Al-Anabi leaves Seattle Empty Handed
Shawn Langdon – Al-Anabi Racing Top Fuel Dragster (silver)
Qualifying: Shawn Langdon was the No. 3 qualifier at the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Northwest Nationals. During the first round of qualifying Friday afternoon, Langdon recorded a 3.807-second pass at 317.05 mph.
Eliminations: Langdon defeated Clay Millican and his teammate, Khalid alBalooshi, before losing to points leader Doug Kalitta, today’s race winner, in the semifinals.
Unofficial Point Standings: Langdon remains third in the NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel point standings. He trails second-place Antron Brown by 123 points and leads fourth-place Tony Schumacher by 147 points.
Langdon on Seattle: “It really was a good day for the Al-Anabi team. We had a good race car up to the semifinals. One focus point we’ve been working on is getting our car to have fast numbers early in the run. We’ve been able to achieve that, and we’re getting a safe tune-up now. It’s just a matter of fine-tuning it a little bit down the track. The Al-Anabi car’s really fast; we just misjudged the track a little bit in the semifinals trying to make a good run against Doug Kalitta. All in all, we still had a good weekend. We qualified well and had a good car on race day so we’re pretty excited to get to Brainerd in two weeks.”
Khalid alBalooshi – Al- Anabi Racing Top Fuel Dragster (gold)
Qualifying: Khalid alBalooshi was the No. 6 qualifier at the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Northwest Nationals. During the Friday evening qualifying session, alBalooshi reached the finish line in 3.813 seconds at 308.28 mph.
Eliminations: AlBalooshi defeated Brittany Force before losing to his teammate, Shawn Langdon, in the quarterfinals. It was a rematch of the final round one week ago in Sonoma, Calif.; alBalooshi won that matchup and got his second win of the season.
Unofficial Point Standings: AlBalooshi remains eighth in the NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel point standings, but he now trails seventh-place Brittany Force by just one point. He leads ninth-place Richie Crampton by 47 points. With two races to go on the regular season, he leads 10th place J.R. Todd by 81 points and leads 11th-place Bob Vandergriff by 199 points. The top-10 drivers in points qualify for the Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs.
AlBalooshi on Seattle: “It was a good weekend for the gold Al-Anabi team until the second round on Sunday. I don’t know why our car dropped a cylinder at the start of the run; it surprised us. When I finished the run, I asked Jason (crew chief Jason McCulloch) what happened, and he told me, “Balooshi, I don’t know why,” but I know he will keep working on the car to see what’s going on. But we had one of the best cars all weekend. All weekend, we went down the track every time with no problems; we have our car back, so that is good for the rest of the season.”
