Jason Hurley and the Meltdown Firebird are on their way to Southeast Street-N-Yeet in chase of becoming the 2026 Drag & Drive World Champion Points Series presented by Summit Racing.
Jason comes into SnY 2026 with 78 points from Rocky Mountain Race Week (39) and Race Week (39) Wins.
He is up against Nick Rinehart's 112 points, this will be no cake walk.
Jason has a mountain of reasons this is difficult… He has never raced at tracks in this part of the country, his car is optimized for quarter mile runs, he has driven 24+ hours just to get to the start of the event AND he has thrashed to maintenance the car after completing more than 1,000 street miles on Race Week just 11 days ago.
This will be the first time the Meltdown Firebird has competed in three National Level events in one year, let alone TWO in the same month.
Jason needs to Complete the Event (26 points), Win his Class (8 points), and Finish with at least a 6.35 or quicker Average (1 point) to win the Championship.
With Nikko Cristoferi as Copilot, I don’t know a more determined team though. When they get a goal in sight, the blinders are on and they will compete at the highest level.
An example of this is Rocky Mountain Race Week 2024, when Jason and Nikko and friends swapped the twin-turbo big block for a stock, carbureted big block in a Lowe’s parking lot, then drove 400+ miles to finish the event. He won that event.
Make sure to follow Meltdown Racing on Facebook for updates from the week. We will also be covering their progress here at Drag Drive Repeat.
We want to wish the team the best of luck.
Article by Mike Narx. Photos by Eric White and Jason Hurley
