Shawn Langdon Exit Early from Brainerd Nationals

Brainerd, MN – Following a semifinal finish last weekend Shawn Langdon and the DHL Kalitta Air Top Fuel team were looking to build some momentum over the final stretch of the regular season. Langdon was looking to pick up his first win at the Brainerd Nationals, one of just a handful of tracks where the 2013 NHRA Top Fuel champion has not celebrated in the winner’s circle. Through two days of qualifying the DHL Kalitta Air team worked to put Langdon in a position to go rounds on race day.

At the end of Saturday Langdon was solidly in the show as the No. 7 qualifier and would face Antron Brown for the second week in a row. Last week Langdon took the win on the way to his fourth semifinal finish of the season.

Langdon and his DHL Top Fuel dragster were half of the first pair of race cars to hit the track on Sunday morning with cool and quick track conditions on tap. The reigning U.S. Nationals champion was on his game cutting a nearly psychic reaction time of .028 but unfortunately due to an apparent malfunction his race car overpowered the track and completely lost traction. It was a jarring run for Langdon as the entire race car leapt forward almost lifting all four tires off the track simultaneously. There was no recovering the lost power and momentum as his opponent made a smooth run for the victory.

“I don’t know what happened, but it was definitely not what we wanted,” said Langdon. “I felt like we had a tune-up that could go rounds in these conditions. I am sure the DHL guys will look at the data and see what happened. We are in the middle of the top ten and we will be racing for the championship. We will put this race behind us and move on.”

With a week off before the U.S. Nationals Langdon will spend a day testing tomorrow at Brainerd International Raceway and then shift his focus to the biggest race of the season.

Statistics:
Qualified: No. 7 (3.774 sec., 298.01 mph)
Bonus points: 0

Race Details:

First Round
Driver                                  Qual       R/T         ET           MPH
Shawn Langdon                 7             .028       12.384   71.89
Antron Brown                       6             .066       3.749     326.08 (W)