Team Kalitta Takes Tight Championship Battles To NHRA Brainerd Nationals

There’s dominating a race weekend, and then there’s what Kalitta Motorsports has been doing throughout the 2026 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season.

With only two races remaining before the Countdown to the Championship begins, Team Kalitta arrives at the NHRA Brainerd Nationals with Shawn Langdon and Doug Kalitta separated by just five points at the top of the Top Fuel standings. Meanwhile, J.R. Todd has worked his way into third in Funny Car and sits only 42 points out of the lead.

The numbers behind the team’s Top Fuel performance are impressive. Langdon and Kalitta have combined to win seven of the first 12 races, while Team Kalitta’s dragsters have competed in 45 of 47 possible rounds of racing.

Now the battle for the NHRA regular-season championships gets serious.

Shawn Langdon Holds A Five-Point Top Fuel Lead

Shawn Langdon has occupied the top spot in the NHRA Top Fuel standings thanks to one of the strongest seasons of his career.

The 2013 Top Fuel world champion enters Brainerd with four victories, three runner-up finishes, two semifinal appearances, and five No. 1 qualifying positions in 2026. He has also qualified first, second, and fourth over the previous three events.

Langdon’s Kalitta Air Careers dragster has also been plenty fast. At the Southern Nationals in Georgia, he recorded 345.00- and 344.91-mph passes, the two fastest runs in NHRA history.

But with teammate Kalitta now just five points behind him, there isn’t much room for error.

“Every race from here on out really counts. It’s obviously very important to do well this weekend and to do well at Indy to set yourself up for the countdown (Countdown to the Championship NHRA Playoffs). 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 win the regular-season championship. 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.

“It feels good to be in the points lead. That’s our goal; it’s where we wanna be, but we obviously want to keep the lead. We need to keep plugging along and hopefully hold onto it through these last two races of the regular season. It’s gonna be difficult with the competition in Top Fuel – especially Doug (Teammate Doug Kalitta), but our job is to keep doing what we’re doing. Hopefully, we can win one of those to secure it (regular season title) and give us a good start to the playoffs.

“We’re still in the batter’s box, and we’ll keep swinging – we want to hit the ball every time. We’re excited to get to Brainerd – looking to go some rounds and get back to the winner’s circle.”

One thing missing from Langdon’s resume is a Brainerd victory. His best performance at Brainerd International Raceway came in 2024 when he reached the final round.

Ending that drought this weekend would come at a perfect time.

Doug Kalitta Is Coming In Hot

If there’s one driver Langdon probably doesn’t want filling his mirrors right now, it’s Doug Kalitta.

Kalitta was 150 points behind his teammate entering Sonoma. Two races later, that deficit has been reduced to five points after back-to-back victories at Sonoma Raceway and Pacific Raceways.

His Seattle victory was the 62nd of his career, tying Larry Dixon for third on NHRA’s all-time Top Fuel victories list. Kalitta now has three victories, four runner-up finishes, three semifinal appearances, and three No. 1 qualifiers in 2026.

That’s championship-level momentum, and it comes as the two-time and defending Top Fuel champion heads to a track where he has historically performed well.

Kalitta is the defending NHRA Brainerd Nationals winner and owns three victories in five final-round appearances at Brainerd, along with four No. 1 qualifiers.

“When you have Alan (Crew Chief Alan Johnson) up there doing his thing, you know your car has a really good opportunity – particularly when we get to the final round. Alan’s usually dialed in pretty good when it gets to the end of the day, and he really had it dialed in for the western swing; I’m very fortunate. Alan is really all about getting down towards the end of the year. He has a lot of championships (14 Top Fuel titles), and this is the time of the year he really focuses on making it happen more than any other time. He always seems to pull it off. It’s gonna be exciting.

Kalitta’s Consistency Is Becoming A Problem For The Competition

A Top Fuel car capable of putting up a big number is nice. A car that repeats is what wins championships.

Kalitta believes that’s one of the biggest reasons his Mac Tools team has been able to turn up the pressure during the second half of the season.

