Morgan Lucas led his Lucas Oil Stabilizer Top Fuel team into Sunday’s eliminations with mile-high hopes of attaining his first win of his career, but alas only advanced to the quarterfinals at Bandimere Speedway for Sunday’s Mopar Mile-High Nationals.
Lucas’ first round opponent had a different flair to it than his usual first round counterpart as he had to race his teammate J.R. Todd in his opening series of Sunday racing.
In that opening round, both Todd and Lucas had identical reaction times (.066) leaving the starting with Lucas soon outdistancing his teammate to the 1,000 feet stripe after running a time of 4.324 seconds, 251.77 mph to Todd’s time of 4.591 seconds, 205.57 mph
He met his racing fate on the mountain after being defeated by Larry Dixon in the quarterfinals. Lucas left on his fellow Indiana neighbor (.057 - .068) but was quickly overtaken resulting in a time of 4.077 seconds, 291.89 mph to Morgan’s tire spinning time of 4.778 seconds, 178.76 mph.
“We were anticipating a great day, but only made it to the second round,” said Lucas. “We’ll keep trying and with two more races to go on the Western Swing, we’ll have plenty more opportunities.
“It was unique racing J.R. (Todd, teammate) in the first round and just wished it could have been closer for their team. He’s a great driver and I’m proud to have him as part of our team and Lucas Oil organization.”
He entered the race from the No. 11 position after running an elapsed time of 4.039 seconds, 295.85 mph.
Lucas definitely stays in the hunt in the NHRA POWERade Top Fuel points standings and has now accumulated a total of 534 points and finds himself trailing David Grubnic by only 30 with five racing remaining before the Countdown to the Championship begins.
The next NHRA National event will be next weekend at the Pacific Raceways in nearby Seattle for the running of the 21st annual Schuck’s Auto Supply Nationals.
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