Langdon DHL Race to Gatornationals Quarterfinals

Gainesville, FL – Looking for the third consecutive win at the Gatornationals, the DHL Kalitta Air Top Fuel team was primed for a second win in a row of the season. Shawn Langdon, the 2013 Top Fuel world champion and most recent U.S. Nationals winner, was chasing his first win at historic Gainesville Raceway today. As the No. 7 qualifier Langdon was in a solid position for a long race day.

In the first round for the fourth time this season Langdon was racing rookie Justin Ashley. It was just two weeks ago that Langdon out-pedaled Ashley in the semifinals on the way to his second Top Fuel victory at the prestigious NHRA U.S. Nationals. Today Langdon evened his record in opening round races against Ashley to 2-2 with a first round win. Both drivers left almost instantaneously but Langdon’s DHL Kalitta Air Top Fuel dragster was too much for the rookie of the year top contender. Langdon’s winning time of 3.849 seconds was an improvement over his best qualifying time and set up a race against Billy Torrence in the quarterfinals.

The second round match-up looked to give Langdon the advantage since he had lane choice and the confidence of a Connie Kalitta tune-up. Langdon took a significant starting line lead when the tree fired and he was making a move when Torrence pulled beside him at half-track. Unfortunately, Langdon did not match his opponent with top end acceleration and in spite of running his quickest elapsed time of the weekend, 3.847 seconds at 315.49 miles per hour, he came up short in advancing to the semifinals.

“That was a just a tough race. That was our quickest run of the weekend with this DHL Kailtta Air dragster and we came up a little short,” said Langdon. “I felt good going into that race. We won a tough first round race and had some momentum. This dragster had won the past two Gatornationals and we wanted to make it three in a row. There is a lot of history at this track and I was looking for my first Gatornationals win. It would have been great to get a U.S. Nationals win and Gatornationals win back to back but it wasn’t meant to be. We will get our focus on St. Louis. This is a tough, tough class.”

Quotable:
Langdon on heading to St. Louis: “I am glad we are getting back on track next weekend. I won this race last year in Funny Car so I would like to go back to back in a different class. This DHL Top Fuel dragster has been running well since the U.S. Nationals and I think we can get more wins before the end of the season.”

Statistics:
Qualified: No. 7 (3.880 sec., 315.93 mph)
Bonus points: 0

Race Details:

First Round
Driver                          Qual    R/T      ET        MPH
Shawn Langdon         7          .053     3.849   301.54 (W)
Justin Ashley                10        .039     3.957   255.86

Second Round
Driver                          Qual    R/T      ET        MPH
Shawn Langdon         7          .047     3.847   315.49
Billy Torrence               2          .081     3.778   324.49 (W)