KALITTA LEADS TOYOTA IN NHRA QUALIFYING AT NORTHWEST NATIONALS
SEATTLE, WA –Doug Kalitta ran a 3.730-second pass in his Mac Tools Toyota dragster to qualify second in Top Fuel 
for Sunday’s CatSpot NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways in suburban Seattle.
The second marks Kalitta’s best qualifying effort of the season and continues a strong run that has seen him advance to the semi-finals and finals in the last two events. He will open up eliminations against Bill Litton on Sunday.
Antron Brown joins Kalitta as one of the top contenders in Top Fuel after a top-four pass or better in all of his four runs, including the quickest pass in Saturday’s final session on the way to qualifying fifth overall. It marks Brown’s fourth top-five qualifying effort in the last six races as the Matco Tools Toyota team continues to gel with the playoffs in sight. He faces Shawn Reed in the first round.
“I hope this is the weekend where we turn it around,” said Brown. “Tough competition out there, you have people like Scrapper (Mike Salinas) out there running a ‘77, Steve Torrence qualified number one, my teammates are out there. We’ve got our work cut out for us, but it feels really good to have four good qualifying laps and we’ll see what we can do on Sunday.”
Rounding out the Toyota Top Fuel contingent, Richie Crampton placed ninth and will square off with Brittany Force in round one of Top Fuel eliminations for the second week in a row.
In Funny Car, Shawn Langdon was the top qualifying Camry in sixth. The first-year Funny Car driver placed in the top three in two of the weekend’s sessions while running four consecutive passes of 4.07 or better. Langdon will race Jack Beckman on Sunday.
J.R. Todd placed 13th, while Cruz Pedregon will start from the 16th seed. Todd faces Bob Tasca, as Pedregon will have to take on pole-sitter Matt Hagan in the opening round.
Today’s qualifying can be seen tonight on FS1 beginning at 10:00 p.m., while Sunday’s Mello Yello Drag Racing Series eliminations will be shown live on FOX beginning at 4:00 p.m. (ET).
