Langdon races to victory for Al-Anabi in Thunder Valley

Reigning NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel World Champion Shawn Langdon celebrates his first victory of the season in the winner’s circle at Bristol Dragway following Sunday’s Ford NHRA Thunder Valley NHRA Nationals.

Agencies/Bristol, Tennessee

It took 10 races, but reigning NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel World Champion Shawn Langdon claimed his first win of the 2014 season for the Qatar Al-Anabi Racing Top Fuel Team, the three-time and defending World Championship team owned by HE Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad al-Thani, at the 15th annual Ford NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals yesterday, the 10th of 24 races that make up America’s 2014 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing season.

Langdon defeated his teammate, Khalid al-Balooshi, in the first round, and from there, the 2013 champion was simply brilliant. With the track temperature increasing by the minute in the bright Tennessee mountain sunshine, the track was tricky. In the second round, Langdon’s silver Al-Anabi car smoked the tires early, but so did his opponent, Terry McMillen. Langdon patiently waited for the car to settle down, got back into the throttle and zoomed past McMillen to take the round win.

The semi-final race against Bob Vandergriff, Jr., was a carbon copy of the second round, and again, Langdon patiently waited and when the time was right, accelerated to the finish line, but at that point, it really didn’t matter because Vandergriff left the starting line before the green light and was immediately eliminated. In the final round against points leader Doug Kalitta, Langdon was off the starting line first. It was close until the middle of the race when Kalitta’s car began having problems allowing Langdon reach the finish line first and win his first race since the final event of the 2013 season. It is the ninth win of his career.

With the win, Langdon remains third in the NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel point standings, but he now trails second place Antron Brown by just 31 points. And also with the win, Langdon returns to the Traxxas Nitro Shootout in Indianapolis in September, a special event for race winners that he won last year.  

“With the stiff competition in Top Fuel, one thing you have to learn is patience,” Langdon said. “You can’t take anything for granted. Having a world championship season like we had last year, obviously we took a lot of pride in that. We knew it would be tough. We weren’t expecting it to take this long to get our first victory, but we’re still learning and trying to improve this Al-Anabi car. Fortunately we got the win, and for Sheikh Khalid and everyone in Qatar that supports us, thank you. We wanted to get into that Traxxas Shootout; we didn’t want to miss out on that, but more importantly, we wanted to keep earning those Mello Yello points.”

Al-Balooshi was the No 10 qualifier and raced his teammate, No 7 qualifier Langdon in the first round of eliminations. Both cars launched well, but al-Balooshi experienced some tire smoke around half track and Langdon cruised to the win. With the first-round loss, al-Balooshi dropped one spot to seventh place in the NHRA Mello Yello Top Fuel point standings. He trails sixth-place Tony Schumacher by 22 points and leads eighth-place Brittany Force by 33 points.

“Today was not our day, but it was a very good day for our team and for Sheikh Khalid,” al-Balooshi said. “Everyone on our team is very happy for Shawn and the silver team. It was a good win for them and a good win for our whole team. The gold team will be back next week to try to have a better day.”