Pro Stock Motorcycle’s Richard Gadson earned his first career NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series World Championship after the season-ending In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals were canceled due to persistent, adverse weather and unsafe track conditions. Not a single race bike (or car) made a run over the weekend, which is the first time that “anyone could remember” this happening.
By Kevin McKenna
Gadson’s rise ended teammate Gaige Herrera’s chance at a third World title. Herrera won the most recent NHRA event in Las Vegas, but Gadson took a 21-point lead into Pomona, which earned him the championship. Gadson was great all year, and especially when it counted, winning twice in the Countdown to the Championship playoffs and ending his 2025 season with four victories and six trips to the final round. Gadson, in his second full season with the Vance & Hines team, was also the number-one qualifier at two of the 14 events.
“The mentality [this weekend] was kill or be killed. That was it. I didn’t want anybody to take it from me or stop it, and I was willing to lay it all on the line out there. So, you know, I came here to go to war with my friends, with my teammate. It was that mentality the whole weekend.”
After coming up just short on a handful of occasions, both during his rookie season in 2024 and early this year, Gadson broke through with his first career victory last June in Bristol, Tennessee, savoring the special moment that seemed to only spur him on for more. He added another win in Sonoma and entered the playoffs second in points.
While Herrera struggled early in the six-race playoffs, Gadson was on point, winning the four-wide race in Charlotte and adding another victory in Dallas—after qualifying number one—and that proved to be the difference.
“Me and Eddie [Krawiec, crew chief] both had to dig deep and figure out in what ways we can be better individually, and then how we mix that together and make us better on results,” Gadson said. “I think we really, really, really have come a long way this year.”CN
NHRA Pro Stock MC Championship Points Standings
- Richard Gadson (2584/4 wins)
- Gaige Herrera (2563/7 wins)
- Matt Smith (2455/1 win)
- Angie Smith (2421)
- Brayden Davis (2399)
- John Hall (2375/2 wins)
- Jianna Evaristo (2273)
- Chase Van Sant (2243)
- Steve Johnson (2229)
- Chris Bostick (2179)
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