Brown, Crampton, Langdon Advance to Second Round At NHRA Mile High Nationals 

MORRISON, CO – Antron Brown and Richie Crampton advanced to the second round in Top Fuel, while Shawn Langdon did the same in Funny Car to lead Toyota at the NHRA Mile High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in suburban Denver, Sunday.

Brown opened the weekend by qualifying sixth and then opened with Gregg Carrillo in the first round. The three-time world champ took the lead at the starting line and never trailed on the way to the victory. It marked the eighth consecutive event that Brown has earned at least one round win.

In round two against Jordan Vandergriff, Brown again registered the better reaction time, but Vandergriff made up the difference quickly and went on to win by .053 seconds.

“We made some big strides this weekend in our Matco Tools Toyota,” said Brown, who sits just 13 points out of second-place. “Our crew chiefs made some big moves. They have wanted to switch some stuff around in some different combinations. We did it here and it worked out for the better. We would have liked to go further, but you have to look at all the pluses – we’re leaving here without tearing up any parts, we made big gains and have our car where it didn’t drop holes anymore and we’re running good mph through the finish line. We’re really looking to going to Sonoma next weekend. I think Sonoma is going to be a breakout race. I can’t wait to get out to the track.”

Crampton ran one of the top passes in round one with a 3.85-second run in defeating Austin Prock to set up a match-up with Steve Torrence in round two. Torrence had a starting line advantage, but had a hole out early with Crampton taking over the lead by the 330’ mark. Unfortunately, Crampton started to haze the tires mid-track and finally clicked it off, giving the eventual event winner Torrence the victory.

Rounding out the Toyota Top Fuel contingent, Doug Kalitta had a starting line advantage over Clay Millican, , but Millican would overtake him by 330 feet and drove to the victory, despite Kalitta running his quickest pass of the weekend.

Fresh off advancing to the Funny Car final round at Epping, Langdon turned in another solid performance in advancing to the second round today. Facing Tim Wilkerson in a key round one match-up, Langdon registered his quickest pass of the weekend with a 4.072-second run on the way to the victory, overtaking Wilkerson for ninth-place in the process. The win set up a second-round match-up with point leader Robert Hight. They had identical reaction times, but Hight would pull out the victory.

J.R. Todd dropped his first-round contest with John Force in a pedal-fest. Force had an early lead before starting to lose traction with Todd moving out front and appearing to be driving away to the victory before also hazing the tires, with Force coming back to take the win.

The Mello Yello Drag Racing Series heads to Sonoma, Calif., for the second round of the three-race Western Swing at Sonoma Raceway, July 26-28.