The three-peat is quite an accomplishment. It's such a prestigious accomplishment that legendary NBA basketball coach Pat Riley trademarked the phrase to recognize his accomplishments with the Chicago Bulls and, later, the Miami Heat franchises. 

One drag racer has a franchise of his own, heading into this weekend's Big Go West drag race, the NHRA Winternationals.

Justin Ashley, the second-generation drag racer from New York's Long Island, who drives the SCAG Power Equipment Top Fuel dragster, is going for a third consecutive NHRA Winternationals title. He's raced to the finals of the last three races of what used to be the season-opening event. 

"It really is amazing," said Ashley, the 2020 NHRA Rookie of the Year recipient and 11-time Top Fuel winner. "When you think about it, it's so hard to win one of these races, and when you race at Pomona, you think about the Winternationals and the history behind it. To be able to win it once is amazing, but to be able to win it in back to back years and actually have an opportunity to win it three years in a row, I don't know if anybody's ever done that before. I'm sure it's been done once or twice."

"But it's really pretty incredible, especially to be able to do it with a lot of the same partners, obviously now with SCAG Power Equipment included, but do it with the same team and the same group that we've had in place over the last few years, I think we have an opportunity to do something special."

Ashley racked his brain in a Wednesday afternoon to recall when he's won anything besides rounds of competition three times in a row. 

"Maybe in baseball, my team won three games in a row," said Ashley, a former baseball middle fielder alternating between shortstop and second baseman. 

The answer was under his nose the whole time.

"The Mission Challenge," Ashley exclaimed.

Ashley became the overall champion in 2023 of the special race-within-a-race, the #2Fast2Tasty Challenge, where the semi-finalists from the previous race battle it out in Saturday's two qualifying sessions for a combination of money and points. He won the #2Fast2Tasty Challenges from Epping, Bristol and Norwalk. 

One other thing Ashley has done three times in a row is finish fourth in the Top Fuel championship standings. It's a source of pride for Ashley, but it's starting to become a frustrating experience. 

"We finished fourth three years in a row, which is crazy when you think about it," Ashley said. "I thought we were going to break it last year. It's cool, like, you grow up around the sport, and you look at all these people that have had top-five finishes year after year, and we've now had a top-five finish three years in a row, and I think it's something to really be proud of when you look at the company that we've joined that's done that for so many years so successfully.

But now it's time to take the next step. Finishing 4th three years in a row is great. It's something to be proud of, but we need to turn that four into a one next year. That's the objective, for sure."