Agencies/Commerce, Georgia
After the best qualifying effort of his six-race NHRA Top Fuel career, Dubai rookie driver Khalid alBalooshi heads to Atlanta Dragway hoping to build on last weekend’s qualifying success. The Qatar Al-Anabi Racing Top Fuel team, the two-time, reigning NHRA Top Fuel World Champions owned by His Excellency Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad al-Thani, enters this weekend’s NHRA Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals looking for continued improvement in the team’s performance. This weekend’s event begins with qualifying sessions today and tomorrow followed by eliminations on Sunday which will be televised in the United States on Sunday and Internationally Tuesday on ESPN International. AlBalooshi enters the NHRA Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals in 13th place in the NHRA Full Throttle Top Fuel point standings. He trails 12th place Terry McMillen by one point and leads 14th-place Troy Buff by 105 points. The Dubai rookie driver was the No. 5 qualifier last weekend at Royal Purple Raceway near Houston; it was his best qualifying effort of his six-race Top Fuel career, but despite the mechanical issue that did not allow him to compete in eliminations, alBalooshi only has positive thoughts about his accomplishments. “Even with the car having a problem and not being able to race on Sunday in Houston, I think Houston was our best weekend of the season so far,” alBalooshi said. “I qualified No. 5, and we had four good runs in qualifying. I feel more comfortable in the car every week, and I think we will win some rounds soon. We are getting better and better, and because of what we did last weekend, I think we will do even better this weekend in Atlanta and build on Houston.” Al-Anabi silver driver Shawn Langdon enters the NHRA Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals in fifth place in the NHRA Full Throttle Top Fuel point standings. He trails fourth-place Tony Schumacher by 152 points and leads sixth-place Steve Torrence by five points.Langdon was the No. 10 qualifier at last week’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Nationals in Baytown, Texas. He defeated Brandon Bernstein in the first round of eliminations with his best pass of the weekend but lost to Steve Torrence in the second round. “Everyone on the Al-Anabi team continues to do an excellent job and work well together,” Langdon said. “I am impressed with the way these Al-Anabi guys work and stay focused on the objective despite our slow start this season. You’re gonna hit some bumps where you struggle along the way, but being able to come out of it at the end and learn from it is what we’re trying to do. We’re going to Atlanta this weekend where it’ll be a little bit warmer, and it’ll be a hot race track in hot conditions. Our next few races, Atlanta, Topeka (Kansas) and Englishtown, (New Jersey) will get us ready for the summer months.”