Brainerd, MN – Qualifying: Shawn Langdon was the No. 8 qualifier at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals. His best attempt came in the final qualifying session Saturday afternoon when he recorded a 3.742-second effort at 334.32 mph.

During the final round of qualifying Saturday afternoon, Langdon defeated his teammate, Doug Kalittta, in the final round of the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge. It was Langdon’s fifth win in the Saturday race this season – one better than Kalitta. Team Kalitta has dominated the Saturday race this season winning nine of the 12 Top Fuel Mission Foods Challenge races this season.

Eliminations: Langdon defeated reigning Top Fuel champion Antron Brown in the first round but lost to Brittany Force in the second. Langdon was leading the race when the Kalitta Air 25th Anniversary dragster smoked the tires at half-track giving the win to Force.

Unofficial Point Standings: Langdon remains first in the Top Fuel point standings leaving Brainerd. He leads second-place Tony Stewart by 45 points and third-place Doug Kalitta by 51 points with one race remaining in the regular season. Continue reading →

Brainerd, MN – Qualifying: J.R. Todd was the No. 5 qualifier at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals. His best qualifying attempt was his first run of the weekend Friday afternoon. The DHL GR Supra reached the finish line in 3.944 seconds at 326.95 mph. It was the quickest run of the session, but four drivers made better runs in the subsequent qualifying sessions.

Eliminations: Todd advanced to his second final round of the season. He defeated Paul Lee, Ron Capps and Jack Beckman before losing to points leader Austin Prock in the final round when the DHL GR Supra smoked the tires early in the run. Todd made the quickest Funny Car run of the entire weekend in his second-round win. His 3.852-second elapsed time was also his career best.

With his semifinal win, Todd qualified for the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge in two weeks at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis giving him an opportunity to win three trophies that weekend: the Mission Foods Challenge, the NHRA Funny Car All-Star Callout and the U.S. Nationals. Continue reading →

Brainerd, MN – Qualifying: Doug Kalitta was the No. 1 qualifier at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals; it was his seventh No. 1 qualifier of the season’s 13 races and the 65th of his career. Kalitta’s best qualifying attempt came during the first session Saturday afternoon when the 2023 Top Fuel champion reached the finish line in 3.655 seconds at 339.36 mph.

Eliminations: Kalitta captured the 100th Top Fuel win in Kalitta Motorsports history and the 130th overall. He defeated Terry Totten, had a bye run in the second round, Billy Torrence and Clay Millican. Also:

It was Kalitta’s second-straight win and the 57th of his career.
With Shawn Langdon’s Seattle win three weeks ago, it was Team Kalitta’s third-straight Top Fuel win.
It was Kalitta’s third Brainerd win and his first at the Minnesota track since 2005. Continue reading →

YPSILANTI, MI – The old expression, “two steps forward, one step back” is the perfect description for J.R. Todd’s season, but the time for the next step forward is now. The 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series continues Aug. 15-17 at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minn.

Despite occasional speedbumps, Todd’s projection has been upward mostly all season, and with an early-summer win in New Hampshire, those projections were verified. With just one semifinal since the win, a rough road trip to the west coast was the most-recent speedbump.

“I don’t think it’s just one thing in particular; it’s just like I’ve been saying all year,” Todd said. “It’s gonna take some time to get things dialed in, and we’re not fully there yet. Yeah, it gets frustrating. When you know you’re capable of going out there and winning races, but either the driver doesn’t leave on time, or we go out there and spin the tires – it’s just a combination of things. We gotta get it worked out, and we’ll get there, but like I keep saying, it’s gonna take some time. We’re obviously not patient people; we want it to happen right away, but it’ll come.” Continue reading →

YPSILANTI, MI – After becoming the most prolific Top Fuel winner in Sonoma Raceway history two weeks ago, Doug Kalitta is now laser-focused on capitalizing on his mid-summer win with a late-season charge. The 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series continues Aug. 15-17 at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minn.

