ALBALOOSHI WINS ALL-TOYOTA NHRA TOP FUEL FINAL AT SONOMA
SONOMA, CA – Khalid alBalooshi defeated Al-Anabi Racing teammate Shawn Langdon in an all-Toyota Top Fuel final at today’s 
NHRA Sonoma Nationals at Sonoma Raceway. AlBalooshi’s win marked the sixth consecutive season that a Toyota-sponsored Top Fuel driver has won in Sonoma.
The win was the second of the season for AlBalooshi, who also was celebrating his 35th birthday today.
“It’s very special to win on my birthday,” said alBalooshi. “This Wally was the best birthday gift I’ve ever received. I was feeling our car was running good in qualifying where we had three good runs. After we ran a 3.77 (low E.T. of the day in the opening round), I was confident we had a car that could win today.”
AlBalooshi defeated Billy Torrence, Clay Millican and fellow Toyota driver Richie Crampton on the way to the finals, while Langdon knocked off J.R. Todd, Doug Kalitta and Tony Schumacher to set up the final round match-up. Today’s final marked the second time the Al-Anabi teammates have faced off in a final – having previously raced against each other for the win in Englishtown last season.
Rookie Crampton made it three Toyota Top Fuelers in today’s semi-finals as he advanced by beating Mike Salinas and Spencer Massey before losing to alBalooshi in a race decided by just eight one-thousandths of a second. With the strong showing, he moved up to ninth in points. Crampton is currently the leading contender for NHRA Rookie of the Year.
Ironically, the only Toyota Top Fuel driver who didn’t advance to the semi-finals was Antron Brown, who currently leads the series in wins with five and is second overall in points. The 2012 world champion smoked the tires in his first-round match-up and was upset by Spencer Massey.
In Funny Car, Alexis DeJoria was the fourth Toyota to reach the semi-finals today. She defeated Ron Capps in the first round and fellow Toyota driver Cruz Pedregon in her second run. Pedregon had earlier defeated Gary Densham in his opening round with his 4.076-second run being the quickest Funny Car pass of the day. Del Worsham and Tony Pedregon each lost in the opening round.
The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series’ three-race Western Swing comes to a close next weekend in Seattle with the O’Reilly Auto Parts Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways. Following Seattle, just two races – Brainerd and Indianapolis – remain in the NHRA regular season.
