Results compiled by Kay Burk
Photos by Richard Muir

Maple Grove Raceway and several of the NHRA competitors were decked in pink at the Auto-Plus NHRA Nationals in honor of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Shawn Langdon and Matt Smith extended their points leads and John Force and Jeg Coughlin Jr. took the lead in their classes coming out of the fourth of six events in the Countdown to the Mello Yello series championships.

TOP FUEL

Shawn Langdon powered his Al-Anabi Racing dragster to a run of 3.779 seconds at 323.81 mph to beat defending world champion Antron Brown in the final round and close in on his first career world championship. Langdon earned his class-best sixth win of the season and seventh of his career by topping Brown and his Matco Tools dragster, which went 3.806 at 322.04 in Brown’s second straight final round appearance.

“We have a good grasp on things, but there’s two races left and anything can happen,” Langdon said. “The competition level is so tough right now so you can’t take anything for granted.”

Langdon, who qualified No. 2 and won for the first time at Maple Grove Raceway, beat Leah Pruett in an entertaining peddle-fest, Bob Vandergriff and Doug Kalitta to reach the final round and extend his Top Fuel lead to 83 points over Kalitta with two races remaining. Langdon went 3.794 at 324.67 to beat Kalitta’s 3.827 at 324.90 in a thrilling side-by-side semifinal matchup. Spencer Massey trails Langdon by 86 points in third.

“We had a little bit of luck and you need that on Sundays,” Langdon said, referencing his first round win against Pruett. “Going into the semifinals, that was a huge pressure situation. As a driver, I’m just trying to calm myself down. This Al-Anabi team knows how to win championships and I’m just trying to do the best I can. My mentality is just don’t mess anything up.”

The performance of Antron Brown's Top Fuel Dragster is back to where it was when they won two of this year's first seven events before falling into a midyear slump.

His Matco Tools' Tools for the Cause dragster tuned by crew chiefs Brian Corradi and Mark Oswald won the event title a week ago, their third of 2013, near St. Louis and advanced to Sunday's championship round of the NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway near Reading, Pa.

That should have been enough for the Don Schumacher Racing team to make a major gain in the standings, but the driver he lost to in the final is the driver he is trying to catch. When Langdon won the late afternoon match he gained 20 points on Brown, who now trails the leader by 129 but moved up one spot to fifth in the Countdown to the Championship standings.