SHAWN LANGDON SCORES IMPRESSIVE ST. LOUIS FUNNY CAR WIN

Written by Tracy Renck, photos by Roger Richards    Mon, 2019-09-30 08:00

 

Shawn Langdon had his immense driving talent on full display Sunday at the AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals in St. Louis.

Those skills landed him in the winners circle in his Kalitta Motorsports Global ElectronicTechnology Toyota in the second of six races in the Countdown to the Championship.

Langdon clocked a 4.068-second elapsed time at 310.41 mph to edge his Kalitta Motorsports teammate and reigning world champ J.R. Todd, who got loose late in the run and came across the finish line in 4.276 seconds at 223.32 mph.

“It’s like my Friday night (drive-up) song said, ‘Don’t call it a comeback,” Langdon said. “We struggled in Reading (Pa., the previous race, losing in the first round). I have to give a lot of credit to the whole Kalitta camp. We made a lot of changes. Changes you normally wouldn’t make, front-halving it, a lot of credit goes to everybody back at Kalitta in the chassis shop for making that call. Then, we changed a lot of different things. It was like one thing after another. Del (Worsham) and Nicky (Boninfante) (Landgon’s crew chiefs) did an awesome job. My whole team did an awesome job. This was a big one.”

This was Langdon’s second win of the season and second nitro Funny Car win of his career – he won the Four-Wide Nationals April 28 in Charlotte, N.C.

Langdon, who won the 2013 NHRA Mello Yello Series Top Fuel world championship, joins select company in St. Louis with his latest win. He and Gary Scelzi are the only drivers in St. Louis to win Top Fuel and nitro Funny Car Wallys. Scelzi won three times in Top Fuel in St. Louis – 1998-2000 and once in Funny Car in 2004.

Langdon, meanwhile, won the Top Fuel crown in St. Louis in 2016 while driving for Don Schumacher Racing.  This was Langdon’s 16th career NHRA national event win with 14 of those coming in Top Fuel.

On Sunday, Langdon beat Tommy Johnson Jr. on a holeshot, won a pedalfest in found two against Jim Campbell, edged Bob Tasca III with just enough horsepower and then upended Todd in the finals.

Not bad considering Langdon qualified No. 10 with a 3.905-second ET at 310.41 mph.

“What an incredible day,” Langdon said. “Going through qualifying, we didn’t have a fast race car, we had a consistent race car. After Reading (Pa.) where we smoked the tires a lot and blew the tires off at the starting line we kind of had to go a little bit of a conservative mode, but it really kind of put us behind in qualifying and we qualified 10th and had to race a very tough car in Tommy Johnson in the first round. They told me they were going to give me the best car they can, and they left it up to me and fortunately it worked out. We ended up getting a holeshot win and gave the guys a little bit of confidence.

We came back second round and it was not supposed to do that. It was not supposed to do that. It blew the tires off at the hit. I feel like I have a lot of learning to do in driving a Funny Car because it is a lot different than a dragster. I took my time and was patient and allowed the car to recover and I squeezed the throttle back and I saw him (Campbell) having some issue. My old Super Comp days came back in because as I was tracking, I could see I was going to get there first. I could tell the motor was laboring really hard, so I clicked off a little bit early before the finish line. I didn’t want to blow anything up anymore than I already probably am. With that win there, I knew my guys were going to get their sh*t together and they saved my butt in the semis. I made a killer run against Tasca.”

Langdon, who entered St. Louis 10th in the points standings, moved up to seventh in the points – 80 behind leader Robert Hight.

“In the final, I don’t know what happened,” Langdon said. “I hit the gas and I heard that thing laboring, but it was a final round in the Countdown, and I wasn’t lifting for nothing. I was expecting to the yellow car (Todd’s) and our car was struggling, but fortunately we got the yellow win light. We have felt like we have had a car capable of winning for a while now and we keep running into the buzz saws in every round. We felt like we had a big day today.”

This has been a successful couple of weeks for Langdon on the drag racing scene. Last weekend, Langdon participated in the Sparco Fall Fling 500 in Bristol, Tenn., one of the majors on the high-dollar bracket racing scene. He scored a runner-up on Day 2, the $30,000-to-win day.

Up next for Langdon is the NHRA Carolina Nationals Oct. 11-13.

“Any time you get a win in the Funny Car class it builds momentum and we need to keep it going,” Langdon said. 

 

 
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