Agencies/Kent, Washington
Qatar Al-Anabi Racing Top Fuel driver Shawn Langdon advanced to the fifth final round of his career today in Kent, Washington; it was the first final round appearance of the season for the Qatar Al-Anabi Racing Top Fuel Team, the two-time, defending NHRA Full Throttle Top Fuel World Championship team owned by HE Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad al-Thani. In addition to Langdon’s successful day, Dubai rookie driver Khalid alBalooshi advanced to the second round of eliminations capping an excellent weekend for the team at the just-completed O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Northwest Nationals, the 15th of 23 races making up the 2012 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.Langdon did a fantastic job in the car blasting through the field into the final round. He defeated Terry McMillen, Antron Brown, winner of the last two races, and David Grubnic before losing to Steve Torrence in a thrilling final round of eliminations in which both cars smoked the tires forcing the drivers to “pedal” the cars by lifting their foot off the throttle and quickly putting it back down hoping the tires would stick to the race track. Torrence won the race by less than two tenths of a second.With the final-round appearance, Langdon moves up one spot to sixth place in the NHRA Full Throttle Top Fuel point standings. He trails fifth-place Doug Kalitta by 63 points and leads seventh-place Morgan Lucas by 10 points.“It was a good day for the Al-Anabi team; it’s just a little disappointing because when you get into the final, you have your hopes set on winning the race,” Langdon said. “The Al-Anabi team is definitely headed in the right direction, and the best thing about this weekend is that the car ran really well. We qualified well, we were among the quickest if not the quickest in some qualifying sessions, and the car made good runs today. The race track was very tricky in the semifinals and finals; we won a tire-smoking semifinal and lost a tire-smoking final. We are continuing to learn, and we all know our first win will be here shortly. We just have to try our best and keep at it.”In the gold Al-Anabi car, alBalooshi was brilliant in the first round beating Bob Vandergriff. In the second round, Langdon faced Torrence, and the gold Al-Anabi car was actually the quicker of the two cars.However, the veteran Torrence left the starting line before the rookie alBalooshi, and Torrence won despite alBalooshi’s quicker elapsed time.Still, alBalooshi moved up one spot to 12th place in the NHRA Full Throttle Top Fuel point standings. He trails 11th-place Clay Millican by 91 points and leads 13th-place Terry McMillen by 23 points. He is 95 points out of 10th place, the final spot in the Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs with two races remaining in the regular season.