On the cusp of his second season with Al-Anabi Racing, Top Fuel driver Shawn Langdon is in a very good position. In 2012, the 30-year-old driver set forth on a journey led by team owner Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Thani and team manager Alan Johnson, the latter of whose successes during his tenure as a crew chief included a remarkable 14 national championship titles.
With crew chief Brian Husen — Johnson’s partner on the U.S. Army Top Fuel dragster driven by Tony Schumacher during an extremely successful eight-year stint at Don Schumacher Racing — turning the wrenches, the group worked through early growing pains until solidarity came to pass, and by midseason, they were on course for a strong finish and a bright start to the 2013 season on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour.
“I look at everything that happened last year as a positive,” said Langdon, a second-generation driver who honed his skills in the Sportsman ranks with two national Super Comp championships before turning Pro and spending three seasons as the second Top Fuel driver at Morgan Lucas Racing.
“It was a big transition for me to move over to Team Al-Anabi and race for Sheikh Khalid and Alan Johnson after having been with the Lucas family for so long. It felt like I was going out on my own a little bit, but it was a big opportunity, and it was a big year. We had much higher expectations than where we finished, but it was a great learning year for us all.”
On paper, it would seem that early in the season the still-jelling team was on to something but didn’t quite have the exact formula, but by midyear, the two-car operation — Langdon piloted the silver Al-Anabi rail and Khalid alBalooshi wheeled Al-Anabi gold — was gaining ground.
After a string of frustrating first-round losses, Jason McCulloch-tuned alBalooshi started to see first-round win lights on a regular basis, and Langdon, who maintained a perch in the top 10 all year long, got championship fever.“[Early in the year] it was one of those things where you set your expectations a little bit high, but we always felt confident in the team we put together,” said Langdon.
“It was a little frustrating in that we just wanted to do well, we wanted to represent our team very well, and we wanted to win races, but the level of competition rose last year; it was so much more competitive than it has been in previous years from the standpoint of crew chief, driver, and R&D. It was a little bit humbling, but we knew we had to keep pressing forward, get the cars better, and as drivers, we knew we had to make ourselves better, too. I really felt like once we hit the Western Swing, we hit our stride.”Langdon qualified in the top half at all but three of the first 12 races before the Swing, which brought the teams out West for the notoriously strenuous three-in-a-row sequence. He was the No. 1 qualifier at the Phoenix event at the second race of the year, and he had three semifinal appearances on the books, but a final round was out of reach until Seattle, where he qualified fourth and raced to the money round opposite eventual winner Steve Torrence.The successful outing boosted Langdon up a position, to sixth, in the series standings, and after a slight stumble in Brainerd, he regained footing with three consecutive No. 1 qualifying positions with his first career Top Fuel victory sandwiched in the middle. The win in Charlotte put Langdon in a position to make a serious run at the championship.“That was great. For me, I was just watching what Alan was doing throughout the year, and I knew he was doing everything for a reason,” said Langdon. “He was doing things in order to progress our team and be better in the future, and I really stood behind what he said. I believed in him and the team and all the guys, and it came to the point where we started running better, and the car was getting more and more consistent.
“Winning the first race of the Countdown really built my confidence as a driver. Just being in the Countdown brings you a different mentality as a driver — everything is on the line. There is no room to make mistakes. You have to be the best every single time you get up there, and you don’t want to let your team down, especially after how hard they worked throughout the year. At the beginning of the year, I was a little nervous. Like I said, it was a big transition, but as I got to know everyone and became more comfortable, everything started falling into place.”Three events later, in Reading, Langdon was situated fourth in the Countdown with his eyes set on climbing even higher with just a handful of races left.
The Auto-Plus NHRA Nationals were delayed by weather, and on Monday morning as eliminations resumed in very brisk conditions, Langdon clocked a blazing 3.71 at 334 mph, the quickest and fastest run in the history of the class, that would have been good for the national record (and 20 precious bonus points toward the championship) had Antron Brown not nabbed it from him in the very next round.The semifinals in Reading painted an interesting scene; it pitted Langdon against teammate alBalooshi, who got the nod and went on to notch his first Top Fuel victory after Langdon fell into tire shake.“It’s hard to say what could have happened if we would have beat him and won the race,” said Langdon, who stayed fourth in points for the remainder of the year.
“There is always a coulda shoulda woulda, but I think that for the betterment of our whole racing operation, it played out perfect. We made an excellent run that morning, and we were just trying to push the car and see what it could hold. We didn’t want to go up there and play games, we didn’t want to dictate the championship by [alBalooshi] going up there and laying down for me because I’m in the points and he’s not. The bottom line is that each team had worked their butts off, and we felt it was only fair, not only for our guys but also for all the fans that we race it out, and may the best man win. He beat me and fortunately went on to beat Antron, and it really worked out good for everybody, I think.”Though he went out early at the season closer in Pomona, Langdon finished the year with the sixth low qualifier award of his career and fifth of the season, and what lies ahead for the young gun and his strengthening team is what drives them all.“We had high expectations last year. We wanted to win the championship and every race we went to,” said Langdon. “But we got the first victory out of the way, finished fourth, and that’s nothing to hang your head about. Last year is only feeding our hunger for this next year. Alan is very, very determined — I can see it in his eyes. We tested in December, and we’re testing in January, and you can see it in everyone on the team and even with Sheikh Khalid; we’re ready to go.” (NHRA)
