{"id":30775,"date":"2016-09-30T12:05:15","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T19:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=30775"},"modified":"2018-08-16T12:35:45","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T19:35:45","slug":"shawn-langdon-defies-the-odds-back-in-countdown-chase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/shawn-langdon-defies-the-odds-back-in-countdown-chase\/","title":{"rendered":"Shawn Langdon Defies the Odds, Back in Countdown Chase"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shawn<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As the NHRA Mello Yello Countdown to Championship reaches its midway point, the tour travels to this weekend\u2019s Maple Grove Raceway in nearby Reading, Pa. for the Dodge NHRA Nationals.\u00a0 The importance of this race is due to the numerous upsets in St. Louis, which provided plenty of upheaval in the standings.\u00a0 The biggest mover and shaker to emerge in the Top Fuel category was Shawn Langdon, vaulting from seventh to fourth in the standings after winning his third race of the season and now only 77 points out of the lead.<\/p>\n

Going into that race, the outlook for Langdon\u2019s campaign was uncertain after losing the first round in Charlotte and thus slipping in the points.\u00a0 His steep climb back into prominence started with the Red Fuel\/Sandvik team countering with a crucial round win to alleviate potential elimination of his Don Schumacher Racing team, beating his teammate and defending champ, Antron Brown. \u00a0Everything hung in the balance with that one round; from there he had \u2018monster matchups\u2019 the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Shawn<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives us a good shot now,\u201d said a confident Langdon.\u00a0 \u201cGoing into that event, we were 160 plus points out of the lead, which basically set us eight rounds out of first place with five races to go.\u00a0 We had a huge match up with Antron, our teammate, first round.\u00a0 If we had lost that round, we were facing going to the next four races then nine rounds out.\u00a0 Losing that round probably would have knocked us out of contention and we knew what was at stake going into that first round.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely didn\u2019t have an easy side of the ladder and we had a pretty difficult way to get to the final.\u00a0 You know, we took it one round at a time and focused on keeping the car consistent.\u00a0 We had a good car in qualifying.\u00a0 We just tried to treat each and every individual round differently, trying to race smart.\u00a0 Just do everything we felt we could do to give us the best chance to win the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

That \u2018not so easy\u2019 side of the ladder consisted of Brown, Doug Kalitta, No. 1 Qualifier Richie Crampton and, in the finals, eight-time champion Tony Schumacher.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this day and age there\u2019s really no easy draw that you\u2019re going to get first round,\u201d said Langdon.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s so many good competitive race cars out there, you never really ever take any rounds lightly.\u00a0 Obviously running Antron, they\u2019re our teammate and they are first in the points, and have won the most races this year.\u00a0 We know what that team is capable of, so I guess, that was a little bit in the back of our mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we had to make a good run.\u00a0 Fortunately, we were able to have lane choice, so we felt a little bit more confident being in the right lane.\u00a0 It\u2019s never an easy road getting to the final round.\u00a0 This was probably one of the toughest roads that I\u2019ve had to face with Antron, first in points Doug Kalitta, second in points Richie Crampton, the No.1 Qualifier, and then going into the final round against Tony Schumacher, who is an eight-time champion and No. 3 in points.\u00a0 Obviously, Tony is known for his clutch performances.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Shawn<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Langdon\u2019s quick right foot edged Schumacher\u2019s time, winning the race on a hole shot in the finals, reacting first with .032-light producing a time of 3.798 seconds, 323.66 mph to outdistance Schumacher\u2019s quicker pass of 3.783 seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back on it, it was a picture-perfect weekend,\u201d said Langdon, the 2013 Top Fuel champion.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t think we could have scripted any better with how everything played out.\u00a0 As I\u2019ve said earlier, at the end of the race, you don\u2019t want to, ideally, in the perfect situation, run your teammate first round, but with our situation for our Red Fuel-Sandvik team, we needed Antron to go out early for us to have a chance at the championship.\u00a0 Taking all those guys out, we maximized our potential in the points category of making up the most rounds for the championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

