For the second year in a row at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas — JR Todd emerged the winner.

This is also the third consecutive time Todd has powered his DHL Toyota Camry Funny Car into the winner’s circle at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Todd made his strongest pass of race day, 3.970 seconds at 319.70 mph, in the final quad and it was enough to outrun No. 1 qualifier Tim Wilkerson, Tommy Johnson Jr. and Jack Beckman.

Todd’s path to victory included two second place finishes in the first and second quads both times finishing behind Wilkerson. In the first round Todd took the first round win with his right foot grabbing a hole shot win over Gary Densham to advance to the second quad. Racing beside Matt Hagan, Densham and Jim Campbell Todd powered his DHL Toyota Camry Funny Car to the next round with a winning time of 4.349 seconds at 210.31 mph. Todd had his hands full as his Funny Car smoked the tires just before the finish line but a quick pedal job gave him enough momentum to carry him to victory.

In the second quad Todd again got the jump on one of his four-wide foes as he took a strong reaction time advance over Matt Hagan to race to the final quad. Todd’s Funny Car moved first and his .049 second reaction time was more than enough of an advantage to beat Hagan’s .087, to put Todd’s 4.03 second elapsed time in front of Hagan’s 4.017.

Todd on winning three in a row at The Strip: “It’s all Kalitta Motorsports. It seems like these DHL Toyota Camrys always run well here. The whole team has a really good handle on this place, especially my crew chiefs Todd Smith and Jon Oberhofer. It seems like the more we come here, the better grip they get on this place. We struggled early this year with cold tracks and shaking the tires. I knew that it was eventually going to warm up and sure enough, it was hot and nasty here today. That’s been an equalizer for us.”

JR Todd won for the 18th time in his NHRA career (9th time driving a fuel FC)

Todd on final run: “That 3.97 was pretty stout. The 4.03 in the second run – I definitely stole some away there and I didn’t mean to do that. It was probably a 4.01, which was right in the hunt with everyone.  (Tim) Wilkerson was really good all weekend. I expected him to step it up and throw down in the final, but you never count out Todd Smith and Jon O.  Give them enough shots at it and they’re going to figure it out and sure enough we got our act together this weekend.”

Tim Wilkerson qualified #1 with a low ET of the event shot — 3.891 secs.

John Force was credited with top speed of the meet at 329.67 mph

Event Essentials:   NHRA Denso Four-Wide Nationals (Apr. 5-7th, 2019) 

Cruz Pedregon qualified strong — #3 — at 3.915 secs in the Snap-On Tools Dodge.

Matt Hagan raced this special silver edition Dodge Hellcat and qualified 5th.

Posted with files by Kalitta Motorsports & Bruce Biegler
Photos by Bob Johnson