National Dragster: Second all-Lang final goes to Toby

Stock - 4th annual NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals, April 3-6, Las Vegas With the kind of weekend that they were enjoying in Las Vegas, brothers Toby and Jody Lang would have been welladvised to hit the gaming tables as often as possible, but there was a problem: They were too busy racing at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to get away for much of an extended trip to Vegas' legendary gambling halls.

The Langs could not have had a better weekend at LVMS, putting both of their entries into the Stock final after winning a combined 12 eliminations races. In the final, where someone in the family had to lose, it was older brother Toby who prevailed in the double-breakout affair, 11.92 (11.96 dial) to 12.87 (12.93), to even the brothers' head-to-head tally in NHRA finals at one win apiece. Jody won their first final-round clash at the 2000 Sonoma event.

"I owed him one; it was about time I beat him," said Toby, who has won seven national event titles in 13 final-round appearances. "That's what we shoot for, to meet each other in the final, but it hardly ever works out that way."

As do most racers, Toby Lang considers all of his national event wins special, but he was even more thrilled that his Las Vegas title came so early in the 2003 season. In past seasons, Lang, a full-time racer, has often found himself in the middle of a good news/bad news scenario that included winning a national event but being out of points-- scoring opportunities.

"I've never won this early in the year; I'm usually all out of points to claim," said Lang, who has now won his last four national event final rounds. "This time, I won in my third national of the year, so it will count for points. I'm looking to get into the top 10 again this year, so this will be a big help."

The key race: Lang survived his semifinal meeting with Harry Doolittle despite posting a .064 light, which was by far his worst of the competition. He chased down Doolittle - who had a nine-tenths head start in his slower H/FIA '92 Firebird - as best as he could before making the top-end decision to let him go. The plan worked when Doolittle broke out by 15-thousandths, making a winner of Lang's 11.97 (11.95).

The runner-up: At first glance, a station wagon might not seem like much of a drag racing vehicle, but in the hands of a talented driver, such as Jody Lang, a wagon is just as capable of winning in Stock as is a classic Camaro or a modern fuel-injected Firebird. Lang has certainly done his share of winning - he is a three-time Division 6 Stock champion (1995, 2001, and 2002) and has won seven times in 11 final-round appearances on the national event level. Unlike his older brother, Jody is not a full-time drag racer and limits his NHRA national event appearances almost exclusively to events in the West and Southwest.

Fast facts: Both of the Las Vegas-based NHRA national events tend to draw a significant number of California racers, but Stock at the NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals was dominated by drivers from other parts of the country. Three of the four semifinalists were from Washington (both Langs and Mary Ann Method) and the other, Doolittle, hails from Hillsdale, Mich., and the only California-based driver to make it as far as the fifth round was Bernie Cunningham of Riverside. A total of 42 Californians competed in Stock eliminations. ... Only one red-light was recorded on Sunday during the last four rounds of Stock. That was a far cry from Saturday, which featured 23 foul starts in the first round alone. ... Cunningham recorded a .000 light in the third round, the only perfect reaction time of Stock eliminations.

Did you know? Lang's dead-on 11.960 (11.96) in his fourth-round win over Gene Buell made him the season's first Stock racer to win the Perfectly Strange Performance award. The run was worth $2,000 to Lang - $1,000 for the on-the-dial run and another $1,000 for doing so with Strange axles on his car. One day earlier, Grand Junction, Colo.'s Jim Hughes just missed winning the bonus money, running an 11.181 (11.18) in a second-round win over Cal Method.

Quotable: "We're brothers first, but once we stage against each other, we go all out trying to win." - Toby Lang, on racing against brother Jody

BeSt packages: 1. Harry Doolittle (Hillsdale, Mich.), .004/12.843 (12.84 dial), third round; 2. Jim Hughes (Grand Junction, Colo.), .015/11.181 (11.18 dial), second round; 3. Toby Lang (Auburn, Wash.), .021/11.960 (11.96 dial), fourth round.