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Vegas Disappears In A Cloud Of Tire Smoke For Geico Pro Lucas
After having such a strong race earlier this year at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, this weekend's Big O Tires Nationals was totally upside down for Morgan Lucas and the GEICO/Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster.
During qualifying the GEICO rail struggled to get down the track, and Sunday wasn't much better with Lucas suffering a first-round loss to Steve Torrence.
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"It's been a weird weekend for us," Lucas said. "We got behind the 8-ball in qualifying. We only had one good run. The car is just fighting us right now."
Neither Lucas nor Torrence had cars that were cooperative in the first round. The two cars left the starting line at nearly the same instant. They were still nose-to-nose at the 60-foot marker, where both cars had tire shake. Torrence was able to recover first and he went on to the victory.
Torrence's lap was in 4.102 seconds at 264.03 mph Lucas crossed the line in 4.536 seconds at 232.63 mph.
"It seems like we've never had any good luck here," Lucas said. "The problem we're having now is there's a spot on the track about 100 feet out, the car is just getting shaky and we can't get it to push through that area."
Lucas said the even though there is only one race left on the schedule, the team is going to stay in Las Vegas an extra day to work out all the kinks and be 100 percent ready for the season finale.
"We're going to stay here and test," Lucas said. "We've done well in the season finale at Pomona in the past and we want to keep that trend up."
Lucas said it's frustrating to trip up after having such a strong start to the NHRA's postseason.
"I'm just real disappointed for GEICO; we wanted to get a win out here for them," Lucas said. "My parents (Lucas Oil co-founders Forrest and Charlotte Lucas) were out here this weekend and we wanted to have a good race for them, too.
"We've got one more chance to get a win before we're done for the year and we're going to try our hardest to get that last trophy."
The NHRA Full Throttle Series season will end with the NHRA World Finals running Nov. 8-11 in Pomona, Calif.
PaddockTalk Perspective
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