Ashley, Pedregon, Anderson and Smith all qualify No. 1 at Summit

NORWALK — Top Fuel's Doug Kalitta continued his magic in the NHRA Challenge on Saturday at Motorsports Park. He topped Tony Stewart in the final round to win the bonus race for the fourth time this season at the 19th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk. Daniel Wilkerson (Funny Car) and Gaige Herrera (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also won the Challenge, while Justin Ashley (Top Fuel), Cruz Pedregon (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) qualified No. 1 at the 10th of 20 races during the 2025 NHRA season. Kalitta entered the final round of the bonus race not qualified and needed every part of his run of 3.953-seconds at 294.37 mph in his dragster to get into the show. It was plenty enough to beat points leader Stewart, who smoked the tires almost immediately, and Kalitta slipped into the field in the No. 15 position. It was a tense moment, but Kalitta continues to thrive in the Challenge specialty race, winning for the fourth time in and already earning 18 bonus points for the Countdown to the Championship playoffs. Justin Ashley's run of 3.752 at 330.88 easily held up on a warm Saturday, handing the young standout his first No. 1 qualifier of the season and seventh in his career. He'll open eliminations against Scott Farley looking for his second straight victory of the season. Ashley is on an impressive tear, advancing to the finals at five of the past six years. "Yeah, it's pretty neat, our first number one qualifier of the year, and it's important," Ashley said. "We try to use qualifying the right way, to use it as an opportunity to set ourselves up for Sunday and we feel like we did a good job of that. "All that stuff really gets thrown away tomorrow. It doesn't matter who you're racing, whether you're one, 16, or somewhere in between, anybody can win, especially in today's Top Fuel class. But it speaks volumes of the guys that we have, they like qualifying number one. So, great job all the way around by our group." Antron Brown qualified second with a 3.755 at 333.33 and Stewart is third, going 3.755 at 327.11. For the second straight race, Daniel Wilkerson found success on Saturday, winning the Challenge on consecutive weekends, this time beating points leader Austin Prock in the final round of the specialty race with a run of 4.151 at 305.56 mph. Both of these wins have come in warm conditions, but Wilkerson and his team, led by his dad, crew chief Tim Wilkerson, have navigated it well, picking up the bonus purse and valuable championship bonus points. He took out both John Force Racing drivers on Saturday, defeating Jack Beckman earlier in the day before driving past Prock in the final round. "It's exciting and it almost compounds because I knew this race car we've got has been in there the whole time," Wilkerson said. "This is really important and now for this team, having not won anything ourselves yet since I took over driving, these wins are a serious morale boost and a serious confidence boost. "Getting to run on Saturday, actually, I think it's starting to help me a little bit, too. On Sunday, for whatever reason, it is different. The feeling in the atmosphere is different. Everything's different. So, to get to practice racing is going to help me a lot." Funny Car's Cruz Pedregon earned his first No. 1 qualifier in more than two years thanks to Friday's impressive run of 3.890 at 318.39 mph. That run handed the two-time world champion his 65th career No. 1 qualifier, but the first since early in the 2023 season. He'll open eliminations against Buddy Hull, as the veteran is looking for his first win since the final race of the 2022 campaign. "It really means a lot to the team and to all of our sponsors, you get to say you're number one before the race. So, yeah, it was we enjoyed it," Pedregon said. "I'm confident we'll get our heads together and make the right adjustments. We're starting to get there and there's nothing like turn on win lights on Sundays." Points leader and defending world champion Prock qualified second with a 3.900 at 331.28 and Bristol winner Ron Capps took third after going 3.908 at 325.06 on Friday. In Pro Stock, Matt Hartford defeated Greg Anderson in the final round of the All-Star Callout, going 6.609 at 207.88. Anderson qualified No. 1 thanks to Friday's 6.594 at 206.78. Gaige Herrera won the Challenge in Pro Stock Motorcycle for the third time this season, defeating a red-lighting Angie Smith in the final round of the bonus race with a run of 6.831 at 198.15i. "I'm thrilled. Yesterday, we were kind of scratching our heads especially after the last two runs. We were here late working on the bikes, just trying to figure out what we needed to do," Herrera said. "I was actually glad today that on the second round the air got a little worse because it gets us ready for tomorrow." Matt Smith was the only provisional No. 1 qualifier to improve on Saturday, going an even better 6.816 at 200.86. It gives the six-time world champion his first No. 1 qualifier of the season and 59th in his career, and plenty of confidence heading into Sunday. "We ran really good and have all weekend," Smith said. "We've had some strong runs this weekend and I can't say enough about our team. I mean, I think we qualified five bikes in the top seven, so it's pretty impressive. "When the track gets this hot and there's a lot of humidity in the air, it's just really hard to get off the line. You want to try to kill it every time, but sometimes you got to back up and just lay one up and that's kind of what we're doing, just letting the bike do the work down the racetrack. I feel like we have the best bike from eighth-mile to finish line." Herrera's 6.820 at 199.11 puts him second and John Hall took third with a 6.832 at 199.35. Eliminations for the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals begin at 11 a.m. on Sunday at Summit Motorsports Park.