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Del Worsham and Matt Hagan raced to their first NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series world championship titles and also earned race victories Sunday at the Auto Club NHRA Finals.

Veteran driver Worsham captured the Top Fuel season crown while Hagan avenged last season’s runner-up performance by taking the Funny Car title. Eddie Krawiec claimed his second Pro Stock Motorcycle championship. Pro Stock champ Jason Line secured his title two weeks ago in Las Vegas.

Greg Stanfield (Pro Stock) and Andrew Hines (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also were winners of the season-ending race in the NHRA Full Throttle Countdown to the Championship at historic Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

Longtime Funny Car racer Worsham, 41, claimed the Top Fuel championship in dramatic fashion by edging series challenger Spencer Massey at the finish line in the winner-take-all semifinal round. He went on to claim his eighth victory of the season and 33rd of his career by outrunning Tony Schumacher in the final round. Worsham powered his Al-Anabi Racing dragster to a 3.796 second run at 318.02 mph to finish just in front of Schumacher’s U.S. Army machine, which posted a 3.799 at 321.50 and went winless for the season for the first time since the 2001 season.

“The semifinal round was the biggest of my 21 year career as far as what was at stake,” Worsham said. “Spencer Massey is a great competitor. It was so close, I didn’t know if I had won. When I saw the ESPN cameras coming over to me it was like, wow, I was speechless after that round.”

The $500,000 Full Throttle championship is the second consecutive and 10th overall in Top Fuel for Worsham’s team manager, Alan Johnson.

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Jason Line clinched his second NHRA Full Throttle Pro Stock world championship as racing came to an end Sunday at the Big O Tires NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Del Worsham, Ron Capps, Mike Edwards and Eddie Krawiec raced to wins in their respective categories at the penultimate race of the 2011 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing season.

Line entered the 2011 NHRA Countdown to the Championship second in the Pro Stock point standings. He then raced to three consecutive final round appearances, including wins in Dallas and Reading, in the first three races of the Countdown. In total, Line raced to six wins in eight final round appearances for the season and posted seven No. 1 qualifiers.

“It feels unbelievable to win my second championship,” said Line. “Timing is everything in our sport, and we got hot at the right time. The second championship definitely means more to me because as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to appreciate it and realized how hard these things really are to get.”

Line, who won his first NHRA Full Throttle Pro Stock world championship in 2006, clinched his second title after he raced his Summit Racing Pontiac GXP to a semifinal round appearance Sunday in Las Vegas, home of his KB Racing team owner, Ken Black.

“It’s more important to clinch here than Pomona since we have all of Ken Black’s family here and without them, none of this would be possible,” said Line. “We owe everything to them. Wish we could have given them an all Summit final, but at least we did this here.”

In Top Fuel, Worsham raced to his seventh win of the season when he powered his Al-Anabi Racing dragster to a 3.823-second run at 318.77 mph past Spencer Massey. The win moved Worsham into the second spot in the point standings, two points behind leader Massey heading into the final race of the season.

Ron Hornaday, driver of the #2 Champion Chevrolet celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Smith's 350 on October 15, 2011 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images for NASCAR)by Brian Hilderbrand (Special to the Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service)
Polesitter Ron Hornaday Jr. held off a late challenge by Matt Crafton on Saturday to earn his 51st Camping World Truck Series victory in the Smith’s 350 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Hornaday, 53, led 107 of the 146 laps and notched his second victory in a row and his first in 11 starts in Las Vegas. Crafton was second, .629 seconds back, followed by Timothy Peters, Johnny Sauter and Todd Bodine.

Rounding out the top 10 were Nelson Piquet Jr., David Mayhew, Cole Whitt, Brendan Gaughan and Parker Kligerman.

Hornaday never really had a chance to maintain a sizeable lead because of the 10 caution periods in the race. But it was clear he had the dominant truck since Friday’s first practice session.

“I know I stunk up the show for the fans, but I wanted this win really, really bad,” Hornaday said. “I finally won in Vegas.”

Hornaday was driving the No. 2 Chevrolet for the second race in a row for Kevin Harvick Inc. owners Kevin and DeLana Harvick. The truck is leading the series’ owner points, and the decision to move Hornaday from the No. 33 to the No. 2 was made to help bolster that championship effort. Hornaday won two weeks ago at Kentucky Speedway in his first start this season in the No. 2.

“This is just a dream come true,” Hornaday said. “You don’t get trucks like that very often, and I’ve got it two races in a row, so that’s pretty awesome. Kevin and DeLana, I owe them a lot. They give me a championship truck with the owner points and still believing in me. They put Bruce Cook (crew chief) with me, and we go out and win another one.”

In winning for the third time in five races and the fourth time this season, Hornaday also thrust himself back into the championship race. Austin Dillon and James Buescher, the top two in points going into the race, were involved in separate incidents early, tightening up the points. Dillon now leads Sauter by five points and Buescher by seven. Hornaday is fourth, 21 points back, and Peters is fifth, 25 points off the pace with four races remaining.

by Kyle Luetters
On a night when being in the lead seemed to bad luck, Steve Kinser closed out the Outlaws second west coast tour with a bang. The 20 time champion used lap traffic to sneak past Craig Dollansky to claim his 8th win on the season at Antioch (Calif.) Speedway.

