Shawn Langdon and his Kalitta Air Carriers Toyota team continue to compete at a high level. With a third of the season completed and Langdon currently third in points, there is no doubt this team will continue to do great things in the future. The 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing season will resume with the SuperGrip NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tennessee, June 7-9, 2024.
Langdon made it to the semifinals at last week’s NHRA New England Nationals where he ran into a fierce bunch known as Doug Kalitta and his Mack Tools team. All three Team Kalitta cars made it to the semifinals with Kalitta winning. Langdon has made at least the semifinals in four of the seven races this season and four of the five two-wide races.
“All three cars had a good weekend in New Hampshire,” Langdon said. “We did a round with all three cars and the track was warm, so we’re pretty confident in our setup in hot weather and pretty confident for the next two races. The temperatures weren’t as high (in New Hampshire), but it’s all somewhat correlated. When the sun is out, the track temperature gets warmer, and the UV rays are higher, so on really sunny days the track temperature gets a little higher.”
Langdon’s early season success has been fueled by the success of his teammates, with Kalitta sitting second in points and Langdon third, and both teams performing at a consistently high level, which has big implications both psychologically and for the team’s tuning decisions.
“It’s great when you have two cars running well,” Langdon added. “They can work with each other and bounce ideas off each other. It’s a pretty good package deal what we have going on right now. After one team runs, the other team can learn from the first team’s run. So it’s a really big plus for a team to have two cars and always have a good, strong run.”
“Brian (crew chief Brian Husen) and everybody did a great job preparing the car. Brian did a great job making some really good decisions. There are certainly little areas we can improve on, but for the most part it’s a competitive car every week. It’s always a good feeling when you’re in a good car. We’re only a third of the way through the season, but I think we’re definitely heading in the right direction.”
This weekend, Langdon returns to the course where he has won twice, but it presents plenty of challenges, especially when the course temperatures soar under bright, sunny skies in the Tennessee mountains.
“Bristol has great views but the track is really difficult. The track is bumpy and when the temperature rises the bumps become a disadvantage. It’s a track where you have to give it your all on Friday night to get a good position in qualifying and then the rest of the weekend you have to figure out how to get the car going on the track. The track has been resurfaced which definitely helps. We’ll see how things are when we get there this weekend.”
Langdon advanced to the semifinals last week to qualify for next week’s Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge, during Saturday’s qualifying session at Bristol, where drivers who advance to the semifinals in Epping, New Hampshire, will re-run the semifinals and finals to earn additional prize money and championship bonus points.
This story was originally published on June 5, 2024. 
