CHANDLER, Ariz. (March 22, 2025) – – Doug Kalitta won the NHRA Arizona Nationals No. 1 qualifier, and his teammate, Shawn Langdon, won the season’s first Mission Foods NHRA Challenge in front of a sellout crowd at Firebird Motorsports Park near Phoenix.

During the Friday evening qualifying session, Kalitta’s SealMaster dragster was the only car in the 3.60s. Kalitta’s 3.688-second run at 330.39 mph gave him the provisional No. 1 qualifier. Saturday’s weather was quite warm, and Kalitta’s 3.668 easily held up through the Saturday afternoon qualifying sessions giving Kalitta the 60th No. 1 qualifier of his storied career.

“We were pretty happy with that run last night,” Kalitta said. “Alan and Mac (Crew Chief Alan Johnson and Assistant Crew Chief Mac Savage) and my whole SealMaster Toyota team got a good run in last night. My car has been going down the track every time so the SealMaster team is getting it done. I have to say, they’ve really done a nice job with this facility (Firebird Motorsports Park). The track is nice and smooth so hats off to everybody that was involved in the repaving.

“It’s Alan Johnson’s birthday today – it ended up being a pretty good day. We certainly appreciate Duke, Rhonda and Allison (Duke, Rhonda and Allison Thorson) with SealMaster coming on board this weekend along with Toyota, Mac Tools, Revchem and all our supporters. So far so good – we’ll see how Sunday goes. Like all these races, everybody’s running close so you have to get up on the wheel and make it happen on Sunday.”



While Kalitta was claiming his first No. 1 qualifier of the season, Langdon was winning the first Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge of the season in a rematch of the semifinals from the season-opening race in Gainesville, Fla., two weeks ago. Langdon defeated Jasmine Salinas in the semifinal rematch and then took out Tony Stewart to claim the title earning bonus money and championship bonus points that will be applied when the Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs begin in September.

“In this last year, the whole Kalitta Air Careers team turned around,” Langdon said. “Good job to the team and thanks to everybody at Kalitta Air, Dayco, Revchem and Toyota. The car’s been really good, and it’s nice to earn a little bit of extra money and some countdown points; it all starts to here. Hopefully we can cap it off tomorrow as the winner.”

Langdon is on a hot streak in Phoenix. Two years ago, he was the runner-up. Last year, he won the race, and this year, he earns the first trophy of the weekend with the Mission Foods Challenge win.

“There are some tracks that seem to work well with what you have, and Phoenix obviously is one of those,” Langdon said. “I remember always loving coming here as a kid racing Junior Dragster, and I’ve been able to get some wins in Super Comp as well so I love coming here. Brian and the whole Kalitta Air Careers Toyota team did a great job with the setup making great runs last year and continuing that success this year. The car is all of the guys and Brian – it’s all their talent and hard work. I’m just the guy that gets to show it off to the fans.

“Our clutch guy, Jeff Leister, had a health scare driving back from Gainesville, and he’s home recovering. We miss him, and today’s win was definitely for him.”

Kalitta will open eliminations against Travis Shumake; Langdon qualified third and will race Scott Palmer. In Funny Car, J.R. Todd, qualified No. 9 in the DHL GR Supra and will race No. 8 qualifier, Daniel Wilkerson, in the first round of eliminations.

Photos Courtesy: Kalitta Motorsports

The post DOUG KALITTA CLAIMS FIRST NO. 1 QUALIFIER OF SEASON; SHAWN LANGDON WINS MISSION CHALLENGE first appeared on Team Kalitta Motorsports.

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