ENNIS, Texas: It was a day of opposites for the Qatar Al Anabi Racing Top Fuel team on Friday. The team’s reigning world champion Shawn Langdon had trouble early but finished strong while Khalid AlBalooshi had a good start but a weak finish on the first day of qualifying at the 29th annual AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals in Ennis, Texas — the 20th of 24 races that make up the United States’ NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season and the second of six races that comprise the Countdown to the Championship NHRA Play-offs.
Langdon finished fourth and AlBalooshi was 12th after the first day. Qualifying resumed yesterday and eliminations were for today. The resumption of eliminations from last week’s postponed Pep Boys NHRA Carolina Nationals would happen during yesterday’s qualifying rounds.
Langdon’s day got off to a difficult start when his silver Al Anabi car smoked its tires in the first qualifying round. In the evening session, he was one of the early drivers and the World Champion was brilliant. His 3.774-second effort at more than 320mph was the best Top Fuel run of the day by far. However, as the track temperature cooled, the race track improved and three drivers made quicker runs than Langdon. Still, Langdon is fourth and in excellent shape heading into the remaining qualifying rounds and race day.
“That second run was a great way for the Al Anabi team to bounce back after smoking the tires in the first round,” Langdon said. “We know the Al Anabi car is capable of making runs like that every time it goes down the race track. Everybody on the team is working hard to make the car consistent, so that we can have a run at defending our World Championship for Sheikh Khalid and everyone in Qatar that supports our race team.”
AlBalooshi’s day got off to an excellent start when his gold Al Anabi car zipped right down the race track with the sixth-quickest run of the first session — placing the Dubai-born driver late in the order for the evening session — when conditions are best for quick runs. The gold Al Anabi car launched brilliantly and was on a superb run but the car went into tire shake —the tune-up was a bit too aggressive for the race track — and AlBalooshi aborted the remainder of the run. He is 12th after the first day.
In first qualifying session yesterday, AlBalooshi was scheduled to race veteran driver Morgan Lucas in the postponed second round of eliminations from last week’s race near Charlotte, North Carolina.
“The first run Friday afternoon was a good way to start the weekend,” AlBalooshi said. “In the night run, the car was very good early but we had a little too much power — the car shook the tires. I feel good about our car for the rest of the week. I think we can have a very good week. Saturday afternoon we will finish the Charlotte race and I like the way our car is running in the hot part of the day,” AlBalooshi added. THE PENINSULA
