Justin Ashley has harbored a love-hate relationship with four-wide drag racing.

He loves to race them, but he’s hated the results.

However, all of that changed Sunday when the Top Fuel phenom secured his inaugural victory in a race of that type at the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals hosted at zMAX Dragway. The triumph marked a milestone in Ashley’s career, finally aligning his enjoyment of the format with a well-deserved taste of success.   

“It is my favorite now, but it definitely wasn’t my favorite before,” Ashley said with a laugh. “For whatever reason, we struggled a little bit in four-wide races. I don’t know what it was, but I do know that when you come out here and go four-wide, the quads are so good. You saw it in the final round today. There were a lot of really good reaction times, a lot of really good E.T.s, and it made for some close racing. I’m just really happy we were finally able to conquer this next thing.”

Carrying the momentum from four consecutive final rounds and a close runner-up finish just two weeks ago at another four-wide competition in Las Vegas, Ashley surged ahead. In a challenging quad featuring Clay Millican, Doug Kalitta, and Antron Brown, Ashley emerged victorious.

Ashley had a 3.710-second pass at 328.06 mph in his SCAG Power Equipment Toyota dragster, clinching his second Wally of the season and the 13th of his career. Despite strong competition from runner-up Millican (3.722 seconds, 337.92 mph) in his Parts Plus machine, and Kalitta, the winner of the previous four-wide event in Vegas (3.725, 326.00), Ashley held his ground. Brown encountered difficulties and had to click it off with a 4.780.

“I am so happy for Mike (Green), Tommy (DeLago) and the guys,” Ashley said. “We were struggling with an electrical gremlin at the beginning of the year, and they really couldn’t tune the race car until they got that figured out. Now that they were able to move past that, they were able to tune it, and you’ve seen the results start to come together.    

“Today was just an awesome day. We made a pretty good lap E1, but really E2 and E3 I think were really stout, special runs.”   

After qualifying third, Ashley advanced in his first-round quad alongside Tony Stewart on a holeshot with a 3.763 to Stewart’s quicker 3.762, and eliminated Dan Mercier and Doug Foley in the process. He again paced his quad in round two with a 3.711 at 333.58 mph to advance alongside Brown (3.728), as Stewart and Brittany Force were sent home.

In the other semifinal, Millican was quickest of the round with a 3.710 at 333.91 mph, advancing with Kalitta (3.760) over Billy Torrence and Jasmine Salinas. 

To add to his statement-making weekend, Ashley won his 11th career Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge specialty race Saturday, padding his class-leading tally.      

“In this sport you want every advantage that you can get,” Ashley said. “While I don’t know that it is necessarily an advantage (to win Saturday), it does help you get in that race mode the day before. We will take every little inch that we can get. These cars are separated by such small margins now that when you look up and down the field, it is almost like a Pro Stock ladder.”

With the win, Ashley extends his Top Fuel championship lead over Kalitta to nearly 100 points through five of 20 events. After leading the class in wins one year ago and coming up short, Ashley is spending more time focused on gaining an advantage for late in the year.   

Since 2022, Ashley has the most wins in Top Fuel drag racing, nearly doubling the next closest competitor.

“We want to win early on in the year, but our focus is on the championship,” Ashley said. “When you win, obviously you are going to get a better seed, be better in points, and be better positioned to compete. We want to do things now that are going to put us in a better position to compete for a championship at the end of the year. At the same time, we have to take it one round at a time. The decisions we make, even early on in the year, are impacted later on in the season.

“It started in the offseason with the parts, the pieces, and the people, putting all of that together and establishing the right culture. It happened in 2022 and in 2023, where we did quite a bit of winning, but just fell short in the end. That is always something we are cognitive of. Our team is always trying to think one step ahead.”

The tour will now take a few weeks off before returning to competition at the NHRA Route 66 Nationals at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Illinois. While the time off is not ideal for a team coming off of a win, Ashley will always take those extra rounds and what they mean for the team and use them to his advantage.

“It is always a little bit easier when there is not a weekend off, but there is certainly some momentum that gets carried forward from a win into the next race,” Ashley said. “When you win rounds, you go more rounds, and you collect more data and information. In that sense, we have more of that than we otherwise would have had had we not made it out of the first or second round. Plus, the next race is SCAG’s hometown race, so that is going to be a big one for us.”