Our Picks: The 2014 NHRA Professional Champions

After a long winter of preparation and well-deserved relaxation, the cars and stars of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series are en route to southern California for the kickoff to the 2014 season in Pomona, where a new journey begins for title hopefuls and title defenders alike. As has become tradition here on Dragzine, we’ve laid out our championship picks in the four professional categories, as well as Pro Modified, that we’ll look back on nine long months from now to see how we did. A year ago, we came up oh-fer in our selections, so anything beyond that will be a certifiable improvement this time around. 

Top Fuel

It took the trio of driver Shawn Langdon, crew chief Brian Husen, and team manager Alan Johnson just one season to mesh and find their stride, and in 2013, they came out hitting on all eight cylinders, winning seven times in 11 final round appearances and qualifying No. 1 seven times on his way to a decisive first series championship. As history has proven, once you get a team with Alan Johnson involved on a roll, it’s hard to stop it, and with Langdon’s talents behind the wheel, it will be a formidable challenge for any other team to uproot the reigning champ.

Funny Car

Funny Car has proven to be one of the more difficult classes to predict in recent seasons. You can narrow down the challengers, but guessing who will rise to the occasion in the six-race Countdown is a crapshoot with so many great teams in the running.

A year ago, we saw what the duo of John Force and crew chief Jimmy Prock were capable of, turning back the clock before our very eyes to a dominating performance akin to the Force-Coil-Fedderly era, when Force went on a run of titles unmatched anywhere in sports. The Champ has proven he still has the mettle behind the wheel, and with Prock at the controls, Force will send longtime sponsors Ford and Castrol out with a bang. 

Pro Stock

While Mike Edwards had the dominant car for much of the 2013 season, it was perennial championship contender Jeg Coughlin who stepped up in the season’s final six races and got it done, scoring his fifth Pro Stock title. With horsepower from Roy and Allen Johnson under the hood and consistency behind the wheel that’s second to none, Johnson, the Summit gang, and the rest of the class will have their hands full denying Coughlin a sixth ring.

Pro Stock Motorcycle

Like Funny Car, the two-wheeled division is hard to predict from one year to the next. 

A year ago, Hector Arana Jr. went on a tear in the regular season, winning four times in the first nine races, taking the points lead with his season-opening win in Gainesville and not relinquishing it until the third race of the Countdown, when Matt Smith put together a clutch performance to earn the title, leaving the second-generation Arana with a disappointing fourth place finish in the standings.

With one of the best bikes in the class under him, and the experience of challenging for a title in his back pocket, we’ll step out on a limb and predict Arana Jr. will turn the tide on his fortunes of the final races of last season and score his first title, joining his father as an NHRA champion.

Pro Modified

The crowd-favorite doorslammer category is primed for one of it’s greatest seasons ever in 2014, with a renewed program with the NHRA that includes a new television package and a packed-house of who’s-who entrants in the class that should make for one hotly-contested title.

Reigning champ “Trickie” Rickie Smith was coaxed back into the seat for one last run in 2014, giving him the chance to defend his first-ever Pro Mod title that he won in dominating fashion in his nitrous-fed Camaro. Meanwhile, 2012 class champion Troy Coughlin was following up his title run with a runner-up season, solidifying his place among the class’ elite. Coughlin, in the bright yellow JEG’S Corvette, is a lock to contend for the championship once again, and he’s our pick for the second year in a row to get it done.

With our picks made, it’s time to sit back and watch another exciting season of NHRA drag racing unfold. No doubt it will be another great ride as the tour navigates from sea to shining sea, and while we aim to be subjective, we wouldn’t mind a pick or two (or all five) going our way to boost our 1-for-10 stat line.

How about you…who are your picks to win it all this season?