Morgan Lucas final report

Despite best pass of the weekend, Lucas nipped by Brown in Las Vegas

Morgan Lucas

Photo by: Ted Rossino

LAS VEGAS (April 3) – The GEICO Top Fuel dragster team spent much of Saturday night doggedly fixing engine issues that plagued the team during qualifying at the 12th annual SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals.

The changes worked to near perfection on Sunday at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, as driver Morgan Lucas ran his quickest ET of the weekend in the opening round of eliminations. But despite the effort and improvement, Lucas was .007 seconds short of beating Antron Brown to the finish line.

"There are a lot of things about sports that are humbling," Lucas said. "This car humbled us a lot this weekend, even stretching back to Gainesville.

"Everybody worked so hard last night and we got a lot of stuff dialed in."

Lucas's run was in 3.917 seconds at 311.34 mph, but Brown crossed just a few feet ahead of Lucas with a 3.910 at 316.30 mph.

Even on an afternoon where the GEICO rail exited earlier than the team would have liked, Lucas said the determination displayed crew chief Dickie Venables has rubbed off on the whole crew.

"Dickie is a problem-solver, there is now doubt," Lucas said. "He found something on the car that he knows has been an issue. We adjusted and tweaked a few things, and the car responded. That's not something that happened before he got here.

Lucas added that he's looking forward for the next chance to bring his dragster out to race.

"If we would have qualified better, we might have had a different outcome first round.," Lucas said. "We've got a lot of confidence off of that one run. Sometimes you need to have that one good shot to carry you, and I think it's going to carry us into the next race."

The GEICO team heads back across the country for the Visitmyrtlebeach.com 4-Wide Nationals, April 15-17, in Charlotte.

-source: morgan lucas racing