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2013 NHRA: Lucas' Best Run Of The Weekend Not Quite Enough To Turn On Win Light
Morgan Lucas did just about everything right with the GEICO/Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster on Sunday at the O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals, except win his first-round race.
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Lucas opened the day against No. 4 qualifier Dave Grubnic. The pride of nearby Riverside, Lucas was off the line first and ran his best elapsed time of the weekend, a 3.764 at 328.14 mph. It was one of the best ET of the session, but unfortunately Grubnic's 3.741 at 325.69 mph was the quickest of the round.
"We executed our plan," Lucas said. "Our plan all weekend was to come up and be consistent. We talked this morning and thought we could run a 3.76 and it's exactly what we did.
"We did everything we needed to do. We just got beat by a slightly quicker car."
Although he didn't go as many rounds as he wanted, Lucas said his group's steadily improving performance throughout the weekend was a positive sign for the GEICO team.
"If we race like this for the rest of the year, we're going to win a lot of rounds," Lucas said. "And we'll end up solid in the points. There are a lot of tough cars out there right now so we have to stick to our guns and keep going down this path of consistency."
Lucas points to the fact that the car went down the track in the four rounds of qualifying and in eliminations to just how bright the future should be.
"No other car can say they went down the track four times," Lucas said. "I didn't have my head hit the steering wheel at all this weekend. That's a really nice thing to be able to say and I'm really proud of the whole GEICO team. There's nothing for any of us to hang our heads about.
"We proved we will be a major threat this year. My teammate Brandon Bernstein is running great, so I'm not disappointed at all. In fact I am excited about the future."
Lucas and the GEICO/Lucas Oil team won't have long to rest as they immediately travel to Phoenix's Firebird International Raceway for next weekend's NHRA Arizona Nationals.
Sunday's race will be shown on ESPN2 this evening.
PaddockTalk Perspective
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