The 2025 NHRA season has been culminating in a championship match worthy of the sport’s most intense bouts. Fans had watched 20 events in Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, and Pro Stock Motorcycle that featured dramatic playoff formats, crazy swings, and clutch victories. All signs pointed to a last, decisive showdown to determine who was the best in the sport.

Mother Nature, however, had a completely different plan. Rain hampered qualifying on Thursday, continued to do so on Friday, and by Saturday, the final round of qualifying was completely canceled. Officials made the unimaginable decision to finish the season without a final race at all when Sunday arrived and the track conditions remained dangerous. And that’s where NASCAR’s veteran voices stepped in with their verdict.

Why NASCAR insiders said NHRA got it right

When Ken Schrader, on the Herm and Schrader podcast, said, “If it rains, you can’t race drag cars,” he wasn’t exaggerating. In fact, he was stating an unbreakable truth of the sport. Drag racing relies solely on traction, in contrast to oval or road course racing. With over 11,000 horsepower at launch, a Top Fuel dragster delivers explosive force to the track surface in a split second.

The tires lose their ability to grip, the rubber layer separates, and the car becomes unmanageable if the track is even slightly wet. Rain doesn’t only cause drag racing to be delayed. Instead, the racing surface is destroyed. A 330-mph machine cannot be driven safely on an imperfect track.

Kenny Wallace backed that explanation immediately. He noted that while NHRA crews are world-class at prepping the starting line, there’s only so much they can do when the weather keeps wiping away the rubber. “Man, just keeping rubber laid down in between rain… I know they got the ability with the machines, but…” Wallace said. Every fresh rainstorm means starting over, and by Sunday, Mother Nature had reset the track one too many times.

As a result, the NHRA championships were awarded based on points, locking in the leaders as the 2025 champions. Doug Kalitta, already holding a commanding 144-point lead, needed only to qualify to clinch his second Top Fuel title in three years. Richard Gadson won the Pro Stock Motorcycle title, Dallas Glenn won the Pro Stock championship, and Austin Prock won the Funny Car title. Before the eliminations, all four of them were worthy leaders, and the rain just froze the positions where they had earned them.

In the end, while fans missed out on a dramatic finale, NASCAR veterans agree the call was correct. Safety, as always, remained the one rule that cannot be bent. Even for a championship weekend.

Tony Stewart shares his opinion

Tony Stewart’s first full season in Top Fuel was anything but quiet. The three-time NASCAR Cup champion entered NHRA with sky-high expectations and still managed to exceed most of them. He won the regular-season championship, earning two Wallys, and watched his Funny Car driver, Matt Hagan, remain a title threat until the end. If you’re Smoke, you really can’t complain. But that doesn’t mean the ending wasn’t frustrating. A season this competitive deserved a proper finale, not a washout.

When Bob Pockrass asked Stewart about the anticlimactic conclusion, he didn’t sugarcoat it. “Yeah, but I think, you know, midway through the season, they weren’t really in a position anyway,” Stewart said of his own Countdown performance. “So, I mean, I think they’re happy with where they ended up. For us, I mean, all I wanted at the beginning of the season, the goal was just to see the needle move the right direction.”

As for Pomona, it was a total wash. Stewart has been in racing long enough to know that weather kills momentum, but NHRA rainouts are a whole new animal for him. In NASCAR, you dry the track, wait for a window, and go racing. In drag racing, physics simply won’t allow it. “The only thing undefeated is Mother Nature in life,” Stewart said.

He explained the deeper complication: NHRA relies on glue, rubber buildup, and a perfectly conditioned surface. “It’s the glue, it’s the dragging tires… and the sand trap at the end is like a concrete block right now; it’s really hard. So, safety-wise it’s not conducive to us running.”

Stewart’s debut NHRA season ultimately delivered highs, lows, and hard lessons. The regular season proved he belongs. The countdown reminded him that nothing comes easy here. And Pomona was just another reminder that drag racing plays by its own rules. The year ends abruptly, but Stewart will be back, with even sharper intentions for next season.