Toyota Dallas NHRA Preview

TOYOTA DRIVERS CONTINUE TITLE HUNT – Seven Toyota drivers will be participating in this weekend’s Countdown to the Championship playoff double-header in Dallas.  Antron Brown, Shawn Langdon, Khalid alBalooshi and Richie Crampton will run for the Top Fuel title, while Alexis DeJoria, Cruz Pedregon and Del Worsham have qualified in Funny Car.

DEJORIA RETURNS HOME TO TEXAS ON A ROLL– Alexis DeJoria will be back in her adopted home-state of Texas this weekend and she’s taken the fast track on the way home. She began the season by driving her Toyota Camry to a 3.997-second pass at Pomona to become the only woman in NHRA history to run a sub 4-second pass in a Funny Car.  One race later, she won her first Funny Car event at Phoenix, followed by a second win at Las Vegas.  As the season progressed, she registered her second pass in the ‘3’s at Brainerd and one race later, she became the first woman in NHRA history to win three Funny Car races in a season when she won the prestigious U.S. Nationals.  She followed that up by earning her second career number one qualifier at Charlotte last weekend, registering the two quickest qualifying passes.

WORSHAM SET FOR 500^th START – Del Worsham will be making his 500^th career NHRA start this weekend in his DHL Toyota Camry in Dallas.  He has advanced to 52 final rounds, with 33 victories, 25 of those coming in Funny Car and eight in Top Fuel.  Worsham won the 2011 Top Fuel championship and has five top-four overall finishes in Funny Car, including a runner-up showing in 2004.

LUCAS BACK IN THE SEAT FOR DALLAS – Morgan Lucas isn’t in the Countdown as he runs a partial season in 2014, but he’s already shown he can be a spoiler for those who are.  Lucas has enjoyed great success in the five races he has run this season – winning in Brainerd and advancing to the semi-finals twice.  This past weekend, he knocked off series point leader Doug Kalitta to start off the Charlotte event and will match-up with fellow Toyota driver Khalid alBalooshi in the completion of that event this weekend.