Shawn Langdon’s done a lot in his racing career, but he has a shot at milestone round win this weekend. The 2025 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series continues July 18-20 at the Muckleshoot Casino Resort NHRA Northwest Nationals near Seattle.
Langdon has NHRA national series championships in the Misson Foods Series, the Lucas Oil Series and Junior Dragster, but this weekend, should the Kalitta Air 25th Anniversary team be fortunate enough to reach the semifinals, he’ll claim his 400th-career round win.
“That’s pretty cool,” Langdon said. “Right now, I just go race, and that’s just where I am with round wins. I wouldn’t look at my career any differently if I had only 300 round wins or if I had 500 round wins at this point. It’s a cool accomplishment, and I’m sure at some point in my career, when I kinda get done with everything, I’ll look back on this type of accomplishment, and it will really sink in. In the meantime, we have a job to do, and the job is not complete.”
One year ago, Langdon reached the Seattle final round but lost to Steve Torrence. Could the great Northwest be the place Langdon claims his 400th round win and then his third win of the season?
“It would be nice to get to Seattle and get a win,” Langdon added. “We’re just looking forward to the last few races before the countdown starts. You really just show up and do the same things we do each race because the mindset doesn’t change because of last year’s results. You have the same mindset as always – do everything you can to try to win the race.”
Langdon enters the second half of the season in second place in points; he trails points leader Tony Stewart by 52 points and leads third-place Justin Ashley by 25 points. The next closest driver is Doug Kalitta who trails Ashley by 111 points in fourth place. The top three have somewhat separated themselves from the rest of the teams in the battle for the regular-season championship which, for the first time, comes with a $150,000 bonus following the next four races that complete the regular season.
“It’s a great time for us to get on a little run,” Langdon said. “We have a good car – it’s just a matter of putting it together for the next four races and putting ourselves in the best position we can. Some of the races could be kinda tricky with the size of the fields and whatever the weather conditions are, but everyone has to deal with the same things. It’s still just doing the best job we can to win races and the regular season, but it gives the teams a little bit more incentive for sure.
“We had some ups and downs in the first half of the season, and we’ve definitely had a lot of chances and opportunities. I know we’ve also had kind of a learning curve so I feel like we’ve kind of seen the good and the bad. Hopefully, now, we can just focus forward and continue getting the good results we need to make a run at the regular-season championship and put ourselves in the best position we can to make a run in the Countdown (Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs).”
This story was originally published on July 15, 2025. 
