Team Al-Anabi Going Rounds at Bristol

Shawn Langdon, Al-Anabi Racing Top Fuel Dragster (silver)

Qualifying:   Shawn Langdon was the No. 7 qualifier at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals.  During the first round of qualifying Friday afternoon, Langdon recorded a 3.826-second pass at 303.71 mph.  It was just the fourth time this season that Langdon qualified outside the top four.

Eliminations: Langdon defeated Bob Vandergriff in the first round with his quickest run of the weekend and his ninth-consecutive round win, but race winner Steve Torrence upset him in the second round when the tires on the silver Al-Anabi dragster lost traction.

Unofficial Point Standings: Langdon drops one spot to second place in the NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel point standings.  He trails first-place Tony Schumacher by one point and leads third-place Spencer Massey by 85 points.

Langdon on Bristol: “We made some good runs in the Al-Anabi car this weekend, but we struggled a little bit in the heat today and smoked the tires.  We were trying to get a good ET (elapsed time) so we could keep lane choice for the next round,  but unfortunately, it just didn’t work out this weekend.  We’ll go to Epping (New Hampshire) next week and try to get back to what we’ve been doing most of this year.  We’ve had some really good success lately winning some races and plugging away at it so we hope things will be better for us next week.”

Khalid alBalooshi – Al- Anabi Racing Top Fuel Dragster (gold)

Qualifying:   Khalid alBalooshi was the No. 6 qualifier at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals.  During the Friday night qualifying session, alBalooshi recorded a 3.824-second pass at 324.20 mph. AlBalooshi has qualified in the top six at eight of the season’s 10 races.

Eliminations: AlBalooshi made his quickest run of the weekend with a 3.821-second effort at 319.22 mph, but it was not good enough to beat Doug Kalitta who also made his quickest run of the weekend.  Kalitta defeated alBalooshi by three thousandths of a second. It was the first time alBalooshi lost in the first round of eliminations since the Dollar General Four-Wide Nationals in April.

Unofficial Point Standings: AlBalooshi remains in fifth place in the NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel point standings.  He trails fourth-place Antron Brown by 82 points and leads sixth-place Doug Kalitta by 15 points.

AlBalooshi on Bristol: “This week in Bristol was not our week.  We tried hard and did our best for Qatar and the Al-Anabi team, but it was not a good weekend for our team.  I need to do a better job with the lights and leave the starting line better.  We are leaving what happened this weekend in Tennessee and going to New Hampshire next week for a better race next weekend.  I thank everyone on our team for his hard work, and I know next week will be better for our team.”