“I’ve never been to this track before but a win is nice,” said Kinser, a Bloomington, driver of the #11 Bass Pro Shops/J.D. Byrider/Chevrolet Maxim. “Lap traffic was key for us tonight and I snuck under Craig (Dollansky) right before he had some issues. From there on it was just about hanging on and doing what we needed to do. We had a stretch of races in there this season where we were didn’t have the finishes we wanted and we’ve been really good lately. This points battle is always tough but we’re winning races and that’s the best way to catch someone.”

Kinser extended his series of consecutive top-10 finishes to seven by virtue of his win but may have had more trouble had a late race red flag for not come out. Gold Cup winner and California wonderkid Kyle Larson was mounting a charge on the “King of the Outlaws” when the field was stopped after previous leader Dollansky flipped in turns one and two.

“That late race red didn’t help us much,” said Larson, who recorded his second top-2 finish in a row and captured the nights KSE Hard Charger Award. “We had a great car tonight, it worked really well since we started 14th and got all the way up here. Before that last restart, I was on the bottom and tried to dirty it up a bit and mess with Steve a little bit. Unfortunately when I did that, it kicked up some dust and dirt in Jason Sides face and I’m sorry about that. He got me back under the yellow. All in all, not a bad two nights for us.”

Rounding out the podium finishers was another California native, Tim Kaeding. The driver of the #83JR Roth Motorsports machine had problems in the dash but overcame them to score a great finish.

by Kyle Luetters
Paul McMahan had lady luck on his side as he picked up his fourth victory of the 2011 season at Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, Calif. With a challenging racing surface, the Elk Grove, Calif. native made the best of his pole position starting spot to lead all 25 laps. The starting spot was by virtue of his win in the night’s dash. McMahan started the dash thanks to a drawing of six, which placed him on the front row.

“To get a win here in front of (team co-owners) Dennis and Teresa Roth is huge for this team,” said McMahan. “The dash draw really helped us and it ment we got to start up front which was key. The track started taking rubber early on (in the night) and they worked it a little bit after time trials. For the feature, it still had a lot of rubber so I was trying to be patient as I worked my way around here. I knew Jason (Meyers) would give me a run for my money near the end and I had to keep him at bay. Great win tonight but we want to be golden tomorrow night.”

Meyers did try to make one last ditch effort to get around McMahan as he charged hard into turn three on the final lap but eventually had to settle for second. While he didn’t get the win, Meyers extended his points lead as second place runner in the standings, Donny Schatz, was caught up in an early race incident.

“I think they have it mixed up and the trophy girl should be standing next to me since she’s taller than Paul,” Meyers joked in Victory Lane. “It wasn’t quite the show we wanted to put on for the fans tonight but our DDNi/Media-Tile/All-Star Performance car was fast all night. Hat’s off to the crew and everyone around here. It’s great to race in front of these fans since I’m from here and hopefully we can pull off a win tomorrow night.”

Finishing third on the night was a relative newcomer to the Outlaws in the form of Shane Golobric. The Fremont, Calif. driver completed the “California Sweep” of the top three finishers and admitted that he learned quite a bit from the veterans who took the checkers ahead of him.

“Jason Meyers gave me sprint car 101 there,” said Golobric. “He made the move around me that allowed him to get second. I’m just glad to be out here learning and watching these guys. It really is a thrill to get our first podium finish and we hope we can get another good finish here tomorrow night.”

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Antron Brown raced to his third Top Fuel victory of the season Sunday at Infineon Raceway and clinched a berth in the Full Throttle Countdown to the Championship, NHRA’s playoffs.

Ron Capps (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and LE Tonglet (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also were winners at the FRAM / Autolite NHRA Nationals, the 13th of 22 races in the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.

Brown outran seven-time world champ Tony Schumacher for the victory, the 28th of his career. Brown’s Matco Tools dragster finished with a 3.883 second run at 314.61 mph, just in front of Schumacher’s U.S. Army machine, which trailed with a 3.919 at 311.41.

“You can’t say it went to plan because nothing is expected in this sport,” said Brown, who beat Ron August Jr., David Grubnic and Del Worsham in earlier rounds. “Tony and that Army team have been on mean lately. He’s our teammate, but deep in his heart he wants to kick our butts. It was a great drag race. We stepped it up and had nothing to lose. The car stuck and we snuck away with that win. I have been energized ever since I got here. We love coming out here to race at Sonoma. It was our day.”

Larry Dixon and Schumacher joined Brown in securing their spots in the Countdown over the weekend. Al-Anabi Racing driver Worsham maintained his series lead with the semifinal effort and now sits 82 in front of Spencer Massey. Brown moved to third with the win and Schumacher remained in fifth place.

In Funny Car, Capps claimed his first win in more than a year and the 32nd of his career when he posted a 4.145 at 303.57 in his NAPA Auto Parts Dodge Charger to defeat Tim Wilkerson, who finished in 4.175 at 300.93 in his Levi Ray & Shoup Ford Mustang.