ADEL, Ga. (May 3, 2026) – Top Fuel rookie Maddi Gordon’s first trip to South Georgia Motorsports Park for the NHRA Southern Nationals resulted in new career-bests in both elapsed time and speed for the driver of the Carlyle Tools Top Fuel dragster. She became only the second woman and fourth Top Fuel driver to eclipse the 340-mph barrier, hitting the mark twice across qualifying and Sunday eliminations. The Ron Capps Motorsports driver closed out the weekend with a quarterfinal exit at the fifth of 20 races on the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series schedule and leaves Georgia ranked sixth in the Top Fuel points standings.
Before heading to South Georgia, Gordon joined teammate and team owner Ron Capps for a visit to NAPA headquarters near Atlanta. She also threw out the first pitch at Wednesday night’s Atlanta Braves game versus the Detroit Tigers, adding to the excitement leading up to the NHRA Mission Foods Series’ first visit to South Georgia.
The hype continued when qualifying kicked off on Friday as Gordon powered to the provisional No. 1 spot with her 3.775-second pass at 329.75 mph, earning three championship bonus points for having the quickest run of the first session. Tire smoke followed in the second session, with Gordon settling into the No. 4 position to end the day. Heavy rain on Saturday pushed the remainder of qualifying into the early evening, but it was worth the wait for Gordon, who set new career-best numbers with an impressive blast of 3.748 seconds at 340.05 mph to lock in the No. 4 position for race day.
Gordon paired up with Will Smith in Sunday’s first round of eliminations. She piloted the Carlyle Tools machine to more career-best numbers and another 340-mph pass, a 3.728-second run at 340.22 mph, to move on to the second round. In the quarterfinal match against Smith’s teammate, Justin Ashley, Gordon drove into tire smoke early and watched as Ashley raced by for the win.
“Of course, we wanted to go further than the second round,” Gordon said. “We all thought we had a really good shot this weekend. But we’re still learning. I’ve never smoked the tires instantly before, so I got to learn what that felt like. There was no way I was going to pedal it because I saw him out there anyways, but we’ll learn from that and take it to the next one.”
The energetic and optimistic Gordon found plenty of positives in the weekend, from the pre-race festivities and meeting passionate new fans at a new track to making more history with her 340-mph passes.
“The 340s were really insane,” said Gordon, who credited crew chiefs Rob Flynn and Troy Fasching, car chief Chuck Grospitch, and the Carlyle Tools team. “That is such a huge milestone, especially afterwards realizing not very many drivers have done that. There are world champions out there who haven’t gone 340 yet, so to hit that milestone this early in my career was just really, really exciting and just a huge morale booster. We’ve been having a great season, but those little milestones are just so, so cool. Everything has to go perfect for that to happen.”
Gordon’s rookie season with the Carlyle Tools team and Ron Capps Motorsports will continue May 15-17 at the Route 66 NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Ill., outside Chicago.
Qualified: No. 4 (3.748 E.T. at 340.05 MPH)
Elimination Round Results:
E1: 3.728 E.T. at 340.22 MPH defeated Will Smith 4.056 E.T. at 258.12 MPH
E2: 10.440 E.T. at 80.96 MPH defeated by Justin Ashley 4.035 E.T. at 246.35 MPH
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Before heading to South Georgia, Gordon joined teammate and team owner Ron Capps for a visit to NAPA headquarters near Atlanta. She also threw out the first pitch at Wednesday night’s Atlanta Braves game versus the Detroit Tigers, adding to the excitement leading up to the NHRA Mission Foods Series’ first visit to South Georgia.
The hype continued when qualifying kicked off on Friday as Gordon powered to the provisional No. 1 spot with her 3.775-second pass at 329.75 mph, earning three championship bonus points for having the quickest run of the first session. Tire smoke followed in the second session, with Gordon settling into the No. 4 position to end the day. Heavy rain on Saturday pushed the remainder of qualifying into the early evening, but it was worth the wait for Gordon, who set new career-best numbers with an impressive blast of 3.748 seconds at 340.05 mph to lock in the No. 4 position for race day.
Gordon paired up with Will Smith in Sunday’s first round of eliminations. She piloted the Carlyle Tools machine to more career-best numbers and another 340-mph pass, a 3.728-second run at 340.22 mph, to move on to the second round. In the quarterfinal match against Smith’s teammate, Justin Ashley, Gordon drove into tire smoke early and watched as Ashley raced by for the win.
“Of course, we wanted to go further than the second round,” Gordon said. “We all thought we had a really good shot this weekend. But we’re still learning. I’ve never smoked the tires instantly before, so I got to learn what that felt like. There was no way I was going to pedal it because I saw him out there anyways, but we’ll learn from that and take it to the next one.”
The energetic and optimistic Gordon found plenty of positives in the weekend, from the pre-race festivities and meeting passionate new fans at a new track to making more history with her 340-mph passes.
“The 340s were really insane,” said Gordon, who credited crew chiefs Rob Flynn and Troy Fasching, car chief Chuck Grospitch, and the Carlyle Tools team. “That is such a huge milestone, especially afterwards realizing not very many drivers have done that. There are world champions out there who haven’t gone 340 yet, so to hit that milestone this early in my career was just really, really exciting and just a huge morale booster. We’ve been having a great season, but those little milestones are just so, so cool. Everything has to go perfect for that to happen.”
Gordon’s rookie season with the Carlyle Tools team and Ron Capps Motorsports will continue May 15-17 at the Route 66 NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Ill., outside Chicago.
Qualified: No. 4 (3.748 E.T. at 340.05 MPH)
Elimination Round Results:
E1: 3.728 E.T. at 340.22 MPH defeated Will Smith 4.056 E.T. at 258.12 MPH
E2: 10.440 E.T. at 80.96 MPH defeated by Justin Ashley 4.035 E.T. at 246.35 MPH
Continue reading...
