Top Fuel teammates Shawn Langdon and Morgan Lucas will open eliminations for the 22nd annual
O'Reilly Midsouth Nationals with a familiar foe in the opposite lane as for the first time the two
longtime pals will face one another in competition.
"Shawn and me have been friends for a long time, all the way back to our school days, and we used
to dream about driving Top Fuel dragsters. Now we're living our dreams together," said Lucas, who
owns both his and Langdon's dragster. "I've already made an executive decision -- we're going to go
up there and race heads-up, may the best man win. We owe that to the fans and we owe it to our
sponsors.
"Both of us are still in the championship hunt so it's too early to start worrying about anything
else at this point. I just want us to have a good, clean race and give the fans their money's
worth."
Langdon holds the advantage of lane choice over Lucas after qualifying eighth with a 3.883 at
313.00 mph in his Lucas Oil/Dixie Chopper dragster. Lucas was next on the elimination ladder with a
ninth-best 3.897 at 308.57 mph in the GEICO Powersports/Lucas Oil dragster.
"It's not the way you want to start race day but it's how the ladder ended up," Langdon said.
"We've talked about running into each other before and we decided the coolest place for that to
happen would be in the final round when we know one of us would end up winning the race. I guess
that will have to wait.
"Right now we're a little more concerned about the motors because we hurt a few in qualifying and
we're not sure why. Jimmy (Walsh, Lucas' tuner) and Stewie (crew chief John Stewart) have been
talking back and forth trying to figure it all out. They've managed to give Morgan and me some
awesome racecars all year so I'm confident we'll be in good shape by tomorrow morning."
As the eighth and ninth qualifiers, it's likely the Langdon v. Lucas tilt will be the first one of
the day, with eliminations scheduled to start at 11 a.m. CST.
"At least we know one of our team cars will win that round," Lucas said with a laugh."
