Toyota Teams Ready for Maple Grove

LANGDON LEADS TIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE – Shawn Langdon continues to lead a tight Top Fuel battle midway through the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs.  Langdon holds a 33-point advantage in what still appears to be a six-driver battle.  Morgan Lucas currently sits fourth – 45 points behind Langdon, while Antron Brown re-emerged in the Countdown race by winning at St. Louis.  He’s still 102 points behind and likely will need at least one more win this season to have a chance to repeat his 2012 title.  The first three events have seen three different winners with Toyota drivers winning two as Lucas also won at Charlotte.

Cruz Pedregon continues to be in the hunt in Funny Car.  He currently stands 83 points out of the top spot.  He won the Countdown event at Dallas – one of four on victories on the season.

TOYOTA DRIVERS SET TO RETURN TO HISTORIC TRACK – Antron Brown and Shawn Langdon will be returning to the Maple Grove track where each set national Top Fuel records a year ago, while Khalid alBalooshi will make a return to the site of his first Top Fuel win this weekend.   Brown set the Top Fuel E.T. record with a 3.701-second run, while Langdon owns the all-time MPH record of 334.15.  While those two were setting records, it was alBalooshi who left the Pennsylvania track with the victory.  He’s not the only Toyota driver to win in Reading, though.  Tony Pedregon is a three-time winner (2002, 2005 and 2007), while Cruz Pedregon has two wins to his credit (1992 and 2010).

Antron Brown on a potential record run this weekend: “Conditions are supposed to be ideal – highs in the mid-60s to low 70s and based on St. Louis there are a lot of drivers running really well right now.  I’m not sure if we’ll see a record now that we have rev limiters, which we didn’t have last year, but you’re going to have a lot of really good runs, so there’s a chance you could see it.”