TODD, CAMRY WIN NHRA U.S. NATIONALS
INDIANAPOLIS, IN – J.R. Todd drove his DHL Toyota Camry to victory over Matt Hagan in the Funny Car finals to 
win his second consecutive Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals, while Doug Kalitta fell just .006 short in Top Fuel of making it a Kalitta Motorsports/Toyota sweep at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis.
Todd was the dominant driver throughout the weekend on the way to becoming just the sixth driver in history to win back-to-back Funny Car finals in the U.S. Nationals. After earning number one qualifying honors on Sunday, Todd defeated Jim Campbell, Robert Hight and Tommy Johnson Jr. to set up his final round match-up with Hagan. In the final, Todd had claimed the lead by the 60-foot mark and never trailed the rest of the way, winning by .072 seconds.
“I’m just happy to get a win here,” said Todd, who now has won three times in 2018. “The Funny Car division is so tough out here. We came out really strong this spring, but then really fell off in the summer. Before this race, we made some pretty big changes going into the Indy test – in some ways going back to the old ways of running the DHL Toyota Camry. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy throughout an entire weekend at a national event. From day one, I felt like we could come out here and win. I think we’ve got the ball rolling in the right direction. We’re definitely not peaking. I think we’re on the rise. This gives us a lot of confidence heading into the Countdown. We know we can run with these guys now.”
Kalitta narrowly missed giving the team a second champion on the day. He defeated Leah Pritchett, fellow Toyota driver Antron Brown and Billy Torrence to reach the finals against Terry McMillen. In the final, Kalitta had an .024 advantage at the start, but McMillen moved out to a .021 lead by the ‘330 mark before Kalitta started to reel him in late, closing to within .006 seconds at the finish line.
Brown ran one of the quickest passes of the day in round one in defeating Brittany Force, before falling to Kalitta in round two. Rounding out the Toyota Top Fuel contingent, Richie Crampton had climbed up into the top-10 heading into today’s first-round, but was defeated by Clay Millican and subsequently eliminated from the playoff chase.
In Funny Car, Todd wasn’t the only Camry to register a strong performance today as Shawn Langdon advanced to his fifth semi-final of the year before narrowly losing to Hagan. He had previously defeated fellow Camry driver Cruz Pedregon and Bob Bode in the first two rounds.
Del Worsham ran one of the top passes in the first round only to lose by .001 seconds against Tim Wilkerson.
The Mello Yello Drag Racing Series kicks off the 2018 Countdown to the Championship playoffs at the NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway, September 14-16.
