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LANGDON LEADS TOYOTA INTO SEMIS AT NHRA ARIZONA NATIONALS

PLANO, TX – Shawn Langdon defeated a pair of past world champions to advance to the semi-finals in just his second-ever Funny Car race to lead Toyota before a sell-out crowd at Sunday’s NHRA Arizona Nationals at the Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Phoenix.  Langdon ran three of the top eight Funny Car passes overall on the day.

He ran the third-quickest pass in the opening round as he defeated fellow Camry driver Cruz Pedregon. Langdon then matched up with Ron Capps in the second round, taking a .027 advantage at the light and never trailed as he advanced to the semi-finals. Langdon’s second round time was.038 seconds quicker than any other driver in the round. Langdon had another strong run in the semi-finals, but was eliminated by Tommy Johnson Jr.

“We tried to play it smart and we ended up getting lane choice in the semis,” said Langdon, the 2013 Top Fuel world champion. “We moved the Global Electronic Technology Camry to the right lane. We had run in the left lane all day and had the tune-up for that, but we thought the right lane was better and it was. It was just even better than we expected and we lost in the semis. We are making gains and I am growing as a driver. We are learning as a group. It was a good weekend. We can’t complain about it much, just lost a good race.”


Things didn’t go nearly as well for the rest of the Toyota contingent on Sunday as cool conditions made the track difficult to navigate.

Antron Brown advanced to the second round today in Top Fuel, but was unable to make a clean pass in either of his two runs as he defeated Mike Salinas before losing to number 16 seed Greg Carillo in round two.

“The track went from being stellar the last two days to what it was like when we tested where it was really iffy,” relayed the three-time world champion. “We have to get better at judging those type of conditions, where we could have backed it off and got it closer to where we started the weekend. The more laps we get the better we’ll be when a track makes that much of swing. It didn’t just bite us, it bit a whole bunch of cars this weekend.”

In addition to Brown, both Richie Crampton and Doug Kalitta fell in the first round in Top Fuel as both struggled to navigate the Arizona track.

Toyota Funny Car drivers J.R. Todd, Pedregon and Del Worsham each were eliminated in the first round, with Todd making a solid run that would have won five of the eight first-round pairings, but unfortunately wasn’t quite quick enough to beat series point leader Matt Hagan.

The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series heads to Florida next for the 49th annual Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway, March 16-18.

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