Kalitta’s Sonoma win was his first of the season, his sixth at Sonoma Raceway, more than any other Top Fuel driver, and the 56th of his storied career. With Shawn Langdon’s win a week earlier in Seattle, Kalitta’s Sonoma win clinched a Team Kalitta Top Fuel western swing sweep, and now, with just two races remaining in the regular season, winning is paramount in the ultra-competitive Top Fuel class.

“That was good,” the 2023 Top Fuel champion said. “Sonoma has been a really good track for me over the years so it was definitely nice to go out there, have a good-running car and be able to come out of there with a win. We’d been winning these Mission Foods races on Saturday so we’d won four of those plus the Right Trailers All-Star Callout at the beginning of the year so I knew it was just a matter of time. Continue reading →

YPSILANTI, MI – With two races remaining in the NHRA regular season, Shawn Langdon is right where he wants to be – atop the Top Fuel point standings; now the challenge is to stay there. The 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series continues Aug. 15-17 at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minn.

Langdon and his Kalitta Air 25th Anniversary team are performing at a very high level reaching at least the semifinals at each of the last five races including Langdon’s third win of the season near Seattle last month. Langdon enters this weekend’s race leading second-place Tony Steward by 48 points, but he knows, Stewart, third-place Justin Ashley and fourth-place Doug Kalitta will be right there should he stumble.

“It feels good to be in the points lead,” Langdon said. “That’s our goal; it’s where we wanna be, but we obviously want to keep the lead. We need to keep plugging along and hopefully hold onto it through these last two races of the regular season. It’s gonna be difficult with all the competition in Top Fuel, but our job is to keep doing what we’re doing and keep getting to final rounds. Hopefully, we can win one of those last two to secure it and give us a good start to the playoffs.” Continue reading →

YPSILANTI, MI- Two weeks off between NHRA races provides the perfect window for Kalitta Motorsports drivers, dragsters and Funny Car to join Kalitta Air for its annual employee-appreciation day in Oscoda, Mich. The 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series resumes next week at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., set for Aug. 15-17.

Doug Kalitta and his Mac Tools team, Shawn Langdon and his Kalitta Air 25th Anniversary team and J.R. Todd with his DHL GR Supra team joined hundreds of Kalitta Air employees in one of the Kalitta Air hangars. Lunch was inside the hangar with a Boeing 777 parked just outside.

The three race cars were on display in front of the 777 poised for the main event: starting all three cars for a pre-run warmup in the shadow of the 777 with the Kalitta Air employees looking on. Continue reading →

Sonoma, CA – J.R. Todd was the No. 11 qualifier at the Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals. His best qualifying attempt came in his first attempt Friday afternoon when Todd reached the finish line in 3.945 seconds at 332.43 mph.

Eliminations: Todd was off the starting line first and was leading Hunter Green when the DHL GR Supra overpowered the race track allowing Green to cruise to the round win.

Unofficial Point Standings: Todd leaves Sonoma in sixth place in the NHRA Funny Car point standings. He trails fifth-place Paul Lee by 114 points and leads seventh-place Daniel Wilkerson by four points. Continue reading →

Sonoma, CA – Shawn Langdon was the No. 10 qualifier at the Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals. Although he had problems in all four qualifying attempts, his best attempt of the four came during the first session Saturday afternoon.

Eliminations: Langdon defeated No. 1 qualifier Brittany Force, and with fewer than 16 cars in the field, he had a bye run in the second round. He raced reigning Top Fuel champion Antron Brown in the semifinals and was leading the race when the Kalitta Air 25th Anniversary dragster smoked the tires. Brown also smoked the tires but was further down the track. Langdon pedaled, but Brown was too far ahead and won the round eliminating last week’s race winner.

Unofficial Point Standings: Langdon leaves Sonoma in first place in the NHRA Top Fuel point standings. He leads second-place Tony Stewart by 48 points. Continue reading →