Semifinal Finish for Shawn Langdon at New England Nationals

Epping, NH – Shawn Langdon powered the DHL Toyota Top Fuel dragster to a semifinal finish today at the New England Nationals. The strong day on the track moved the 2013 NHRA Top Fuel champion up in the point standings and gave his DHL Toyota team some momentum heading to the Thunder Valley Nationals in two weeks. Through two days pf qualifying Langdon made steady progress with his third qualifying run of 3.783 seconds slotting him in the No. 12 spot going into eliminations.

In a big first round win over second year driver Josh Hart Langdon made his quickest run of the weekend, a strong 3.762 second pass at 327.74 mph. Langdon was first off the line and kept it right in the middle of the groove the whole way down track. The win set up a Kalitta Motorsports head-to-head match-up with teammate Doug Kalitta.

Once again Langdon got the jump off the starting line and never trailed in the race advancing to the semifinals with a winning elapsed times of 3.734 seconds at 330.96 mph. It was another quick time for Langdon and the DHL Toyota team and continued to show improvement throughout the weekend.

Matching up with Justin Ashley in the semifinals Langdon continued his starting line dominance with a strong .058 reaction time that gave him a sizeable starting line jump. Langdon was on his way to another round win when his blower belt shredded as he stormed towards the finish line opening the door for his opponent to slide around him. The margin of victory was less than two feet at over 300 mph. The loss of the blower belt robbed Langdon of the horsepower needed to hold off Ashley.

“I felt like today was our day,” said Langdon. “We got two great wins in the first and second rounds and in that semifinal we were a few feet from a final round. I can’t say enough about these DHL guys. We are working hard every race and we saw some good results this weekend.”

Langdon will leave New England Dragway sitting No. 9 in the Top Fuel point standings.

Statistics:
Qualified: Qual. 12 (3.783 sec., 325.45 mph)
Bonus points: 0

Race Details:

First Round
Qual    Driver                                                  RT        ET        MPH
12        Shawn Langdon                                 .059     3.762   327.74 (W)
5          Josh Hart                                             .084     No Time

Second Round
Qual    Driver                                                  RT        ET        MPH
12        Shawn Langdon                                 .057     3.734   330.96 (W)
4          Doug Kalitta                                        .079     5.270   170.97

Semifinals
Qual    Driver                                                  RT        ET        MPH
12        Shawn Langdon                                  .058     3.776   300.13
8          Justin Ashley                                       .080     3.750   327.59 (W)