Gordon’s First Top Fuel Win Highlights Dream Weekend as Ron Capps Motorsports Doubles Up

In just her 10th career NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series event, Rookie of the Year candidate Maddi Gordon became the eighth woman in NHRA history to win in Top Fuel Sunday afternoon at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio. Gordon’s triumph in her Carlyle Tools Top Fuel dragster completed the first double-up victory for the Ron Capps Motorsports organization, as team owner Ron Capps drove his NAPA Auto Care Funny Car to the win just moments earlier. Adding yet another highlight to the weekend was the fact that Gordon was able to share the winner’s circle with her father, three-time Top Alcohol Funny Car world champion Doug Gordon, who also powered to victory in Norwalk. Gordon moved up three spots to fourth in the Top Fuel points standings, while Capps leaves with the Funny Car points lead for the seventh time through the first 10 races of the 20-race season.

Gordon’s standout weekend started in qualifying, where she threw down the third-quickest pass of the second session on Friday with her 3.793-second run at 335.40 mph. That performance moved her up to the provisional No. 3 spot and came with one bonus point. In the third session, she set a new track speed record, 339.79 mph, on her 3.760-second pass. Gordon then recorded her quickest pass of the weekend, a 3.734 E.T., to lock in the No. 5 position.

Capps also stood out in qualifying, beginning with a 3.999 E.T. followed by a 3.894-second blast in the second session to earn three bonus points and place him in the provisional No. 1 spot to end the day. Capps and crew chief Dean ‘Guido’ Antonelli kept the momentum going in the third session, which was also the first round of the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. Capps charged to a 3.891 E.T. at 326.63 to defeat Daniel Wilkerson and earn another bonus point for making the third-quickest pass of the session. He then laid down a consistent 3.901 E.T. at 333.66 mph in the #2Fast2Tasty Challenge final to finish runner-up to Austin Prock, picking up another bonus point in the process.

On race day, Gordon kicked things off with a 3.854 E.T. at 325.14 mph to get past a tire-smoking Spencer Massey. Crew chiefs Rob Flynn and Troy Fasching stepped up to face 2025 regular season champion Tony Stewart in the second round, where Gordon recorded a 3.788-second run while Stewart smoked the tires. She then met up with points leader Shawn Langdon for a rematch of her first-ever round of competition in Top Fuel in the semifinals. Both drivers lost traction, but it was Gordon who recovered, pedaling her way to her first career final round.

Capps’ march through eliminations began with a first-round victory over Bobby Bode before clocking low E.T. of the second round to defeat J.R. Todd’s tire-smoking attempt. Capps was off his usual pace in the semifinals with a 4.051 E.T., but it was enough to get the win over Alexis DeJoria, who lost traction early. In the final round, Capps left the starting line three thousandths of a second ahead of Jack Beckman and extended the lead down track to score the win with a 3.969 E.T. at 328.54 mph versus his opponent’s 4.011. The win was Capps’ 80th of his career, second at Norwalk, 12th as a team owner, and made him the first Funny Car driver to win three diamond Wally trophies in 2026.

With the pressure on to join Capps and her father in the Norwalk winner’s circle, Gordon and the Carlyle Tools team held strong in the Top Fuel final against four-time world champion Antron Brown. Gordon raced to her quickest pass of the day, a 3.786 E.T. at 333.16 mph, to hold off Brown and his 3.840-second effort.

“I was in my mom’s belly at the drag races and went to my first race at eight days old,” exclaimed an ecstatic Gordon as she took in the moment after jumping out of her car at the top end of the race track. “Never in my life did I think I would be driving a Top Fuel dragster, but it’s this guy right here, Ronald Capps! He made what felt like the impossible become a reality. Our team works so hard; weekends, holidays, birthdays. Thank you to their families for letting them come out and drag race. This is everything right here. Blood, sweat, and literal tears go into this.

“When my parents first told me that Ron had approached them about me driving for him, they said just be grateful for the opportunity because we don’t have the money that it takes to drive one of these cars. But for Ron, that wasn’t what it was about,” Gordon added. “He told us he didn’t have the funding (for a second car) yet, but he was going to find it. And that’s exactly what he did. Carlyle Tools and NAPA Auto Parts believed in me before I even hit the gas pedal and that type of loyalty will stick with me forever. This is the best day of my life!”

The pair of wins was just as surreal for Capps, who was a part of many double-up victories for iconic team owners Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and Don Schumacher while competing as a hired driver for decades. Now, the fifth-year driver/team owner has a double-up of his own just 10 races into Ron Capps Motorsports’ tenure as a two-car team.

“When her dad won, I thought there’s no way all three of us would win. And then when I won, I thought, oh man, the odds are going to go down now,” said Capps, a longtime friend of the Gordon family. “And she’s running my buddy, AB, who helped me a lot when I became a team owner. It was a great tool war for those two teams up there, but we got the win and Joe Sabo (Sr. Manager of Product, Carlyle Tools) is very smiley, and I’m very happy about that. What an unbelievable day.

“We’ve got two cars that run as one,” added Capps, who was also announced as part of the West Coast Stock Car/Motorsports Hall of Fame’s class of 2026 on Sunday. “I’m a small business owner, who never even thought I’d run a business. This helps immensely for paying bills, but we’ve got great partners who help support us, so a huge thank you to all of them.”

For Gordon, the dream-come-true victory was made even more special by the fact that she was surrounded by family and able to share the full-circle moment with her father and their family-run Top Alcohol Funny Car team, where she got her start working as a crew member. In 2024, she took over the driving duties of the Gordon Family Racing entry before getting called up to compete in the professional Top Fuel ranks in 2026. By scoring a Gordon family double-up on Sunday, Doug and Maddi joined just four other father-daughter pairings to win at the same event.

“I can hardly think right now, I’m just so happy,” said Gordon, who became the 100th woman to win an NHRA national event when she earned her first TAFC win in 2024. “My family being here means so much; they’re what got me here. They taught me everything I know, and without them believing in me when I was driving the Alcohol Funny Car, I would’ve never gotten this opportunity. Because I blew some stuff up in that car. I made mistakes, I cost us money, I cost us more work in the shop, and I ate myself up over it, but they stuck with me and stuck by my side and believed in me and Ron Capps has done the same thing. I’m just so grateful; this truly is the best day of my life.”

Gordon and Capps will have nearly three weeks to soak up their wins as the NHRA Mission Foods Series tour heads to Sonoma Raceway next, a home facility for the two Central California natives, for the NHRA Sonoma Nationals, July 17-19.

Ron Capps
Start / Finish: No. 3 / winner in final round
Points Standing / Total: No. 1 / 691 pts. (+24)

Next Race: July 17-19, NHRA Sonoma Nationals, Sonoma, Calif.
How to Watch or Listen: FS1, NHRA.TV

NAPA Racing:@NAPARacing
Ron Capps: @RonCapps28
Ron Capps Motorsports: @TeamRonCapps

Maddi Gordon
Start / Finish: No. 5 / winner in final round
Points Standing / Total: No. 4 / 614 pts. (-396)

Next Race: July 17-19, NHRA Sonoma Nationals, Sonoma, Calif.
How to Watch or Listen: FS1, NHRA.TV

NAPA Racing:@NAPARacing
Maddi Gordon: @MaddiGordon_TF
Ron Capps Motorsports: @TeamRonCapps