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Todd Takes Camry to NHRA Indy Nationals Finals 

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – J.R. Todd drove his DHL Toyota Camry Funny Car to his first final round appearance of the season before eventually falling to Ron Capps in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series’ Indy Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway, Sunday.

Todd began eliminations seeded fifth and ran the second-quickest pass of the day (3.962 at 322.65 mph) in defeating fellow Toyota driver Mike McIntire in his opening run of the day to set up a second-round match-up with Cruz Pedregon. The 2018 world champion had the lead by the 60-foot mark and never trailed in registering a 3.991-second run to advance. He continued his impressive roll in the semi-finals against Paul Lee, where Todd had a considerable lead at the light and once again never trailed as Lee was up in smoke by 300’.

As temperatures soared into the low 90s for the finals, Todd smoked the tires at the hit, giving Capps taking the victory.

“It was nice to go to the final round today, but you go that far you want to win the race,” said Todd, an Indiana native and Indianapolis resident. “All in all, a good day and a good weekend for this DHL Toyota Camry team. Hopefully we’ll get some good momentum going into the U.S. Nationals.”

Alexis DeJoria rounded out the Camry contingent, falling to pole-sitter Tommy Johnson Jr. in round one.

In Top Fuel, point leader Doug Kalitta advanced to the semifinals as he ran two of the three quickest passes of the day. In the opening round, he dispatched Cory McClenathan with a 3.767-second pass at 325.85 mph as he led wire-to-wire. Round two saw Kalitta square off against Clay Millican with the Mac Tools Toyota driver registering the quickest pass of the round with a 3.775 on the way to the victory. Kalitta saw his day end in the semis when he smoked the tires early, falling to Terry McMillan.

Fellow Toyota Top Fuel drivers Antron Brown and Shawn Langdon each lost in round one.  Brown was narrowly defeated by Justin Ashley despite a run that would have defeated all but three cars in the first round as Ashley won with a 3.799 to Brown’s 3.800. Langdon was unable to make a clean pass and was eliminated by Leah Pruett in his opening run.

The Mello Yello Drag Racing Series is scheduled to return to Lucas Oil Raceway for the Denso Spark Plug NHRA U.S. Nationals, September 4-6.

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