Langdon goes 345mph in NHRA's fastest pass ever at South Georgia

Top Fuel’s Shawn Langdon made the fastest pass in NHRA history on Friday, making a 345mph run n NHRA’s debut at South Georgia Motorsports Park and taking the provisional No. 1 spot at the NHRA Southern Nationals. J.R. Todd (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) are also the provisional No. 1 qualifiers at the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series event.

Langdon went 3.724s at 345.00 mph in his Kalitta Air dragster, shattering the previous speed record of 343.51 set by Brittany Force last year in Indianapolis. The record-breaking pass puts Langdon, a past world champion in the category, on track for his third No. 1 qualifier of the season and the 25th in his career.

Langdon made impressive passes in testing before the season-opener in Gainesville and had made 340mph runs in his career, but making the fastest run in NHRA history on Friday certainly qualifies as an incredible statement for the driver named to NHRA’s Top 75 Drivers list before the season.

“To see that [345mph] pop up on the scoreboard, I think it was special for the guys. I was happy for them, especially Brian [Husen, crew chief],” Langdon said. “We were able to do that testing and some people had different ideas on what they thought, if it was legit or not. We kind of talked about it and Brian was like, ‘Well, we'll just do it in the season to prove it was legit’.

“It’s also good to be able to do that here, at this new track, in front of these new fans. I knew it was on a good run, but I was actually a little surprised because you don't really notice the mile per hour.”

Tony Stewart went to second with a 3.758 at 334.40 and points leader Doug Kalitta is third after going 3.762 at 334.40.

Not to be outdone by his Kalitta Motorsports teammate, Funny Car’s J.R. Todd had his own spectacular showing on Friday at South Georgia Motorsports Park, making the fastest pass of the year in Funny Car with a fantastic run of 3.887 at 339.28 in his DHL Toyota GR Supra.

It sets a massive career-best speed for the past world champion and puts Todd in position to pick up his second No. 1 qualifier of the season and 16th in his career. After going five years in between No. 1 qualifiers, Todd now has a chance for two in the past three races, which is a great showcase for the progress of his team.

He’s third in points and closing in on his first victory of the season, and Todd was also impressed with the 3.930 the team ran in the second round of qualifying, giving him the best pass of both sessions on Friday.

“Obviously, today was a good day and kind of continues everything we’ve done so far this year,” Todd said. “We hit the ground running in testing and I knew we had a really good car. What I'm happy with is Dickie [Venables] and Todd [Smith] adjusting to the conditions. Even here, the track is good, but it's still a bit tricky, and you see a lot of people struggling to get down. We made that good run in Q1 and the speed surprised me when I got out and saw the time slip.

“We went back and kind of slowed it down for Q2, because we just wanted to make sure we got down the track. We weren't trying to throw down, but they said we pretty much got all of it. It was refreshing to hear that we didn't leave anything on the table.”

Jordan Vandergriff sits second with his pass of 3.924 at 325.14 and Pomona winner Matt Hagan jumped to third in the second session after going 3.933 at 328.78.

Pro Stock’s Greg Anderson continues to be nearly unstoppable in qualifying and that was evident on Friday, blasting to a 6.498 at 210.60 in his HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro as he looks for his fourth straight No. 1 qualifier of the season.

No other car sniffed the 6.40s on Friday at SGMP, putting the six-time world champ in a great position to claim his 144th career No. 1 qualifier. Anderson has praised the car all year and the results have shown, as he’s advanced to the final round at three of the first four races, winning in Pomona. He’d love to do it again at NHRA’s debut at the facility and add another impressive accomplishment to his legacy.

“This is a good racetrack, but it seems like quite a few of us got a little greedy today, just because the air was so good. We made a lot of power out there today, and some of us missed, including myself,” Anderson said.

“We missed a little bit on the starting line, just got a little bit too aggressive, but other than that, we just have to adjust for tomorrow. It's not a big adjustment.”

Eric Latino is second after Friday thanks to his 6.508 at 209.75 and Aaron Stanfield is third with a run of 6.525 at 210.60.

In Pro Stock Motorcycle, Matt Smith made his NHRA debut at SGMP on his Denso Auto Parts Buell a good one, making the first run in the 6.60s in 2026 with a standout pass of 6.669 at 203.03. It’s the quickest run of the season in the category and puts Smith on track for his second straight No. 1 qualifier.

This comes a race after he became Pro Stock Motorcycle’s all-time leader in No. 1 qualifiers with 60. Smith, a six-time world champion is now looking to make it 61 and he had a consistent Friday with the quickest run in each session. Next on the to-do list for Smith is finishing the job and he hopes Friday’s strong start at a new track leads to his first victory of the 2026 campaign.

“You know, we tested a lot, even when we left Charlotte, we went and tested again in Rockingham, so, I mean, we're out here trying to be better and it's showing every day. We're getting better and better, and that's the name of the game,” Smith said.

“Looking at the weather I said we should run 6.69 to 6.70, and it went 6.699, so it was as close to a 70 as you can get. On the second run, we had a headwind, so we knew we were going to slow down a little bit.”

Charlotte winner Gaige Herrera is currently second with a run of 6.723 at 200.23 and reigning world champ Richard Gadson is right behind after going 6.730 at 201.37.

Qualifying continues at 12:30pm ET on Saturday at the NHRA Southern Nationals at South Georgia Motorsports Park.