NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

More than 150 years ago, the Northern Pacific Railroad chose this crossing on the Mississippi River, laid rails through the timber, and built the shops and offices that helped create the city of Brainerd, MN. 

Around it grew a community of workers, families, and believers in motion. Brainerd did not merely welcome the railroad; it was created by it, forged where steel, steam, ambition, and the Mississippi met. That identity has never disappeared. Steam locomotives once stormed into town carrying the force and promise of a nation moving west. Today, the sound is different, the speed is greater, but the spirit is familiar. 

Today Brainerd International Raceway becomes the center of American horsepower as the 44th annual NHRA Brainerd Nationals launches Professional qualifying in the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series. Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars will bring 12,000 horsepower and speeds approaching 340 mph to the Northwoods, while Pro Stock’s naturally aspirated machines add their own precise, high-winding violence. 

The timing could not carry more weight. Brainerd is the 13th of 20 races and the penultimate stop of the regular season, leaving only the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals before the Countdown to the Championship begins. 

In Top Fuel, Kalitta Motorsports teammates Shawn Langdon and Doug Kalitta are separated by only five points. Langdon owns the lead, but Kalitta arrives with consecutive victories in Sonoma and Seattle and the momentum of a locomotive at full steam. 

In Funny Car, seven-time Brainerd winner Ron Capps leads Jack Beckman by 37 points, J.R. Todd by 42, Jordan Vandergriff by 54, and Matt Hagan by 64. Five drivers are still within striking distance of the regular-season crown. 

Pro Stock is tighter still: Minnesota native Greg Anderson holds an eight-point advantage over teammate and defending world champion Dallas Glenn. 

Friday offers two Professional qualifying rounds at 3:30 and 6 p.m. CT, and the second session carries a distinctly Brainerd prize. The low qualifier in Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock will earn bonus money and a custom chainsaw-carved trophy in the “Battle for the Axe.” 

What to Watch in the Sportsman Pits

The professional pits may produce the biggest flames and headlines this weekend, but some of the most interesting stories at Brainerd are developing deeper in the Sportsman ranks. From a next-generation Kalitta beginning his climb to a pair of world champions returning to forms of racing that connect them to their roots, there is plenty worth seeking out beyond the Mission Foods Drag Racing Series pits.

The next Kalitta takes the wheel. Mitch Kalitta, son of two-time and reigning Top Fuel world champion Doug Kalitta, begins his Top Alcohol Dragster campaign this weekend with Randy Meyer Racing. The younger Kalitta has grown up around the sport and the Kalitta Motorsports operation, but Brainerd represents something different: his opportunity to begin building a racing identity of his own. He'll make his Top Alcohol debut with one of the category's most accomplished teams, and the car will carry Kalitta Air branding.

Del Worsham brings nitro to Top Alcohol Funny Car. There aren't many racers who understand nitro Funny Cars better than Del Worsham, and that makes his involvement in the evolving Top Alcohol Funny Car category especially fascinating. NHRA's rules opened the door to blown-nitro combinations in Top Alcohol, creating an intriguing intersection between Sportsman racing and the fuel-burning technology Worsham has spent a lifetime mastering. For fans who love the mechanical side of drag racing, this is one of those cars driven by Jacob Slater worth finding in the pits, watching closely, and listening to when it fires.

Jason Line comes home—and goes Stock racing. Few racers have a deeper connection to Brainerd than three-time Pro Stock world champion Jason Line. The Minnesota native grew up near Brainerd International Raceway and developed his racing skills in Stock Eliminator long before becoming one of Pro Stock's most successful drivers. This weekend, Line's return to Stock puts him back into one of NHRA's purest forms of competition: factory-based cars, tightly controlled combinations, class indexes, handicapped starts, and racers capable of turning thousandths of a second into victory. It's also a chance to watch a world champion return to the kind of racing that helped create him.

Brainerd was built by people who understood that power could move machines, reshape geography, and create a community. This weekend, that legacy returns one thunderous pair at a time. The championship train is coming, and today at Brainerd International Raceway, nobody can afford to be left at the station.

2025 EVENT WINNERS

Top Fuel Doug Kalitta; Funny Car Austin Prock; Pro Stock Greg Anderson

MOST VICTORIES: (active drivers)

Doug Kalitta and Tony Schumacher, 3, TF; Ron Capps, 7, FC; Greg Anderson and Jeg Coughlin, 4.

TRACK RECORDS

Top Fuel - 3.640 sec. by Leah Pruett, Aug. ’17; 341.25 mph by Brittany Force, Aug. ‘25. 

Funny Car – 3.793 sec. by Robert Hight Aug. ’17; 338.00 mph by R. Hight, Aug. ’17. 

Pro Stock - 6.521 seconds by Greg Anderson, Aug. '25; 211.39 mph by Shane Gray, Aug. '15.

NATIONAL RECORDS

Top Fuel - 3.623 sec. by Brittany Force, Sept. '19, Reading, Pa.; 345.00 mph by Shawn Langdon, May ‘26, Valdosta, Ga. 

Funny Car - 3.793 sec. by Robert Hight, Aug. '17, Brainerd; 341.68 mph by Austin Prock, Nov. ’24, Pomona, Calif. 

Pro Stock - 6.4443 sec. by Greg Anderson, March '25, Gainesville; 215.55 mph by Enders, May '14, Englishtown N.J.

SCHEDULE

FRIDAY, Aug. 21 LUCAS OIL SERIES eliminations at 9:00 a.m. NHRA MISSION FOODS SERIES qualifying at 3:30 and 6:00 p.m. 

SATURDAY, Aug. 22 LUCAS OIL SERIES eliminations at 9:00 a.m. NHRA MISSION FOODS SERIES qualifying at 12:00 and 2:30 p.m. 

SUNDAY, Aug. 23 Pre-race ceremonies, 9:30 a.m. NHRA MISSION FOODS SERIES eliminations begin at 11:00 a.m.

TELEVISION

Friday, Aug. 21, FS1 will televise one and-a-half hours of qualifying coverage at 11 p.m. (ET). 

Saturday, Aug.22, FS1 will televise one and-a-half hours of qualifying coverage at 10:30 p.m. (ET). 

Sunday, Aug. 23, FOX will televise three hours of finals coverage at 8:30 p.m. (ET).

TICKETS

To purchase tickets to the NHRA Brainerd Nationals, fans can visit NHRA.com