When the final round started at the Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals at Sonoma Raceway, one of the finalists was no surprise. Doug Kalitta, driving for top team Kalitta Motorsports, was in his fifth Finals of eleven possible. Kalitta, the reigning Top Fuel champion, had a win and entered the event second in points.
The question now falls to who he faced. Perhaps Shawn Langdon, the current points leader. Or Antron Brown, who is on a career revival. No, and it wasn’t even a driver who made the Countdown to the Championship. In order to win Sonoma, Kalitta had to go through Jasmine Salinas and The Scrappers.
While Kalitta drives for a top team and is a championship contender, Salinas does not. Scrappers Racing is a smaller, family owned team that competes in the series part-time. Salinas has a pair of Top Alcohol Dragster wins, but the 34-year old has limited Top Fuel experience as she only attained her license in 2024.
Salinas has shown she has the talent to win Top Fuel races, but the funding has not always been there. In 2025, she was sidelined from the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series due to funding issues. If the funding would come together, the Scrappers Racing team could easily become instant threats to the Top Fuel division.
“Everything has to come together in order to make the car go from A to B,” Salinas said. “The driver’s got to be there. The team’s got to be there. We’re a part-time team and we’re flying new guys in every other race and that can present challenges, but we showed this weekend that we’ve got a great group of guys and a great group of people that believe in us. I’ve been working on a lot of things for myself as a driver, and the mental part has been a huge thing. I’m a strong believer that confidence comes from earning it and proving it to yourself, and I think every single time I come out here, I keep proving it to myself. This was a great weekend. It really showed what I’m capable of.”
Personal “Big Go” at Sonoma
Salinas faced off against Josh Hart, the winner of the season opening Gatornationals. She would defeat him with a 3.756 to 4.430 ET. The next driver she would have to face is the previously mentioned Langdon. A quarterfinal appearance was already a story for the underfunded team and inexperienced driver, but they would take it further. By 0.001 seconds, she would outduel the winner of four of the opening ten events.
This took her to the semifinals, where she would face Leah Pruett. Pruett was competing in her first full season since 2024, and entered this event as a 2026 NHRA winner. Every single round, the Scrappers Racing team had to face a 2026 winner and NHRA superstar. And every single round up to this point, Salinas beat them. With a margin of 0.021 seconds, the family team would take on the reigning champions in the final round.
The stage was set for a David vs Goliath battle between Kalitta and Salinas. However, she did not earn the victory. For the second time in 2026, the reigning champion won the event by 0.084 seconds.
“All year, as a team, we’ve been saying that if we can get past the first round, we know we can win the race,” Salinas said on her win. “We got pretty close today, but we’ve been knowing what this car is capable of. We just haven’t been able to come out and show it to everybody. This weekend definitely showed everybody that we’ve got the right car, the right driver, the right team. When it’s your day, it’s your day, and today was a really great day, but we’re gonna get our day soon.”
U.S. Nationals Strong Qualifying
Salinas’ momentum continued at the U.S. Nationals. While she was eliminated in the first round, she qualified a strong sixth place for the race.
“Qualifying sixth out of a 22-car field was a great accomplishment for our team,” Salinas told Drag Illustrated. “Unfortunately, something didn’t feel right again during the burnout today. I don’t wear a radio and couldn’t communicate with my team, so it was a call I had to make right in that moment. I was hesitant staging because I was afraid we’d blow everything up again, and I allowed that to affect how I showed up to the tree. We did end up breaking the crankshaft in half, so I knew my gut instinct was right, but luckily, the damage wasn’t as bad.”
“As a part-time driver, my opportunities to learn and make mistakes feel so limited, but we’re already making a game plan for the next race and figuring out how we can show up better,” Salinas continued.
Looking Forward
Per her website, the 34-year old will return to Top Fuel competition for the NAPA Auto Parts NHRA Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway, and the final two races at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip. As always, if sponsorship can be found, the team could potentially race at Texas NHRA Fall Nationals in Ennis, Texas as well.
