Shawn Langdon was the No. 3 qualifier at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals. During the final qualifying session Saturday afternoon, Landon made a 3.662-second pass at 338.68 mph. It was the fastest speed of Langdon’s career and the second-fastest run in NHRA history.
Langdon defeated Ida Zetterstrom and Josh Hart before losing to Tony Stewart in the semifinals. Langdon was off the starting line first, but the Kalitta Air Careers dragster dropped a cylinder almost immediately. Stewart’s 3.723-second run beat Langdon’s 3.835-second effort by .0132 seconds.
When Langdon advanced to the quarterfinals, he earned a spot in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas April 11-13, 2025. During Saturday’s qualifying sessions, the drivers who reached the quarterfinals at In-N-Out Burger Dragstrip will re-run the quarterfinals in the four-wide format with the four winners advancing to the “finals” earning additional purse and championship bonus points.
Langdon leaves Pomona in first place in the NHRA Top Fuel point standings. He leads the second-place driver, his teammate Doug Kalitta, by 77 points.
“We had high expectations of winning today, but obviously, all in all, it was a great weekend for Kalitta Air, DAYCO, Revchem, SealMaster and Toyota,” said Langdon. “We made it to the semifinals, had back-to-back Mission #2Fast2Tasty wins and Doug (Kalitta) won the Callout (Right Trailers All-Star Top Fuel Callout). Team Kalitta leaves Pomona in first and second in points so we have no complaints. We had a little bit of misfortune there in the semifinals dropping the cylinder at the step, but we’ll get that fixed and head to Vegas. It’s a great time to be at Kalitta Motorsports, and we’re ready to go to Las Vegas.”
Doug Kalitta was the No. 2 qualifier at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals. Kalitta’s best qualifying attempt came during the second session Friday afternoon when the Mac Tools Toyota team made a 3.675-second pass at 335.12 mph.
Kalitta defeated Scott Palmer with a brilliant 3.660-second pass at 338.34 mph. It was the quickest run of the first round, and the speed was the fastest of Kalitta’s career. In the second round, Kalitta was ahead early in the run before the Mac Tools car went into tire smoke giving the second-round win to Tony Stewart.
When Kalitta advanced to the quarterfinals, he earned a spot in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas April 11-13, 2025. During Saturday’s qualifying sessions, the drivers who reached the quarterfinals at In-N-Out Burger Dragstrip will re-run the quarterfinals in the four-wide format with the four winners advancing to the “finals” earning additional purse and championship bonus points.
Kalitta leaves Pomona in second place in the NHRA Top Fuel point standings. He trails his teammate, second-place Shawn Langdon, by 77 points and leads third-place Antron Brown by nine points.
“The Mac Tools car got out there about half track and blew the tires off,” Kalitta said. “At that point, I saw Tony pulling away, and there was no way I was gonna catch him so I just had to kind of give it up when it smoked the tires. We’ve only smoked the tires like less than five times in the last 30 runs, so it was just one of those deals where we were just kind of pushing. Tony was good so we were gonna have to be good to beat him. We’ll just press on and see what we can do in Las Vegas.”
J.R. Todd was the No. 7 qualifier at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals. His best qualifying attempt came in the final session Saturday afternoon when the DHL GR Supra reached the finish line in 3.896 seconds at 333.99 mph.
Todd raced Daniel Wilkerson in the first round; it was a rematch of the Phoenix first-round matchup Todd won a week ago. Today, Todd was off the starting line first, but the DHL GR Supra quickly went into tire shake giving Wilkerson the lead before he, too, had problems. Todd pedaled, the DHL car hooked up and he was nearly able to chase Wilkerson down but ran out of race track, and Wilkerson won the race.
Todd leaves Pomona in 12th place in the NHRA Funny Car point standings. He trails 11th-place Blake Alexander by 14 points and leads 13th-place Bobby Bode by one point.
“The DHL Toyota team took some positive steps again this weekend – we made three good qualifying runs, and today, we had tire shake in the first round but still almost chased Daniel down to get the win,” Todd said. “That shows we’re getting a little bit closer to where we want to be. We’re definitely not there yet, but like I keep saying, this process is gonna take a while. We’re good with that. Thanks to DHL, Revchem, SealMaster and DAYCO for helping us get it done.”
Team Kalitta will be back in action April 11-13, 2025, at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas. For additional information, please visit www.nhra.com. For additional information on Kalitta Motorsports, please visit www.teamkalitta.com.
This story was originally published on March 31, 2025. 
