Team Al-Anabi Pre-race Report – Route 66
Shawn Langdon, Al-Anabi Racing Top Fuel Dragster (silver):
Reigning NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel world champion Shawn Langdon enters the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Route 66 Nationals in third place in the NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel point standings. He trails second-place Antron Brown by 61 points and leads fourth-place Spencer Massey by 74 points.
Langdon and the silver Al-Anabi team endured a challenging weekend in Epping, N.H., last week. The team fought mechanical gremlins for much of the weekend before finding and fixing the problem prior to the final round of qualifying. From there, Langdon made a solid run in his last qualifying attempt and was the No. 11 qualifier, his lowest of the season. In eliminations, he was on a good run in the first round when the tires on the Al-Anabi dragster lost contact with the race track while Langdon was leading. The resulting first-round loss was Langdon’s second of the season.
Langdon won his first race of the season and the ninth of his career two weeks ago in Bristol, Tenn. He has one win (Bristol), two final rounds (Charlotte and Topeka) and two semifinal appearances (Houston and Englishtown) in the last seven races.
Langdon prior to Joliet:
“The Al-Anabi team continues to move in the right direction. We ran into some issues this past weekend in Epping, but fortunately we were able to address them. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make many runs after fixing the problem to gain information. Chicago could be a little interesting this weekend because the track conditions will be a little hotter than last weekend. And really, the problem we fixed on Saturday in Epping had really been plaguing us for a while so I think we are excited to get to Chicago because we know we fixed a serious problem, and we can now start working on getting the car back to the way we like it.
“Fixing the problem we found in Epping gives us confidence that the car will be turning around soon. Now we just have to make it work. It might take a little time because we’ve had to throw out a lot of the data from runs we’ve made in the last couple of months before we knew what our problem was. Fixing it required us to change a lot of things so we may be back to kind of a learning stage for the next race or two, but hopefully, things will work in our favor. If the fixes we made were the right ones, hopefully we can learn quickly and get the Al-Anabi car back to being a very competitive race car very soon.
“It will definitely be helpful to continue our learning process on a track where we’ve had some success. We’ve won at Joliet so Alan (team manager Alan Johnson) and Brian (crew chief Brian Husen) are definitely very comfortable there. They know that track well. And on the only true hot-weather track we’ve run on this year, we won at Bristol so I don’t see any reason why we can’t learn quickly and challenge for the win this weekend.”
Khalid alBalooshi, Al-Anabi Racing Top Fuel Dragster (gold):
Third-year Top Fuel driver Khalid alBalooshi enters the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Route 66 Nationals in seventh place in the NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel point standings. He trails sixth-place Steve Torrence by 64 and leads eighth-place Richie Crampton by 41 points.
alBalooshi and the gold Al-Anabi team endured a challenging weekend in Epping, N.H. last week. The team fought mechanical gremlins for much of the weekend before finding and fixing the problem prior to the final round of qualifying. From there, alBalooshi made two strong runs in eliminations defeating Leah Pritchett in the first round. In the second, alBalooshi lost to points leader Doug Kalitta, but the team made another solid run indicating the problems that have plagued the team in the last few races might have been resolved.
AlBalooshi prior to Joliet:
“We are so happy with what we found in New Hampshire. I think, with this change, we can bring the Al-Anabi car back. Our car has been struggling in qualifying, but with the back to back races, I think we can get better very soon. I am really excited to go to Chicago this weekend. I think we will be in way better shape than we have been in the last four or five races.
“In the last few races, we have been trying to do some different stuff, but sometimes things will work, sometimes not. In the last few races, we have not done well in qualifying. Then you get to Sunday and wonder what’s going on. We have been showing up on Sunday without any lane choice, but now, I think we are back. I think, after talking to Jason (crew chief Jason McCulloch) and all of my crew guys, we found a bad problem and fixed it so now we know how to make the car keep getting better. I think now, we can do way better. I think you will see a lot from the Al-Anabi team very soon.”
