2025 Nitro Chaos Championship Finals

Text by Chris Graves – Photos by Dan Ricks

The highly anticipated conclusion to the 2025 DMP Awnings NITRO CHAOS Championship tour was held October 3-4th at Midstate Dragway in Havana, Illinois. Under clear blue skies and the watchful eyes of a nitro hungry crowd amongst the cornfields of Illinois, the pits filled with fuel burners of all kinds for this two day festival of outlaw nitromethane burning excitement. 


Coming into the event, defending event winner John Umlauf Jr and team "Mass Chaos" held just a single point lead over red hot rookie Cody Austin and team "BushWhacker". With a fleet of fellow competitors hungry for a season ending win, the competition was sure to be tough on these two Championship contenders. 


Friday night's qualifying certainly wasn't what we had anticipated as teams struggled to find their combinations and two major oil own related delays from Q1 ended up ending the night early. Saturday's final qualfying session though, was a different story. 


Cody Austin wowed the crowd ripping off a 3.66 in the final qualifying session to take the top spot away from John Umlauf who led after Friday's session. Austin earned himself two critical points, how putting him one point in the lead heading into eliminations. The rest of the field shuffled in nicely with strong performances in the final qualifying session and with the ladders set, it was time to play for keeps. 


The opening round of eliminations in the McKinney Motorsports 'A' Field found both Umlauf and Austin scoring critical wins to move into the semi-finals. In that semi-final round, John Umlauf lined up with rising star Jake Sanders in a total toss-up. Umlauf had to play catch-up off the line but was closing the gap fast and laid down a stellar 3.65 at 217 to take a big win and move into the final round. In the next pair, Cody Austin was squaring off with Brian Inouye. Inouye took a massive starting line advantage and looked to be the sure winner, then tire shake set in on the "Frantic Fueler" entry.


Meanwhile Austin had his hands full drifting out of the groove towards the wall. In a wild pedalfest-ish pairing, Inouye advanced with a 5.61 to Austin's 6.01 and Austin watched his rookie season Championship efforts quickly fade, as John Umlauf then mathematically locked in the 2025 DMP Awnings NITRO CHAOS Championship! The Umlauf team celebrated but the focus was still the same as it was when they arrived, win the race.


Meanwhile in the CP-Carrillo 'B' Field, Brian Kohlmann and Andy Fangman wheeled their door slammers into the final round to square off in the first double door car Nitro Chaos final in series history. Fangman was runner-up at this event last year, while Kohlmann was racking up round wins coming into the event as the most recent class winner from Mo-Kan in July. 


In what has to be the wildest final round in series history, Fangman's engine let go as he neared half-track and sent the car wildly out of control and across into Kohlmann's lane. Kohlmann had an eye on the action and used impressive evasive maneuvers to keep from making contact, while Fangman was up on the wheel in a big way doing his best to keep control of his out of control fuel burning Camaro. 


When the smoke, dust, oil and fumes cleared, both drivers were thankfully able to walk away and somehow manage to avoid contact as Kohlmann scored his second straight 'B' Field win and Top 10 points finish to close an impressive season for the fuel coupe from Wisconsin. 


It was a memorable double down title clinching effort for John Umlauf and team "Mass Chaos" while the other final Top 10 points finishers also celebrated their efforts and piece of the DMP Awnings Championship payouts. Congratulations to the 2025 NITRO CHAOS Champion John Umlauf and to all the final Top 10 finishers!