“Our Mac Tools team is on a pretty good run – we just need to keep doing what we’re doing as a team. All my guys are doing an incredible job. It really takes everybody putting that thing together exactly the same for the consistency. If you don’t have that, you aren’t gonna get it done, so hats off to all my guys. They’re clicking; I just try to keep feeding them water or whatever I can do to help.

That consistency will be particularly important at Brainerd with so few opportunities remaining before the points reset.

“Brainerd’s always been a good track for us over the years. The Mac Tools guys had a few weeks off, so I know they’re raring to go. We’re all looking forward to getting there, getting this thing in the show and seeing what we can do. The car’s running great, and it’s a lot of fun right now; we’re hoping to have a great event up there at Brainerd this weekend. It’s always a great place to go – I look forward to it every year. Hopefully, it’ll be a great weekend for us; we’re looking forward to getting back at it for sure.”

J.R. Todd Has Joined The Funny Car Championship Fight

The Team Kalitta championship story isn’t limited to Top Fuel.

J.R. Todd arrives at Brainerd third in the Funny Car standings, only five points behind second-place Jack Beckman and 42 behind leader Ron Capps. Even more impressive is just how tight the Funny Car battle has become: the top five are separated by only 64 points with two regular-season races remaining.

Todd’s timing couldn’t be much better.

He snapped his winless streak in Seattle and joined Kalitta in the winner’s circle, giving Kalitta Motorsports only its second nitro double in team history and its first since Gainesville in March 2024.

“Winning in Seattle was definitely a weight off our shoulders. I feel like we let a couple slip through the cracks earlier in the season. We had some clutch disc issues that I think we’ve sorted out. I was so happy for my guys because they’d been busting their butts all season. To be able to double up with Dougy (Top Fuel Teammate Doug Kalitta) was huge – we’d been trying to do that for so long, and it was awesome. It’s great that we got to make Connie (Team Owner Connie Kalitta) proud – I wish he’d been there because it’s so hard to win these things, and then to double up. We’d only done it once with Shawn (Top Fuel Teammate Shawn Langdon) in Gainesville a couple years ago, and now to do it with Doug, I can’t thank Connie, Dougie and everybody that lets me drive Scott’s car (Scott Kalitta’s car). We got it back in the winners’ circle where it belongs, and hopefully, we can do it a lot more this season.

Todd Believes The DHL Funny Car Is A Championship Contender

Todd’s Seattle victory wasn’t a sudden flash of performance.

The DHL Toyota GR Supra has advanced to at least the semifinals six times in 2026, producing a victory, a runner-up finish, four semifinal appearances, and three No. 1 qualifying efforts.

The 2018 Funny Car world champion believes the team’s recent struggles were a temporary setback rather than an indication of its potential.

“We’ve had a really good car all year long; we just stumbled a little there in the middle of the season. Now I think we’re getting back to where we need to be. You can’t take anybody lightly in Funny Car. Dickie and Todd (Crew Chiefs Dickie Venables and Todd Smith) do a really good job of racing smart – not throwing down every run; they race the conditions and the track.

Todd was runner-up at Brainerd last season, but like Langdon, he’s still looking for his first victory at the Minnesota facility.

A win this weekend could do a lot more than fill that empty spot on his resume.

“I’ve thought all season long that we’re a championship contender. I know what we have in the pit area and at the race shop. You’re only as good as your last race, so we’ll go to Brainerd and try to win there and maybe double up again. Now’s the time to get rolling with Brainerd, points and a half at Indy, and the regular season championship. One of our dragsters is most likely gonna win that, so if we could both win that, it would be huge. In the last six races, like I keep saying, that’s when ‘you gotta let it eat.’

With only Brainerd and the U.S. Nationals remaining before the NHRA Countdown to the Championship, Kalitta Motorsports finds itself in an enviable but pressure-packed position. Langdon has the Top Fuel points lead. Kalitta is only five points behind him and has won the last two races. Todd is firmly in the Funny Car championship fight after finally converting the DHL Toyota’s season-long performance into a victory.