Story By: ROB GOODMAN / KALITTA MOTORSPORTS – YPSILANTI, MI – When it’s been a while since the last victory, sometimes, returning to the place of a career milestone can be the missing piece of the winner’s circle puzzle. The 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Season resumes July 19-21, 2024 at the NHRA Northwest Nationals in Kent, Wash.
Shawn Langdon won his first-career national event at Pacific Raceways in 2002. That Super Comp national event win was the first of many for the Mira Loma, Calif., native, he also has three runner-up finishes in Seattle – two in Top Fuel and one in Super Gas. The 2013 Top Fuel champion last won in Phoenix seven races ago. That said, Langdon finished the first half of the season third in points with two wins in four final rounds.
“I’m looking forward to getting to Seattle and making some good runs so we can start the Western swing on the right foot,” Langdon said. “The first half of the season was really good for our team, but we tested last week to learn some things we can apply to the car to make it run better in the next couple of races, and I think we were able to achieve that. We just want our Kalitta Air Careers car to run quicker and faster.”
Two of Langdon’s four final-round appearances came in the last month, and he earned his first No. 1 qualifier of the season at Richmond two races ago. While each race increases in importance as the regular season winds down, the Kalitta Air Careers Toyota team will stick with its routine and strive for consistently-strong runs in the last four races of the regular season.
“Seattle is another race, and we’ll address it the same way we addressed the first 10 races of the season,” Langdon said. “Our job is to put in the work during the week, prepare ourselves as well we can and let the results take care of the rest. We just want to do the best job we can possibly do to prepare ourselves for this next race. Brian (Husen) continues to do a great job in his first season as a crew chief. We’ve done well in qualifying and run well on race day. We’re still progressing as a team, and he’s still learning as a crew chief, but overall, we’re in the championship hunt so it’s good.”