Shawn Langdon was the No. 5 qualifier at the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals. His best qualifying run came in the Friday-evening session when he ran a 3.741-second pass at 324.59 mph.
Langdon advanced to his seventh final round of the season but came up .0244 seconds short. Langdon defeated Ida Zetterstrom, Tony Stewart and Justin Ashley before losing to Antron Brown in the final round, 3.798 to 3.803 seconds.
Langdon leaves Reading in third place in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing point standings. He trails second-place Antron Brown by five points and points leader Justin Ashley by six points. He leads his teammate, fourth-place Doug Kalitta, by 27 points with five races remaining in the season.
“It was a good points day; we made some good runs and put ourselves in position to contend for the championship – great job by Brian (Crew Chief Brian Husen) and all the Kalitta Air Careers guys and thanks to Revchem, Toyota and Future Energy Solutions,” said Langdon. “This team’s been doing a great job giving me a good car. The points are tight at the top with Justin, Antron and me, but Doug (Kalitta), Steve (Torrence), and some other teams are right there, too. Today was great, but there’s still five races to go – that’s a lot of racing. It was a good start to the Countdown.”
J.R. Todd was the No. 11 qualifier at the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals. His best qualifying attempt came in the final session Saturday afternoon when he made a 3.973-second run at 325.61 mph.
Todd defeated Matt Hagan in the first round when he left the starting line before the four-time Funny Car champion and won the round despite Hagan having the quicker elapsed time. It was Todd’s fourth “hole-shot” win of the season. He advanced to the second round and made another strong run but lost to Jack Beckman, 3.917 to 3.947 seconds.
Todd leaves Reading in fourth place in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series point standings. He trails third-place Jack Beckman, who is racing for John Force, by 28 points and leads fifth-place Matt Hagan by 10 points with five races remaining in the season.
“We stole one in the first round – I don’t know how we got away with that,” said Todd. “I got one on the starting line, and then it quit before the finish line – it had some holes out on the left side, knocked the (blower) belt off and got the fire bottles so we had a mess to clean up. My DHL guys are some of the best out here. They work hard; they don’t (complain) and moan; they do whatever it takes to get it done.
“You hate racing Matt (Hagan) and those guys first round; they’re our buddies out here, and we want to see each other do well, but it’s go-time in the Countdown. We were lucky to get by first round, and then we got another tough draw in the second round with (Jack) Beckman in (John) Force’s car; that thing’s been running strong all year. We were happy to have some DHL guests with us today and appreciate them being here to support our DHL Toyota GR Supra – wish we could have gone a little further for them.”
Doug Kalitta was the No. 3 qualifier at the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals. His quickest qualifying pass came in the Friday evening-session when he needed just 3.736 seconds to reach the finish line at 335.73 mph. It was his 10th top-four qualifying position in the season’s first 14 races.
Kalitta raced Dan Mercier in the first round of eliminations. Kalitta’s Mac Tools dragster smoked the tires immediately, and Mercier cruised to the win.
Kalitta leaves Reading in fourth place in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series point standings. He trails the third-place driver, his teammate Shawn Langdon, by 27 points and leads fifth-place Steve Torrence by 25 points with five races remaining in the season.
“We qualified real well, and the Mac Tools car was running well,” said Kalitta. For whatever reason, the thing smoked the tires at the hit; it was one of those deals, and unfortunately, we let one get away. Hopefully we can just shake it off and be ready for Charlotte; we have a lot of racing left.”
Team Kalitta will be back in action Sept. 20-22, 2024, at the Betway NHRA Carolina Nationals in Concord, N.C., the second of six races making up the Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs. 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 September 16, 2024. 
