The 2026 NHRA New England Nationals followed NHRA’s standard three-day national event structure across Friday through Sunday. Pro classes — Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock — ran two qualifying sessions each day on Friday and Saturday before Sunday eliminations. The track’s own 60th anniversary added a set of special fan moments throughout the weekend, including a Friday flag giveaway for the first 3,000 fans through the gates and the traditional SealMaster Track Walk before Sunday’s finals.

Three professional categories competed at the 2026 NHRA New England Nationals. Pro Stock was the only class to crown a winner on Sunday in Epping. The Top Fuel and Funny Car titles went to the drivers who survived the delayed finals at Bristol the following Friday.

How Sunday Played Out at Epping

Dallas Glenn was the lone professional trophy winner to leave New England Dragway with a Wally on Sunday. The reigning Pro Stock world champion defeated Matt Hartford in the final round to record his third victory of the 2026 Mission Foods season. Moreover, it was Glenn’s first career win at the Epping track — an important chapter for a driver who entered the weekend as the Pro Stock points leader.

The Funny Car eliminations delivered drama even before the rain arrived. Jordan Vandergriff — the sensation of the 2026 rookie class in his Cornwell Tools Chevrolet — and teammate Jack Beckman had staged an all–John Force Racing final. Furthermore, in Top Fuel, points leader Shawn Langdon and Leah Pruett were set for a title-round showdown that the sky refused to allow.

When the rain came, NHRA made the call to move both finals to Bristol. It was the right decision — and it created one of the most unusual scenarios of the modern era: two championship rounds from one race completed at a completely different track.

Qualifying at the 2026 NHRA New England Nationals ran across four sessions — two on Friday evening and two on Saturday. The cooler nighttime conditions on Friday produced the best numbers, as they almost always do at Epping under the lights. However, Saturday’s sessions reshuffled several positions, most dramatically in Funny Car, where Jordan Vandergriff moved from mid-pack to the top spot with a run that left the entire field behind.

Top Fuel — Final Qualifying Order

Langdon’s benchmark: Shawn Langdon arrived at Epping on the hottest streak in Top Fuel. His 3.709 at 334.98 mph on Friday night set the provisional No. 1 and earned him the No. 1 Clawifier Award presented by NAPA. Langdon also took the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge top prize on Saturday alongside Doug Kalitta, who secured his own Challenge victory to keep the Kalitta Motorsports camp in the spotlight all weekend.

Funny Car — Final Qualifying Order

Vandergriff’s 3.913 at 323.58 on Saturday locked down the first career No. 1 qualifier of his young career. The run also earned him the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge victory, where he defeated points leader Ron Capps (3.953, 328.14) in the final — giving the Cornwell Tools team two reasons to celebrate on Saturday night. DeJoria had held the provisional No. 1 after Friday but couldn’t match Vandergriff’s Saturday pace. Consequently, John Force Racing locked down the top three positions on the Funny Car ladder heading into Sunday.

Pro Stock — Final Qualifying Order

Greg Anderson topped Pro Stock qualifying — his sixth No. 1 qualifier in the first eight races of the season, a remarkable pace that underscored why KB Titan Racing remains the standard in the class. Anderson’s Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge victory on Saturday added points and bonus money to the haul. In the end, though, it was points leader Dallas Glenn who converted on Sunday — defeating Hartford in the final to extend his championship advantage.

1. Vandergriff Announces Himself at Epping

Jordan Vandergriff came to New England Dragway with eight career Funny Car races on his résumé and a growing reputation as the most talented unproven driver in the class. He left Epping with the first No. 1 qualifying position of his career, a Mission Challenge victory, and an all–JFR Funny Car final waiting for him at Bristol. The 3.913 at 323.58 that moved him to the top of the ladder wasn’t a fluke — it was a statement. As the Cornwell Tools machine is now showing consistency alongside raw speed, Vandergriff has graduated from “prospect” to “contender.”

2. Langdon Keeps His Foot Down on the Championship

Shawn Langdon entered Epping as the Top Fuel points leader — and the 3.709 at 334.98 mph he laid down on Friday night reinforced why the rest of the field is chasing him. Therefore, his run to the final round (before the weather intervened) stretched a dominant first half of the season. Going into the Countdown, Langdon has more No. 1 qualifiers than any driver in any class, and Kalitta Motorsports has been operating with the calm, structured execution that separates teams who peak in June from teams that are still winning in September.

3. Leah Pruett Gets Her Win — Eventually

Pruett’s Top Fuel title from Epping didn’t come easily or quickly. The win finally came on Friday afternoon in Bristol — a 3.794 at 332.43 mph that slipped past Langdon’s 3.852 despite his slight reaction-time advantage. For Pruett, returning to Top Fuel racing in 2026 after stepping away to start a family with husband Tony Stewart, the Wally was the 13th of her career and the most emotionally loaded. Furthermore, it was the first win for Tony Stewart Racing’s Top Fuel program in the 2026 season. The team had shown pace all year, reaching finals at Charlotte and Phoenix before the breakthrough.

