.88 mph on Friday night to earn their first No. 1 of the season, seventh of Ashley’s career and first at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park.
“It’s pretty neat, you know, our first number one qualifier all year, and it’s important. We try to use qualifying the right way; it’s an opportunity to set ourselves up for Sunday, and we feel like we did a good job of that and also ended up qualifying number one,” Ashley said. “All that stuff really gets thrown away tomorrow, though. It doesn’t matter who you’re racing, whether you’re 1 or 16 or somewhere in between, anybody can win, especially in today’s Top Fuel class, but a No. 1 qualifier speaks highly of the guys that we have. So, great job all the way around by our group.”
Ashley will faceoff with Scott Farley in the first round of eliminations on Sunday in hopes to reach his fifth final round of the season.
“It’s been pretty tricky out there, so I’d expect it also to be tricky tomorrow. It’s going to be up to the teams to find a way to stay consistent, make sure we go down the racetrack and give ourselves an opportunity to win,” Ashley added. “That third session I think we only made it about 300 feet (6.300 at 97.12). In that last run we made it a little bit further (4.068 at 248.48), so I think we learned what the car wants to do or doesn’t want to do. Now it’s about taking that and applying it, making sure that we make one clean, full pass at a time tomorrow. Our focus is on round one and then we’ll go from there. I think there’s definitely, a lot of information that Mike and Tommy can use and a lot of information that we learn from.”
Coming off a #2Fast2Tasty victory and semifinal exit at the Virginia Nationals, Daniel Wilkerson and the SCAG Ford Mustang team redeemed themselves in a rematch against Jack Beckman. Wilkerson would run 4.275 at 218.94 mph after losing traction and shutting off near the finish line. Beckman would run into the same issues earlier in his run for a 4.500 pass at only 192.60.
In the finals, Wilkerson lined up against reigning Funny Car world champion Austin Prock. Wilkerson would have a slight starting line advantage for a clean pass and the third quickest run of the final qualifying session at 4.151 at 305.56. Prock started to lose traction and shut off to coast to a 5.015 at 155.11.
“It’s really exciting to go back-to-back. I knew that was in there, I knew this racecar could do this, it’s been there the whole time, we just had a few bugs,” Wilkerson said. “When it’s on, I’m off, and when I’m on, it’s off, but I knew we had this potential this whole time and it’s starting to finally click, so I think we’re going to be dangerous.
“For this team, these wins are a serious moral boost and a serious confidence boost, and getting a taste of racing on Saturday, actually, I think is starting to help me a little bit too,” Wilkerson added. “The only way to practice this crap is to do it and on Sunday, for whatever reason, it is different, it’s a different feeling in your gut, the atmosphere is different. Everything’s different, so to get to practice racing, this is going to and has helped me a lot.”
Wilkerson qualified No. 8 for raceday off a 3.997-second pass at 315.05 mph. The SCAG Mustang will line up against Spencer Hyde in the first round of eliminations.
“So the exciting part, beyond winning this deal, is that now we have two runs that we can smash [data] together and be really scary tomorrow, I think,” Wilkerson said. “So, I’m very excited for race day tomorrow.”
SCAG Racing Funny Car teammate Dave Richards and the BlueBird Turf / Versatran Mustang team landed in the No. 11 qualifying spot (4.040-seconds at 317.19 mph) setting them up for a first-round race against Alexis DeJoria.
Eliminations for the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park will begin Sunday at 11 a.m. with Pro Stock. Fans can catch qualifying action on FOX Sports 1 (FS1) Sunday at 11 a.m. ET. Eliminations will air on FOX Broadcasting Network (FOX) Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.
