Toyota NHRA 4-Wide Nationals Preview

LANGDON, AJR TAKE SERIES LEAD TO CHARLOTTE: Shawn Langdon and Alan Johnson Racing will arrive at the 4-Wide Nationals with the Top Fuel series point lead, despite continuing uncertainty after unexpectedly losing their major sponsor just a month before the season. The team is running on a race-by-race basis, but it has not slowed down Langdon, who has one victory (Pomona), two semi-final appearances and has been the top qualifier at two of the season’s first three races.  He currently holds a 13-point advantage over second place. AJR and Toyota won Top Fuel titles in 2010 (Larry Dixon), 2011 (Del Worsham) and 2013 (Langdon).

Alan Johnson: “We decided to race the early portion of this season to show potential sponsors that we have a championship-caliber race team.  We have done that in the first three races. It is definitely easier to walk into a boardroom to talk about a team that leads the point standings, and we need to do our best to stay there – it’s helping. Our marketing staff and our new strategic marketing partner Guy Fieri and his Knuckle Sandwich group are working as hard as they can to find the funding we need.

We are very thankful for our existing sponsors like Toyota and Red Line Oil who continue to support our efforts, and I cannot thank the members of our team enough for their loyalty and commitment. This process is difficult for all of us.  Racing the entire season and competing for the 2015 NHRA Mello Yello world championship is still our goal.  Like the last race two weeks ago, we are racing in Charlotte to give ourselves a little more time to put a program together that will allow us to do that.”

BROWN LOOKS TO DEFEND 4-WIDE TITLE – Three drivers ran almost identical times, but it was Antron Brown’s superb 0.042-second reaction time that gave him the victory at last year’s NHRA 4-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway.  Brown edged fellow Toyota driver Shawn Langdon by .015 seconds, despite each running a 3.800-second pass in the finals.  Yet, neither ran low elapsed time of the round as each defeated third-place finisher J.R. Todd on hole-shots.   Brown enters this weekend’s action having advanced to the semi-finals or finals in each of the season’s first three races and currently sits fourth in points.

TOYOTA CHARLOTTE WINNERS – Four current Toyota drivers have won at zMAX Dragway with Antron Brown leading the way with two victories, having won the 4-Wides last season and the fall race in 2011.  Del Worsham was the only other 4-Wide winner – having taken top honors in the event in Top Fuel in 2011, while Shawn Langdon won the fall Top Fuel event in 2013 and Cruz Pedregon won the fall Funny Car race in 2010.

LIVE ON ESPN – The NHRA 4-Wide Nationals can be seen live on ESPN with coverage beginning at 2 p.m., Sunday.