4. Dallas Glenn Tightens His Grip on Pro Stock Points

Three wins in eight races is an extraordinary pace in Pro Stock. Glenn’s third victory of the season at Epping — his first career win at New England Dragway — came with characteristic efficiency. He went through the ladder, defeated Hartford in the final, and walked away with a Wally and more points cushion. Meanwhile, teammate Greg Anderson kept the heat on with six No. 1 qualifiers in eight races, which means KB Titan Racing could realistically sweep the top two positions in the final standings. That’s the kind of dominance the Pro Stock class hasn’t seen in years.

5. New England Dragway’s Record Crowds

The 2026 event drew the largest crowds in New England Dragway’s 60-year history. The combination of the track’s diamond anniversary, NHRA’s 75th-anniversary season, and the continued growth of the Mission Foods series created a perfect storm of attendance. Fans came from across New England — navigating what NHRA itself called “roads older than the country itself” — to pack the grandstands, pit areas, and Nitro Alley. Moreover, the Friday flag giveaway (honoring both anniversaries) ran out of the 3,000 limited-edition flags before the gates closed in the morning.

6. Mother Nature’s Perfect Record at Epping

Epping and weather have a complicated relationship. The 2023 New England Nationals were cancelled outright because of conditions. Sunday rain in 2026 cost the track its Top Fuel and Funny Car finals. However, NHRA’s contingency planning — completing the rounds at Bristol — has become a model for how the series handles weather-shortened events in the modern era. Pro Stock still ran cleanly to a conclusion, giving fans on Sunday at least one championship-bracket completion to celebrate.

New England Dragway sits on the border of Epping and Brentwood, New Hampshire — a piece of land purchased in the mid-1960s by a group of shareholders who wanted to bring organised drag racing to the Boston market. Construction completed in the late summer of 1966, and the track opened for racing on September 11, 1966. That makes 2026 the facility’s 60th anniversary season — a milestone the event celebrated throughout the June weekend.

Track Records at New England Dragway

The track records Doug Kalitta, Brittany Force, and Greg Anderson set at the 2025 NHRA New England Nationals stood heading into the 2026 event. Langdon’s 3.709 at 334.98 mph in Friday night qualifying was among the quickest passes of the event, though final class track-record comparisons require the official NHRA results confirmation. For the full picture of how fast NHRA cars actually go, and why the quarter mile takes under four seconds, our speed breakdown explains the physics and the engineering behind every run.

The 2026 NHRA New England Nationals broadcast across FOX Sports’ full platform — both the cable home (FS1) and the over-the-air broadcast network (FOX). All 20 races in NHRA’s 2026 Mission Foods season air on either FOX or FS1, as well as the FOX One app for streaming viewers. This is a continuation of the partnership NHRA and FOX Sports first announced in 2016, with a multi-year extension confirmed in 2021.

Streaming the NHRA New England Nationals

The FOX One app (formerly Fox Sports Go) carries all NHRA broadcasts that air on FOX and FS1. A cable or satellite TV subscription — or an active FOX Sports digital subscription — is required to access the stream. Additionally, some live pay-TV services carry FS1 and FOX as part of their channel packages, which means cord-cutters can still watch without a traditional cable contract.

• FOX One app — streams FS1 and FOX content with a pay-TV login
• NHRA.com / App — official live timing and lap-by-lap data throughout the event
• Track PA — on-site listeners tune to 87.9 FM for live commentary from New England Dragway
• PlayNHRA — NHRA’s official integration with leading sports books for legal wager participation at national events

For the full 2026 season broadcast schedule — including which events air on FOX vs. FS1 — see our NHRA TV schedule guide. The most-watched event of the year, the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals over Labor Day weekend, airs across both FOX and FS1. In 2025, the U.S. Nationals finals drew over 1 million viewers — the most-viewed live NHRA event in the series’ history.

Where the 2026 Season Goes After New England

The New England Nationals was the eighth of 20 races on the 2026 Mission Foods schedule. Following Bristol (the Thunder Valley Nationals, June 12-14), the series heads to Norwalk, Ohio for the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals (June 25-28). That Norwalk event airs live on FOX broadcast network — one of only four races on the calendar to get the FOX main-channel treatment. For full details on what’s coming, our NHRA 2026 full schedule has every date, venue, and TV window for the rest of the season.

Curious about the technical side of what you’re watching? Our guide to how much a Top Fuel engine costs and how far Top Fuel cars actually race break down the machinery in plain language. And if you’re wondering about driver earnings, how much NHRA drivers make is a genuine eye-opener.

Eight races into the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods season, the championship picture in all three professional classes is still fluid — but some trends are unmistakable. Shawn Langdon leads Top Fuel by a margin that makes him the clear favourite heading toward the Countdown. Dallas Glenn’s third win of the year in Pro Stock has him in the driver’s seat heading into the second half. Funny Car remains the most chaotic class: Ron Capps, Chad Green, Austin Prock, and now Jordan Vandergriff all have credible championship aspirations.

For the live, race-by-race updated standings, see our NHRA 2026 points standings tracker. The Countdown to the Championship — NHRA’s playoff format — begins after the U.S. Nationals in September and resets the top ten drivers in each class with a compressed points structure designed to produce a new champion.