Alan Johnson Racing 31st annual CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals

Qualifying: Shawn Langdon was the No. 6 qualifier at the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals. During the opening round of qualifying on Friday, Langdon made his best run of qualifying, a 3.755-second effort at 319.37 mph.

Eliminations: Langdon defeated Leah Pritchett and Richie Crampton before losing to Doug Kalitta in the semifinals.

Unofficial Point Standings: Langdon leaves Phoenix as the Top Fuel points leader. After this event, he leads the NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel point standings by 33 points over second-place Antron Brown.

Still Searching for Sponsorship: Alan Johnson Racing opened the 2015 NHRA season while exploring sponsorship options for 2015 and beyond. The team announced on Jan. 5 that it unexpectedly lost its funding in the final days of 2014. As of today, the team has not yet entered the season’s third race, the Amalie Motor Oil Gatornationals set for March 13-15 in Gainesville, Fla. The team hopes to race the entire 2015 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season and compete for the 2015 Top Fuel championship, but subsequent races in which the team competes will be determined by sponsor acquisition.

Langdon on Phoenix: “It was another great weekend for the Knuckle Sandwich/AJPE team; we didn’t quite have the performance we had in Pomona, but we had a very competitive race car in qualifying and in eliminations. I really thought we were on our way to making another final round, but we just missed something. I’m not sure what happened, but we smoked the tires right off the starting line. I pedaled it and got it to recover, but we ran out of room to run down Doug Kalitta. We still leave Phoenix with the points lead, and we have a great race car. We just hope we can find some sponsorship so we can go to Gainesville in two weeks and try to maintain that points lead.”