Dirt
Winning the War
Chase Womack scores $ 75,000 Small Tire victory as CW Racing sweeps Freedom of War By Nate Van Wagnen
Chase Womack has packed a career’ s worth of accomplishments into just over two years of drag racing, but the driver of the screw-blown“ Hitman” Firebird added his biggest one yet at the Freedom of War no-prep race, July 3-4 at WesTx Abilene Raceway. Womack outlasted a stacked 48-car Small Tire field over six rounds on the West Texas track’ s bare-concrete surface to claim the $ 75,000 winner’ s share of the biggest small-tire no-prep purse in history.
Making the weekend even sweeter, Womack lined up against his own CW Racing teammate, LJ Grissom, in the final round. Grissom, driving the team’ s“ HammerHead” entry, helped lock up $ 95,000 in total winnings for the CW Racing camp.
“ It was an unbelievable feeling,” Womack says of the all-CW Racing final.“ Honestly, the semifinals felt like the championship round because we knew what was at stake. Once both win lights came on, we knew we’ d locked up the entire purse for the team. That’ s something I’ ll never forget. It wasn’ t luck – it was the result of a lot of preparation, constant adjustments, and an incredible group of people who never stopped working.”
The victory is the latest highlight in a rapid rise for Womack, who made his first trip to a dragstrip in 2024 and was hooked immediately. Within a year, he was lining up against some of the quickest small-tire drivers in the world on a 28x10.5 slick.
“ Our program has progressed incredibly fast,” Womack admits.“ The speed at which we’ ve grown is a credit to everyone involved in our program. It takes a tremendous amount of work, dedication, and the right people around you to make that kind of jump, and I’ m proud of what our team has been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time.”
That growth was on full display in 2025, when Womack won two of the three nights at Outlaw
Armageddon at Tulsa Raceway Park, beating Kye Kelley in the High Rollers Shootout final and Ryan Martin in the Day 2 final before breaking in the semifinals on Night 3.
Womack also earned an invitation to run the True 10.5 class during the Drag Illustrated Winter Series at Bradenton Motorsports Park, where he recorded a 4.06-second pass despite battling engine issues.
The Freedom of War race presented a challenge unlike anything else in no-prep racing, as track owner Matt Tucker stripped the WesTx Abilene Raceway surface down to bare concrete from the starting line to the 660-foot mark. It’ s a surface that bit Womack and his team in a previous appearance at the track, so they left nothing to chance in their preparation.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MATT SUTHERLAND
46 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated. com Issue 202