Justin Ashley Riding Wave of Success into Nevada Nationals

Ashley started the season with a win at the Winternationals and since then the second generation drag racer has been on a rocket ship of success picking up an additional win in Bristol at the Thunder Valley Nationals on Father’s Day weekend. A string of semifinal finishes to close out the regular season set up Ashley for his run through the Countdown. In Reading and Charlotte starting from the No. 2 and No. 1 qualifying positions respectively, Ashley raced to the final round only to lose close races but two weeks ago in Dallas the 2020 Rookie of the Year broke through for his first 2022 Countdown win taking out Doug Kalitta, Kebin Kinsley, Shawn Langdon and Austin Prock for the win that included four straight runs in the 3.60s from the No. 10 qualifier position.

“We didn’t qualify as well as we would have hoped at Texas Motorplex, but we turned it around on race day which is a testament to the resiliency and mental fortitude of our team,” said Ashley. “We raced three Countdown contending teams on Sunday and got three win lights. We have been racing a lot of Countdown contenders which is what you need to do if you want to win the championship.

The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway has been a track where Ashley has had limited success racing to two semifinal finishes the past two NHRA Nevada Nationals. Last year he raced to the final four as the No. 3 qualifier and in 2020 he made the semis from the No. 12 spot. In each of those races he was ousted by eventual world champion Steve Torrence.

Through 20 national events this season Ashley and the Phillips Connect team have raced to at least the semifinals 13 times and they have started from No. 4 or higher 11 times including two No. 1 qualifiers. The consistency both in qualifying and on race day has Ashley confident but not cocky heading into the penultimate Countdown race.

“This sport will get your attention really quick if you take anything for granted,” said Ashley. “We are going to just take every qualifying round one at a time and on race day we are going to race the racetrack to the best of our ability. This is an exciting time, but the key is not to get too high or too low. We are going to continue enjoying ourselves but stay focused on the task at hand.”

Top Fuel will have two qualifying runs on Friday and two qualifying runs on Saturday where teams can earn qualifying bonus points heading into Sunday’s elimination rounds. The final eliminations will begin at 11 a.m. with FS1 broadcasting the race nationally.