WORSHAM, LANGDON ON TOP AS TOYOTA DRIVERS SWEEP NITRO POLES IN NORWALK NHRA QUALIFYING
NORWALK, OH – Del Worsham set a new Funny Car track record in his Toyota Camry with a 4.000-second run, while Shawn 
Langdon set a new standard in Top Fuel with a 3.745-second pass as Toyota drivers swept the Nitro number one qualifiers for Sunday’s Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at the Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio.
Worsham was the top qualifier on both days of Funny Car qualifying with matching 4.000-second passes to earn six bonus points. Tonight marks his third number one qualifying effort of the season and the 16th of his career. Worsham previously earned poles at Houston and Bristol this season. It was the sixth pole by a Camry in Funny Car competition this season.
“I’ve never been so disappointed to run a 4.0,” said a joking Worsham, who had hoped to run the track’s first-ever Funny Car run in the 3’s. “Seriously, it was a great run by the DHL Toyota Camry. Everyone’s pushing hard and we’ve had a lot of success in qualifying recently and a big part of it is the engineering support that we’ve received from Toyota and TRD. Tomorrow will be another challenge because we start at 11 a.m. and we haven’t run in those conditions this weekend.”
Langdon earned his third number one qualifier of the season and the 16th of his career. On Sunday, he’ll attempt to become the fourth different Al-Anabi Racing Toyota driver to win at Norwalk in the last five years. Khalid alBalooshi (2013), Del Worsham (2011) and Larry Dixon (2010) were the others.
“We’ve struggled in qualifying lately, so we reverted back to a lot of the things from last year,” said Langdon, the 2013 Top Fuel world champion. “We’re just taking baby steps right now, but we’re really trying to do our homework and the crew is putting in a lot of hours. I’ve always loved this track and I’d love to be the fourth different Al-Anabi driver to win here.”
Antron Brown ran a 3.763 in a pairing with Langdon to place third overall. He’s coming off a win at the most recent event in Chicago. Khalid alBalooshi qualified 10th and Richie Crampton bumped his way into the field in the 15th spot on his final pass of qualifying.
Rounding out the Toyota Funny Car entries, Chad Head was seventh, Alexis DeJoria 10th, Cruz Pedregon placed 11th and Tony Pedregon qualified 14th. Cruz Pedregon led Friday’s first session as Toyotas topped three of the four Funny Car qualifying sessions this weekend.
