{"id":96865,"date":"2024-11-05T18:19:02","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T18:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/shawn-langdon-closes-in-on-nhra-points-lead-doug-kalitta-reaches-las-vegas-final-round-j-r-todd-folds-early-in-las-vegas\/"},"modified":"2024-11-05T18:19:02","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T18:19:02","slug":"shawn-langdon-closes-in-on-nhra-points-lead-doug-kalitta-reaches-las-vegas-final-round-j-r-todd-folds-early-in-las-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/shawn-langdon-closes-in-on-nhra-points-lead-doug-kalitta-reaches-las-vegas-final-round-j-r-todd-folds-early-in-las-vegas\/","title":{"rendered":"Shawn Langdon Closes in on NHRA Points Lead, Doug Kalitta Reaches Las Vegas Final Round, J.R. Todd Folds Early in Las Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shawn Langdon was the No. 2 qualifier at the Ford Performance NHRA Nationals. His best qualifying attempt came in the final session Saturday evening when the Kalitta Air Careers Toyota team reached the finish line in 3.672 seconds at 334.57 mph. Langdon qualified in the top-five positions at six of the last eight races.<\/p>\n

Langdon defeated Jasmine Salinas and points leader Justin Ashley to reach the semifinals where he raced his teammate, Doug Kalitta. Langdon was off the starting line first, and Kalitta had a rear-end malfunction. Langdon was cruising to the round win, but the Kalitta Air Careers car veered left and crossed the center line knocking out some timing blocks. Langdon\u2019s left-rear tire was cut and shredded pushing the car towards the right wall. The 2013 Top Fuel champion did a masterful job keeping the car off the wall, but he was disqualified when he crossed the center line giving the round win to Kalitta.<\/p>\n

Langdon leaves Las Vegas in third place in the NHRA Mission Foods Top Fuel point standings. He trails second-place Antron Brown by one point and first-place Justin Ashley by 45 points with one race remaining in the season. He leads the drivers tied for fourth, his teammate Doug Kalitta and Steve Torrence, by 40 points. With 30 points per round win at stake in the season\u2019s final race, Langdon is very much in contention for his second Top Fuel title.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/a>I hit the gas (in the semifinals), and the car was making a great run,\u201d said Langdon. \u201cFrom the time I hit the gas, I felt it kind trying to pull me left, so I just was trying to get a little bit of input in it (turn the steering wheel). That right lane likes to suck you into the inside, and that\u2019s just a common thing. So I try to cheat it right just a little bit, meaning pointing the car just a little bit right and run that right edge and let it bring me back in. It kept pulling me left, and I kept trying to put input in it and, in the dragster, if you get your hands up around 12 and six, that\u2019s a lot of input for a dragster.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it catches, it\u2019s gonna shoot you across the place, you gotta keep that in mind, and I just kept putting more input in it, and it just was not coming back. Next thing I know, it\u2019s like \u2018sh\u2013, there\u2019s a block.\u2019 I ran over the thing, the tire blows, and at that point it\u2019s just trying to salvage what you can. I hate it for the guys. It\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve ever hit anything in my career. Never hit a cone, never hit a wall \u2013 I\u2019ve taken pride in that a long time. I feel bad for the guys. They\u2019ve worked their ass off. We have a championship team. We still have a shot at the championship \u2013 that\u2019s the most-important thing. I love this sport \u2013 love everything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doug Kalitta was the No. 3 qualifier at the Ford Performance NHRA Nationals. During the final qualifying session Saturday evening, Kalitta made his best run of qualifying \u2013 a 3.674-second effort at 334.57 mph. It was his 12th<\/sup>\u00a0top-four qualifying effort of the season.<\/p>\n

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Kalitta fell just short of a \u201cseason sweep\u201d of the races on The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Kalitta defeated Ida Zetterstrom and Antron Brown to advance to the semifinals against his teammate, Shawn Langdon. In the semifinals, Kalitta had a rear-end malfunction, and Langdon was cruising to the round win when Langdon\u2019s Kalitta Air Careers car veered left and crossed the center line. At that moment, Langdon was disqualified, and Kalitta was awarded the round win. Cleanup from the incident and quickly-dropping temperatures forced postponement of the remainder of the race to Monday afternoon when Kalitta faced Brittany Force in the final round. Kalitta\u2019s Mac Tools dragster smoked the tires almost immediately, and Force cruised to the win. It was Kalitta\u2019s seventh final round of the season.<\/p>\n

Kalitta jumped three spots in the standings and leaves Las Vegas tied with Steve Torrence for fourth place in the NHRA Mission Foods Top Fuel point standings. He and Torrence trail third-place Shawn Langdon by 40 points, trail points leader Justin Ashley by 85 and lead sixth-place Clay Millican by eight points with one race remaining in the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would\u2019ve\u00a0definitely been\u00a0nice to get those extra 20 points (by winning the final round),\u201d said Kalitta. \u201cWe were trying to\u00a0throw\u00a0down. Unfortunately, we didn\u2019t make it (down the track), but we\u2019re in a good spot going to Pomona. That place is usually really good\u00a0to<\/a>\u00a0us. We\u2019re all hungry here and obviously, it\u2019d be nice to get this thing to the winner\u2019s circle for sure (at Pomona).\u201d<\/p>\n

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J.R. Todd was the No. 8 qualifier at the Ford Performance NHRA Nationals. His best run of the four qualifying sessions was his first attempt Friday afternoon when he made a 3.898-second run at 327.82 mph.<\/p>\n

Todd was off the starting line quicker than Cruz Pedregon, but the DHL GR Supra had traction problems early in the run. The 2018 Funny Car champion pedaled but could not catch Pedregon, who posted a clean 3.924-second pass to win the round.<\/p>\n

Todd leaves Las Vegas in eighth place in the NHRA Mission Foods Funny Car point standings. He trails seventh-place Dan Wilkerson by 34 points and leads ninth-place Chad Green by 36 points with one race remaining in the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis DHL GR Supra team made four solid runs in qualifying, but we weren\u2019t able to extend that into the first round on race day \u2013 that fits right in with what we\u2019ve done in these last several races,\u201d said Todd. \u201cWe have one more chance to finish the season with a positive race at Pomona in two weeks. We\u2019ll do our best to be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

Team Kalitta will be back in action Nov. 15-17, 2024, at the In \u2018n Out Burger NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif., the last of six races making up the Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs. For additional information, please visit\u00a0www.nhra.com<\/a>. For additional information on Kalitta Motorsports, please visit\u00a0www.teamkalitta.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story was originally published on November 5, 2024. \"Drag<\/p>\n

The post Shawn Langdon Closes in on NHRA Points Lead, Doug Kalitta Reaches Las Vegas Final Round, J.R. Todd Folds Early in Las Vegas<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shawn Langdon was the No. 2 qualifier at the Ford Performance NHRA Nationals. His best qualifying attempt came in the final session Saturday evening when the Kalitta Air Careers Toyota team reached the finish line in 3.672 seconds at 334.57 mph. Langdon qualified in the top-five positions at six of the last eight races. Langdon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}