J.R. Gray Clinches NHRA Pro Mod Championship by a Single Point in Vegas
Usually, when we talk about championships in drag racing, the math gets complicated. You have people pulling out calculators, figuring out qualifying bonuses, and checking to see who needs to go how many rounds to lock it up. But the Congruity NHRA Pro Mod series decided to throw the calculator out the window at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
It came down to the absolute final round of the entire season. J.R. Gray is in one lane. Billy Banaka is in the other.The winner takes the race. The winner takes the title. Loser goes home wondering “what if.”
For Gray, a guy with roots deep in the high-pressure world of grudge racing, this was the moment everything had been building toward. He didn’t just survive the pressure cooker; he thrived in it, snatching his first career world championship by the absolute slimmest of margins, a single point.
A Season of Peaks and Valleys
To understand why this win meant so much to the Al-Anabi Performance team, you have to look at the rollercoaster ride that got them there. Gray didn’t exactly limp into the finals, but the road wasn’t paved with gold, either.
He started the year looking like the man to beat. The car was a rocket. He picked up wins at Charlotte, Bristol, and Richmond. At that point in the regular season, he looked untouchable. But racing has a funny way of humbling you right when you think you’ve got it figured out.
When the playoffs started, the momentum just vanished. Gray suffered first-round exits at Indianapolis and Charlotte. Suddenly, that dominant lead evaporated, and he slipped down to fifth place. It’s easy to get inside your own head when that happens. You start questioning the tune-up, the tree, the track.
But Gray and his team, led by the brilliant tuning minds of Mark Savage, along with Todd and Ty Tutterow, didn’t panic. They found their footing with a semifinal finish in St. Louis, setting the stage for the dramatic showdown in the desert.
The Winner-Take-All Showdown
Race day in Vegas had a different kind of electricity. Gray knew he had to be perfect. There was no room for a “lucky round.” He battled through a gauntlet of a ladder. We aren’t talking about easy draws here. He had to take down Alex Laughlin, get past Kevin Rivenbark, and then outrun a former world champion in Mike Castellana just to earn his ticket to the final.
Then came the moment. Gray vs. Banaka.Banaka was having a breakout season of his own, having qualified No. 1 and looking dangerous all weekend. But when the tree dropped, experience and nerve took over. Gray cut a razor-sharp reaction time of .028. He left first, and he kept that Camaro glued to the groove.
He stopped the clocks with a 5.749-second run at just over 250 mph.”In that final round, I wasn’t going to lift no matter what,” Gray said after the race, the adrenaline clearly still pumping. “It just felt amazing to see that win light pop up.”
Controlling the Chaos
What stood out most wasn’t just the car’s performance, but the driver’s mindset. Drag racing is a mental game. You’re sitting in the staging lanes, strapped into a volatile machine, knowing that thousands of dollars and a year’s worth of work come down to less than six seconds.
“You’re walking a fine line between trying to be calm and not being calm at the same time,” Gray admitted. “I felt like I controlled my emotions well all day.” That control is what separates the good drivers from the champions. It’s about blocking out the noise, the championship scenarios, and the guy in the other lane, and just doing your job.
A Finish for the History Books
When the dust settled, the final points tally was 1,121 for Gray and 1,120 for Banaka. One point.That is the difference between a gold Wally and a “better luck next year.” It’s a testament to how competitive the Pro Mod class has become.
These cars are temperamental beasts, and the drivers are some of the best wheelmen on the planet. For J.R. Gray, this victory is more than just a trophy on the shelf. It’s validation. It’s proof that he belongs among the elite in NHRA history.
After the slump in the playoffs, after the long hours working on the car, and after the intense heat of that final round in Vegas, he’s finally standing at the top of the mountain. The 2025 season will be remembered for a lot of things, but mostly, it’ll be remembered for that one final round where J.R. Gray refused to lift.
