Khalid Al Balooshi wants to keep his momentum in fast forward as NHRA series head to Seattle

Top Fuel driver Khalid al Balooshi of the UAE finally has a second win on the season after opening the year with a victory. Now he and Qatar's Al Anabi team want to keep that momentum going with SeattShow more

After weeks of hoping the team was getting better and returning to form, Khalid Al Balooshi at the weekend put his gold car in the winner’s circle for the Qatar Al Anabi Racing Top Fuel team.

With his second victory of the season in hand, the Emirati wants to keep a good thing going and move up in the point standings at this weekend's NHRA Northwest Nationals, near Seattle, the 16th of 24 races making up the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.

For Al Balooshi, the success in Sonoma, California, last weekend began on his first pass.

The Dubai native went right down the track when most of his competitors were smoking the tyres and losing time in the unusually warm conditions.

In the first round of eliminations he made the quickest run of the day. From there, it was a steady march to a final-round matchup with Shawn Langdon, his Al Anabi teammate and reigning world champion.

Langdon was ahead early, but Al Balooshi reached the finish line first for his second win of the season and the fourth of his career.

“Last weekend was a very good race for our team,” he said. “It was good to win the race for everybody on our team. I have been saying we have our hot rod back and, last week we were one of the best cars in the show.”

He said Jason McCulloch, his crew chief, told him: “ ‘Balooshi, the car is not going to smoke the tyres, the car will go down the track’. The car did exactly what Jason said it would do.”

It has been a frustrating season for the Al Anabi team, who several times have thought they have solved performance problems.

In Ohio last month, Al Balooshi entered the race as the defending champion. He qualified 10th and lost in the first round of eliminations.

However, his only race-day run was a brilliant pass and it seemed as if the team were back.

Then came another first-round loss at Denver.

When he won the first race of the season, in February, Al Balooshi was the Top Fuel points leader for the first time in his career. After the first-round loss at Denver two weeks ago, the team had fallen to ninth, and only the top-10 teams in the point standings make the Countdown to the Championship competition. With Sunday’s victory, Al Balooshi moved up to eighth and is 181 points ahead of the 11th place driver.

“I feel way better about the points now,” he said. “Before last race, I was not sure we would make the top 10. I was thinking about it. We started the year No 1 and then went down to No 9 and very close to No 10. I did not know what was going on. After Sonoma, we are in much better place in the points.

“We still need to get better and better and better. In Seattle, we need to keep it going. We have a good car. We need to keep winning rounds. We need to keep thinking we have a championship car. We can fight for the win because we have a championship car.”

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