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The first race of the 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Countdown to the Championship featured everything one would hope for: an indisputably intense energy, points shakeups, stoked rivalries, and a bright glimmer of the future. Here are five takeaways from the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway.

HECTOR IS HAVING HIS SAY

The chitter-chatter in Pro Stock Motorcycle has most loudly circled around the Vance & Hines and Matt Smith Racing teams, but at the first race of the Countdown to the Championship, it was Hector Arana Jr. who garnered the most attention with his big and important win. Riding the GETTRX Buell with engines built by his father, Hector Sr., Arana clearly had a motorcycle that could win. His 6.812 in the second round was the second quickest of race day, behind only Angie Smith and her 6.803.

Perhaps Arana has been somewhat overlooked as a threat for the championship as Gaige Herrera has continued to show a very strong hand throughout the season alongside charging teammate and Pep Boys NHRA Nationals finalist Richard Gadson, while the bikes in the Matt Smith Racing Stable have been dealing out 200-plus-mph runs and contending for titles. Chase Van Sant came from the shadows to become the first rider to win over Herrera in 12 races. But it seems that Arana was quietly sharpening the saw for this last six.

With the Maple Grove Raceway victory, he vaulted from eighth in the Pro Stock Motorcycle points to No. 4, and with 60 points separating him from points leader Herrera, he's just three rounds out of the top spot after the Countdown opener.

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AB MOTORSPORTS MAKES IT HAPPEN

He started the Countdown to the Championship in the No. 5 position, but Antron Brown's Top Fuel victory in the Matco Tools Toyota dragster moved him within a single point from the leading the standings. Rightfully, the New Jersey native was positively buoyant in his post-race interview and said, "You've got to make those points up, and you want to do it early. This was a huge boost."

But Brown had much more to beam about as pioneer AB Motorsports Accelerate athlete Angelle Sampey earned her first Top Alcohol Dragster victory just minutes before Brown sealed the deal on the first double-up for the AB Motorsports team. Driving the Hangsterfer's Metalworking Lubricants A/Fuel dragster fielded by Michalek Brothers Racing, Sampey defeated Mike Coughlin in the final by the slimmest of margins, .0005-second. Sampey reached the final of the Toyota NHRA U.S. Nationals just two weeks prior but was forced to shut off on the starting line with an oil line issue, which delayed her first victory in the category to Maple Grove Raceway – where she won her very first trophy in Pro Stock Motorcycle in 1996.

Brown and Sampey have been teammates off and on for many years, stretching back to the early days of their Pro Stock Motorcycle careers. Most notably, they rode together for Don Schumacher Racing's Army team and were a double-threat for race wins and championships.

"I couldn't be happier right now," said Sampey, the first driver in the AB Motorsports Accelerated program that is tailored to offer opportunities to expand and flourish in drag racing. "I've been waiting to do a double-up winner's circle with my brother Antron Brown for many, many years."

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SPORTSMAN RACERS AT HEART

If you don't find Pro Stock compelling, you're missing the finer details in drag racing. The class demands efficiency and precision – not just in terms of consistently high-performing engines and pristinely built race cars, but also from the drivers. The qualifying field was insanely close at Maple Grove Raceway – aka Pro Stock Country, where the fans are as rapt for the factory hot rods as they are for the ground-pounding nitro beasts. As has become the norm, the No. 1 and No. 16 qualifiers in Pro Stock were separated by fractions of a second, in this case, just five-hundredths. These cars are naturally aspirated, power-adder free, and finicky as heck in optimal mode as they dance down the quarter-mile strip quivering dangerously close to the edge of destruction. Crew chiefs and tuners aren't turning knobs, they're making adjustments by a hair up to the last moment, but it all means nothing without a driver who can hold his or her own.

Dallas Glenn and Aaron Stanfield started in the Sportsman ranks and refined their driving skills going many a round in classes like Top Dragster, Super Stock, Stock, Super Gas, and Factory Stock. Glenn's first national event win came in Super Gas in 2011, and Stanfield's first victory came in Super Stock in 2015. Over the years, neither driver has lost their edge. In fact, both have become sharper and sharper as they honed their expertise in the fierce Pro Stock category. They've also become rivals on the starkly opposed KB Titan Racing and Elite Motorsports teams, and they've met one another many times so far this season. En route to the final round, Stanfield came across Glenn in the semi's for their eighth race-day meeting in 15 races. They're both typically strong at the Tree, but they seem to elevate for one another. Here, Stanfield left first with a .014 light to Glenn's .018.

Glenn entered this event with the points lead in hand, but Stanfield left with it. Veterans Greg Anderson and Erica Enders harbor the most commonly noted current rivalry in the class, but a light is beginning to shine on this new, fresh-faced rivalry that has previously been a little under the radar.

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FANS LOVE MAPLE GROVE RACEWAY

For the third consecutive season, Maple Grove Raceway sold out on Saturday. That was evident with a quick glance at the stands, which were packed to full capacity and bleeding with spectators 10-deep on the fence. Traffic flowing into and out of the event moved smoothly thanks to thoughtful planning, but this is a race to which you want to arrive early, no matter what. The energy at this first race of the Countdown to the Championship is incredible, and the Koretsky family, who own Maple Grove Raceway, do all that they can to make this event better and more welcoming with each passing season. It sells out for a reason. Don't sleep on this one; it's truly special.

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CAUTION: WATCH FOR UPSETS

After his performance in Chicago, where he reached the semifinals with one of the strongest-performing cars during eliminations, it's kind of misleading to call Dan Mercier's course to the semi's in Reading a "Cinderella story." It's perfectly fair, though, to say that what he did on Sunday at Maple Grove Raceway was an upset. The kindly, smilingly endearing French-Canadian racer was competing in just his seventh event of the season, but he knocked out the incoming points leader, defending event, and world champion Doug Kalitta in the first round with nary a drop of sweat, then went on to defeat five-time world champ Steve Torrence in round two. Eventual event winner Antron Brown was having none of it, though, and he pedaled his way to the semifinals win.

Ida Zetterström did her best to upset Shawn Langdon in the opening round as well, but his heightened reaction time in the opening act blocked her quicker run from getting the win light. In Pro Stock, Jeg Coughlin Jr. – the most winning Pro Stock drive at Maple Grove Raceway – turned it -.001 red next to Chris McGaha. Although Coughlin's loss was his own, McGaha's 6.562 was just a thousandth off of eventual event winner Aaron Stanfield's pass that round. He's No. 13 in the points, and signs are pointing threateningly to this: The eight-time winner is not going to go out of this season quietly.