{"id":15093,"date":"2023-07-22T10:00:54","date_gmt":"2023-07-22T14:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=15093"},"modified":"2023-07-21T23:45:32","modified_gmt":"2023-07-22T03:45:32","slug":"nhra-northwest-nationals-preview-and-how-to-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2023\/07\/22\/nhra-northwest-nationals-preview-and-how-to-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"NHRA Northwest Nationals Preview and How to Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>The NHRA Northwest Nationals arrive to us midseason this year with several contenders vying for a win at Pacific Raceways.<\/h3>\n<p>The Pacific Northwest will get a great deal louder this weekend as the NHRA comes to town for the 34<sup>th<\/sup> running of the NHRA Northwest Nationals.<\/p>\n<p>Pacific Raceways, located outside of Kent, WA, is known for its beautiful scenery and oxygen-rich atmosphere. \u00a0With Mt. Rainier as a backdrop, and surrounded by trees, it is always a favorite among drivers and fans.\u00a0 The track, which opened in 1960, has been a regular part of the NHRA schedule since 1988.<\/p>\n<p>There is no shortage of history made here, including John Force\u2019s 150<sup>th<\/sup> career win in 2019, and this race looks to add to that storied history. \u00a0Normally the last of the three-race \u201cWestern Swing\u201d, this year the race moves to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhra.com\/schedule\/2023\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">middle of the schedule.<\/a><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Competition For The Countdown to the Championship Heats Up<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Robert Hight will be looking to repeat his performance from last year in Funny Car while current points leader Matt Hagan looks to continue his winning ways, and you can never count Ron Capps out as well.\u00a0 In Top Fuel, Tony Schumacher looks to repeat as the winner, which would be his sixth\u00a0career win there.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2023\/07\/19\/nhras-buddy-hull-is-a-bright-star-both-on-and-off-the-track\/\" target=\"_self\">Top Fuel field<\/a> looks stacked, with Justin Ashley, Steve Torrence, and many others looking strong going into the weekend.\u00a0 Last week\u2019s winner Clay Millican is always a contender as well.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s race will also see the absence of the Pro Stock cars, as well as the debut of the Pro Stock Motorcycle class at the track.<\/p>\n<p>Gaige Herrera looks to continue his dominance on his Vance &amp; Hines Suzuki, having won four races in five final round appearances so far this year, and pick up the first-ever pro stock motorcycle Wally.<\/p>\n<p>The weekend will see one round of qualifying in top fuel, funny car, and pro stock motorcycle on Friday.\u00a0 Saturday, qualifying continues for the pros with 2 more sessions, plus the Mission #2fast2tasty Challenge.\u00a0 Fans will also get to see the top alcohol dragster and the top alcohol funny car.<\/p>\n<p>Eight sportsman categories are also competing to round out the action.\u00a0 Sunday sees the drivers compete for points in four rounds of eliminations, with a winner crowned in each category at the end of the day.<\/p>\n<p>John Force has the most career wins at the track, winning eight times in Funny Car. \u00a0The weather, which should be in the 70s and 80s all weekend, should make for great racing, as it often has. \u00a0Brittany Force set the track speed record last year in top fuel, running 332.43 mph.\u00a0 Antron Brown holds the track E.T. record at 3.685 seconds.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>How To Watch: NHRA Northwest Nationals (All times ET)<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Qualifying 1:<\/strong> Saturday, July 22 &#8211; 2:00 p.m. &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/live\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FS1<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Qualifying 2:<\/strong> Sunday, July 23 &#8211; 1:30 p.m. &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/live\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FS1<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Finals:<\/strong> Sunday, July 23 &#8211; 4:00 p.m. &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/live\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FOX<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Sportsman Series:<\/strong> Thursday, August 3 &#8211; 6:30 p.m. &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/live\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FS2<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>Featured image credit: Mark J. Rebilas\/USA TODAY Sports<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The NHRA Northwest Nationals arrive to us midseason this year with several contenders vying for a win at Pacific Raceways. The Pacific Northwest will get a great deal louder this weekend as the NHRA comes to town for the 34th running of the NHRA Northwest Nationals. Pacific Raceways, located outside of Kent, WA, is known [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4745,"featured_media":15098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"1689897600","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"NHRA Northwest Nationals","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1116,1355],"tags":[1353],"class_list":["post-15093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motorsports","category-nhra","tag-nhra"],"modified_by":"Justin Russo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4745"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}