A season that started with a bang with two wins in the first three races leveled off, but 2013 NHRA Top Fuel champion Shawn Langdon finds himself in the thick of the battle for the 2024 title. The 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Season resumes Aug. 16-18, 2024 at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, Minn.

Langdon and his Kalitta Air Careers Toyota team won those two races early in the season, and since that time, he reached the final round three times but lost to Antron Brown in the Chicago final, his teammate, Doug Kalitta in the Richmond final and Steve Torrence in the Seattle final round. That has the Mira Loma, Calif., native in second place in the NHRA Top Fuel point standings 125 points behind Kalitta. With two races remaining before the Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs, things are about to get real.

“Every race from here on out really counts,” Langdon said. “It’s obviously very important to do well this weekend and to do well at Indy to set yourself up for the countdown. We’re kind of full steam ahead with everything at this point. Our plan is to go out there, do the best we can with everything and try to keep the Kalitta cars one-two in points. At this point, it’s about making sure all of your stuff is right – your parts and pieces, your crew guys. The car’s been running well – we’ve hit a couple bumps here or there, but we’ve been qualifying well. We just need to continue doing what we’re doing; we don’t really need to change anything.”

Some could be concerned about winning two races early in the season but not in the more-recent months, but this Kalitta Air Careers team knows to evaluate what happened so they can apply what they learned. 

“It’s just a matter of making sure everything is set up right,” Langdon said. “We have all the same stuff we had at the beginning of the season; the car was running great. We got to the right races at the right time, and we were able to win some races. Lately, we’ve still been making good runs. We were a little too aggressive at some tracks – learning curve. We had some races where we were a little too soft on the setup – learning curve. Now we just have to find the happy medium.”

While taking first place in points after the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis feels like a reach at the moment, the standings are far tighter behind Langdon. He leads third-place Steve Torrence by 25 points, fourth-place Justin Ashley by 33 points and fifth-place Antron Brown by 34 points. Some shuffling among those positions is certainly possible in the regular season’s final two races, but is Langdon thinking about those pursuing him most closely? 

“You can’t say you don’t because you do, but at the end of the day, all the points reset after Indy so it’s not the end of the world,” Langdon added. “That said, you still want to do the best you can to finish as high as possible. During the Countdown, every point matters so if you can get seeded a little higher, it kinda gives you a little better starting advantage.

Also this weekend, the driver Langdon trails will start his 600th career race – the first in the Top Fuel class to reach that milestone.

“That’s a lot of races – really cool for Doug,” Langdon said. “He’s been around for years, and there aren’t many guys who have gone 600 races. It shows the Kalitta commitment to the sport is second to none. I’m really happy for him.”