LAS VEGAS: Shawn Langdon is the qualifying leader after two rounds of qualifying at the Toyota NHRA Nationals, the fifth of six races that comprise the Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs and the 23rd of 24 events making up the United States’ 2013 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season.
Langdon has increased his points lead for the Qatar Al-Anabi Racing Top Fuel team, the two-time NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel World Champions owned by Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Thani. Langdon is first, and Khalid alBalooshi is 12th.
Qualifying resumes today with eliminations set for tomorrow.
Langdon dazzled the huge Las Vegas crowd in both Friday qualifying rounds. As the points leader, Langdon was the last pair of cars in the first round allowing the team to know what they needed to run to be the quickest of the session. Langdon’s silver Al-Anabi car blasted down the track in 3.799 seconds at nearly 318 mph and was No. 1 after the first session claiming three valuable qualifying bonus points.
In the evening session, Langdon was in the final pair again and was again allowing the team to watch the rest of the cars run. Once again, the silver Al-Anabi car zoomed to the top of the qualifying order with a 3.778-second effort at nearly 325 mph to claim the No. 1 qualifying position and another three bonus points.
“The Al-Anabi team just did a phenomenal job preparing the race car and making two great runs down the track,” said Langdon.
“They were clean runs and we just want to continue that. This Al-Anabi team didn’t stop after winning in Reading. We went back to the shop, continued to work hard and we found some improvements in the car. We are working as hard as we can to win the World Championship for Sheikh Khalid and the State of Qatar, and we earned six bonus points with today’s runs so we have increased our points lead – we hope that continues through the rest of the weekend.”
The gold Al-Anabi team did not have the same results as the Langdon’s silver team.
THE PENINSULA
