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Mountain rains on DSR parade at Mopar Mile-High Nationals as Langdon leads team in Top Fuel, Johnson best in Funny Car

DENVER – A rainbow appeared near Bandimere Speedway after a two-hour delay for an evening for thunderstorm, DSRbut it didn’t lead to a pot of gold for Don Schumacher Racing on the opening day of the 37th annual Mopar Mile-High Nationals near Denver.

After dominating the Funny Car category by winning the last seven NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events and six of the last seven No. 1 qualifying spots, only Tommy Johnson Jr. and the Make-A-Wish Dodge Charger R/T made it into the top-eight with a best run of 4.136 seconds at 291.63 mph after two of four qualifying sessions.


It was a little better for DSR in Top Fuel, where Langdon moved up to the provisional No. 3 spot with a time of 3.826 (310.48), and Tony Schumacher moved up to No. 5 with a 3.836 with both runs coming in the last session that ended a little before 11 p.m. (MT)

Langdon with the Red Fuel Powered by Schumacher/Sandvik Coromant dragster and points leader Antron Brown and the Matco Tools/U.S. Army team each have won twice in the past five races.

Leah Pritchett, making her fifth start for DSR and first in the Mopar/Pennzoil dragster led DSR in the first session and holds the sixth spot after the second session. Pritchett’s crew chiefs Mike Guger and Joe Barlam were the No. 1 qualifiers a year ago while racing with a different team.

Qualifying resumes Saturday with sessions scheduled for 4:30 and 7 p.m. leading to Sunday’s championship eliminations beginning at 11 a.m.

The Mopar Mile-High Nationals is the 14th of 24 events in the Mello Yello Series and first stop on the three-race, three-week Western Swing that heads to Sonoma, Calif., near San Francisco, next weekend and concludes near Seattle.

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