His starting line abilities are impeccable; that comes from Langdon\u2019s sportsman racing background. He grew up around the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m racing my sportsman car at a national event, it\u2019s from the instant, Friday morning, that I have that race mentality going,\u201d said the 34-year old, originally from Mira Loma, Calif.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s just a different frame of mind.\u00a0 I probably had one of my best driving performances that I felt that I\u2019ve had in a long time, probably since the 2013 season. \u00a0I don\u2019t know how it all transpired or how it all came about; it was the sportsman racing that kind of got me in the right frame of mind, but I felt good on Sunday.\u00a0 I felt like I had a chance and felt like they had given me a great race car.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t been that confident in a long time.\u00a0 I think beating Antron first round really helped that out.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"196-ShawnLangdon-Sunday-Norwalk[1]\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Regarding his current situation, after seeing a 3.67 from earlier this season, how much performance can he get from his DSR dragster? Reading is noted for its cooler weather, and with the abundance of oxygen from the surrounding greenery, more National Records have probably been set at Maple Grove than at any other track.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year, we\u2019re getting that little bit more data, information, better parts going into the car, better blowers, better clutches, Goodyear coming out with better tires just to show you the improvements,\u201d said Langdon.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s just all these things that have continually gotten better, and that\u2019s why the car\u2019s performances have not only gotten better, but more consistent.\u00a0 Going to a track like Reading, the cool conditions, as we\u2019ve seen in the past, makes Maple Grove one of those tracks that can hold a 3.60 without a problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we definitely have to have an aggressive mentality going into the weekend. It’ll depend on how the weather conditions are and how many runs we get. Our main focus is to qualify for the race.\u00a0 I think with the way all these cars are running, if we have conditions set up, I believe like Brainerd was, where it was nice, cool, cloudy with a cool track temp, I\u2019m thinking you\u2019re probably going to have to run a 3.60 something just to get in the top half, just in qualifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s getting pretty brutal, pretty fast, as far as how quick all these cars are going.\u00a0 In Brainerd the top five or six had to run a 3.69 or better.\u00a0 There\u2019s a couple of cars that didn\u2019t get in at Brainerd that were very capable of doing it.\u00a0 That\u2019s what makes it fun.\u00a0 To me, as a driver, I enjoy those races more because of not only the speed rush of adrenaline of doing it, but what comes out. Seeing all these quick and fast times, the big 330 mph, it gets you a little giddy inside where it\u2019s very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what does Langdon expect to see out of the next four events for his team?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a free-for-all, absolutely,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cI really feel like we have some of our best racing that I\u2019ve ever seen, as far as how close all the drivers are with reaction time, and just one little mistake can cost you.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s our biggest thing, is minimizing any mistakes at the last four races, and then capitalizing on any mistakes the other teams make.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty brutal right now in our category.\u00a0 As long as we do that and maintain the consistency that we have in our race car, I think we\u2019ll be able to go into Las Vegas and Pomona having a fighting chance at the championship, but I don\u2019t think this is going to be the year where you have a runaway winner.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s going to come down to Pomona.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s going to come down to a couple of drivers and a very exciting end to the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Television coverage starts on Friday with the second round of qualifying LIVE on FS1 at 6:00 p.m. ET on Sept.30.\u00a0 That\u2019s followed by qualifying coverage at 2 a.m. on Sunday, with the Finals airing live on FS1 starting at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 2.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Shawn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The biggest mover and shaker to emerge in the Top Fuel category of the NHRA Nationals was Shawn Langdon, vaulting from seventh to fourth in the standings.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":30781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,3399],"tags":[547,41,7,1380,1632,4895,73],"class_list":["post-30775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-nhra","tag-jay-wells","tag-news","tag-nhra","tag-nhra-nationals","tag-racing","tag-shawn-langon","tag-top-fuel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/lead-4.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-80n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30782,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30775\/revisions\/30782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}