NHRA Top Fuel Rivals Not Happy With Josh Hart's Tactics at Four-Wides

• Shawn Langdon calls out fellow Top Fuel driver Josh Hart for his slower, but legal, staging procedure.

• Hart says, “I can't change the rules. I just follow them.”

• More four-wide drama is still to come at next NHRA race, at Charlotte.

NHRA Top Fuel racer Josh Hart said he strained his neck this past Friday just as the NHRA Four-Wide Las Vegas Nationals began and fought through the discomfort all weekend. “In the morning when you first pick up your head, it's like it weighs 1,000 pounds,” he said after reaching the final round at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

By the end of eliminations Sunday, a couple of his on-track rivals said Hart was a pain in the neck.

Shawn Langdon accused Hart of disrupting the staging process in the second round, and Steve Torrence threw some shade Hart’s way. Hart, unapologetic, will compete once again with them in four-wide fashion next weekend at the April 28-30 Circle K Four-wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway at Concord, N.C. After that, the Camping World Drag Racing Series will return to the traditional two-wide style for the remainder of the season.

Langdon took responsibility at Las Vegas for his disqualifying performance when he emerged from his DHL Dragster, but he mentioned Hart in the R+L Carriers Dragster.

“I screwed up,” he said, before launching into criticism of Hart. “Josh has been hanging a lot of people out. He’s a good guy. I like Josh. But he’s slow, and everybody knows it. Everybody in the class talks about it.”

The rule, whether racers are going four-wide or the conventional two-wide, is that once the first driver stages his car, the other(s) have seven seconds in which to stage theirs. After seven seconds, a driver is timed out and not permitted to run. Staging first is a matter of preference.

Langdon allowed Hart to distract him. So did Torrence, who didn’t name Hart specifically.

But an annoyed Torrence stepped from his CAPCO Dragster, slammed his safety harness on his car, and said, “I just missed the Tree (Christmas Tree electronic starter), didn’t do my job. Got caught in some kind of stupid game that was going on with somebody. Drag racing is drag racing. We do what we do. Everything that you do is within the rules. I don’t know what was going on, but I just caught myself blinking.”

Torrence was no worse for the wear. He advanced to the final round, finished as runner-up to Toyota quasi-teammate Antron Brown, and reclaimed the Top Fuel points lead. Torrence has won or been runner-up at eight of the past 10 four-wide races, and his six four-wide victories are twice as many as anyone else has earned in any class.

However, Langdon was left with a daunting task. He said, “Bottom line, “I’ve got to get my shit together. That was uncalled for on my end. My guys deserve better than that. I’m very, very disappointed in myself. I know how to race better than that. I know the (seven-second) count. I knew to get in. It’s 100% on me. I owe everybody an apology for my sponsors.

“That’s just how we race Josh. The whole class knows he takes a long time. The result is I screwed up,” Langdon said.

Hart was anything but apologetic.

“If I was playing games, I wouldn't have been the one that timed out,” Hart, recognized as one of the quickest drivers off the starting line, said. “I guess sooner or later you see everyone's true colors, but I didn't time out. I didn't do it intentionally. I am anticipating the pain from the launch because of my neck, and you can't go out here and start whining about your pain. You have to muscle through it. You got these guys [crew members] out here busting their butts constantly. So, you know, I just did the best that I could.

“Other drivers obviously are not approving of that, but I didn't do anything wrong,” Hart said. “I am racing within the confines of the NHRA. I can't change the rules. I just follow them.”