
Bournemouth reach agreement to appoint Rose as Iraola successor
Bournemouth has reached an agreement to appoint Marco Rose as their new head coach, succeeding Andoni Iraola.
Rookie Maddi Gordon achieved her career-best elapsed time and speed at the NHRA Winternationals despite an early exit in the first round. Her performance highlights significant progress for the Ron Capps Motorsports Top Fuel team.
The jump to the NHRA Top Fuel ranks is incredibly unforgiving, but rookie sensation Maddi Gordon is proving she has the mechanical grit and driving talent to hang with the drivers at the top.
While the 2026 Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals in Pomona didnât end with a Wally trophy for the newly formed Ron Capps Motorsports Top Fuel team, Gordon and her crew are walking away with a massive silver lining. Despite a first-round elimination on Sunday, the driver of the bright yellow-and-black Carlyle Tools dragster laid down her quickest elapsed time and fastest speed to date, cementing the weekend as a major developmental win.
Taking to social media following the early exit, Gordon remained incredibly positive about her teamâs trajectory and the massive performance leaps they are making.
âWe may have lost early today, but itâs nothing to hang our heads about,â Gordon shared with her fans. âMy Carlyle Tools team ran our quickest ET and speed, and made a solid pass in conditions weâve never seen before. My team is doing an incredible job. Losing always stings, but running career-best numbers definitely doesnât!â
Going rounds in Top Fuel requires a perfect storm of reaction time, tune-up, and track conditions. During Sundayâs opening round of eliminations, Gordon drew a brutal matchup against Justin Ashley, who is widely considered one of the best leavers in the sport.
Ashley strapped a blistering .025 reaction time on the rookie and crossed the stripe with a 3.71-second pass. However, Gordon kept her foot planted and didnât back down, trailing just slightly with an incredibly stout 3.74-second run. While it wasnât quite enough to turn on the win light, that 3.74 pass effectively obliterated her previous career-best ETs set earlier this season during her explosive debut in Gainesville. It is absolute proof that her crew chiefs, Rob Flynn and Troy Fasching, are rapidly dialing in the new 11,000-horsepower machine.
Gordonâs rapid progression is easily one of the biggest storylines of the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season. The third-generation racer cut her teeth in the Top Alcohol Funny Car ranks while simultaneously working as a fabricator and clutch specialist for her familyâs team before being hand-picked by three-time Funny Car champ Ron Capps to pilot his brand-new Top Fuel expansion team.
Transitioning from an alcohol-burning Funny Car to a 330-mph, nitromethane-breathing Top Fuel dragster is considered one of the steepest learning curves in all of motorsport.
The physical G-forces are completely different, and the sheer violence of the acceleration is unparalleled. Yet, just two races into her professional Top Fuel career, Gordon is already trading punches with the elite of the motorsport, consistently qualifying well, and reliably pushing into the low 3.70-second range.
With the Winternationals officially done with, Gordon and the Carlyle Tools team are already resetting their focus.
âLooking forward to Charlotte,â Gordon added at the end of her post.
If the Ron Capps Motorsports team continues shaving tenths of a second off their ETs at this current rate, the rest of the Top Fuel field better be on high alert when Gordon rolls into the water box in North Carolina.
Maddi Gordon recorded her quickest elapsed time and fastest speed to date during the NHRA Winternationals.
Maddi Gordon's team was eliminated in the first round, which prevented them from competing for the Wally trophy.
Maddi Gordon expressed positivity on social media, emphasizing her team's performance improvements despite the early loss.

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