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Chad Green scores Funny Car triumph at Joliet, Ill., in rematch with Alexis DeJoria.
Kalitta Motorsports’ Brian Husen, crew chief for Top Fuel driver Shawn Langdon, said the team “stunk the place up through qualifying” at the NHRA Gerber Glass and Collision Route 66 Nationals this weekend.
The Kalitta Air Dragster driver won the Top Fuel final round over Antron Brown, stretched his lead in the standings over closest competitor and teammate Doug Kalitta to 54 points, and won the Mission Foods #2Fast#2Tasty Challenge bonus race for cash and extra Countdown to the Championship points. But he started mid-pack, from the ninth position, and eliminated Shawn Reed, Kalitta, and track-speed-record-holder Josh Hart to reach the final against Brown.
Langdon joined Chad Green , Aaron Stanfield , and Matt Smith in the winners circle. Green defeated Alexis DeJoria in a rematch of their season-starting Gatornationals final round for his career-fourth victory and second of the season. The showdowns in the Pro Stock classes were a bit anticlimactic, decided at the starting line.
Aaron Stanfield, who defeated his father Greg Stanfield along the way to the Pro Stock final, won as opponent Greg Anderson fouled out. And Matt Smith sailed to his second-straight victory in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class because wife Angie Smith’s bike broke on the launch during their final-round match-up.
“It’s a dream season with a dream team. I didn’t do nothin’ special. I just didn’t mess up,” Langdon said after securing his second consecutive victory.
“Brian and the whole Kalitta Air crew gave me such a great race car all day. We definitely had a big turnaround from qualifying. Brian realized that we had to tame some things down in the car.
“Having to run Doug second round wasn’t ideal, but at the end of the day,” the Valdosta, Georgia, winner two weeks ago said, “we had to get some information for our car and make a good run, and then from there, today was a little bit tricky. Brian’s gotten really good lately, just off of his gut feeling, making those last-second little changes, but I could tell that they had two different game plans, and one was when the sun was out and one for when the cloud cover was there.
They were able to adapt when they needed to and provided a great race car for four rounds. Two in a row—that’s pretty good. ”“The whole team aspect of this sport doesn’t get enough recognition. This is 100-percent a team sport, just like football or basketball,” Green said.
“The drivers, they get a lot of the fame and glory. To be honest, what these guys do is just incredible And to go out there and turn on four win lights on a Sunday is so difficult. These guys have to do everything perfect every round, and we’ve got to out and beat the best guys out there doin’ it. So can’t say enough about the team – and I got a good one.
” Before his final round against DeJoria, he said he worried, “Is she going to get me back? ” Stoking his concerns was the fact “she’s driving a John Force car and those cars . That was a dang good race. Very close race – good championship drag racing there.
” Next on the Mission Foods Drag Racing Series calendar is the May 29-31 Potomac Nationals at Maryland International Raceway. Susan Wade has lived in the Seattle area for 40 years, but motorsports is in the Indianapolis native’s DNA. She has emerged as one of the leading drag-racing writers with nearly 30 seasons at the racetrack, focusing on the human-interest angle.
She was the first non-NASCAR recipient of the prestigious Russ Catlin Award and has covered the sport for the Chicago Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger, and Seattle Times. She has contributed to Autoweek as a freelance writer since 2016.
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