Dirt
Switching Gears
Longtime “dragster guy” Shawn
Langdon moves to Funny Car
By Josh Hachat
D
characteristics a little bit more.
Mentally, I feel a lot better
than I did before. In Vegas (for
licensing), I was holding on for
dear life. It was just a bat out of
hell and my mind wasn’t com-
prehending what was going on.”
Langdon believes he has a
car capable of winning races
already, and the 14- time event
winner in Top Fuel isn’t about
to concede anything, no mat-
ter the lack of experience and
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a Funny Car class as deep as it has been in years.
It’s a lot to overcome and a lot of constant learn-
ing on the fly, but Langdon isn’t afraid to talk
about winning races and earning a spot in the
Countdown to the Championship. Some of that
is Langdon’s faith in his own driving abilities and
some of it is simply an insatiable desire to simply
compete in the sport.
“To me, I just want to race. You can put me in
a golf cart, a shopping cart, I don’t care,” Lang-
don asserts.
But some of it is also being a part of a Kalitta
Motorsports group where everything just feels
Issue 130
emanding perfection and
struggling to wrap his head
around everything that was go-
ing on inside a Funny Car was
something that initially did not mix well for
Shawn Langdon.
The former Top Fuel world champ announced
he was moving to Funny Car for the 2018 season
and was getting licensed in the process. A natural
driver who has long prided himself on the ability
to drive anything – something that traces back
to Langdon’s successful sportsman roots – the
Funny Car was an entirely different animal. It
was creating both doubt and motivation at the
same time for the talented Langdon.
“After the first couple times in the Funny Car,
you’re not sure you can drive it,” Langdon says. “It
wears on your confidence. But you have to keep
telling yourself to give it time. I was getting a
little bit frustrated, but I was kind of using that
as a motivating factor. I’m going to get it, I just
needed more laps.”
Fast forward a few months and while there
remains nothing easy about harnessing the power
of a Funny Car, Langdon has made impressive
strides, running a 3.901 at preseason testing
in Phoenix. Langdon’s confidence and comfort
level – if that’s even an appropriate term for a
10,000-horsepower monster – have grown im-
mensely heading into the 2018 season, even if
he fully admits there is plenty still to learn. But
compared to how things were initially, Langdon
is in a far better headspace.
“I made 13 runs over four days (in Phoenix) so
I have a better understanding, the certain feels
of the car,” Langdon believes. “I’m learning the