Crampton, GEICO/Lucas Oil team complete successful test of new car

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – The GEICO/Lucas Oil team and driver Richie Crampton completed a successful first test session on Thursday at Lucas Oil Raceway with a new Top Fuel dragster built in-house at Morgan Lucas Racing.

Crampton, crew chief Aaron Brooks, and crewmember Jason Rush recently completed the new chassis in the team’s Brownsburg, Ind., shop. The plan is to use the car at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals, Aug. 29-Sept. 1.

“We’re really happy with the new race car and the way testing worked out,” Crampton said. “As far as test sessions go, we learned a lot and it was pretty successful.”

Crampton posted the second-fastest elapsed time (3.773 seconds) during Wednesday’s first day and had the fourth-best e.t. Thursday.

“We were rain-delayed once again, but we were able to make three runs,” Crampton said of Thursday’s session. “We tested a lot of things on the car, including a new manifold from Allen Johnson.

“It shook on the first run, so I had to shut it off early. The second one it dropped a cylinder down the track, so I shut it off at about 700 feet and it ran 3.92.”

On the final pass Crampton went 3.814 seconds at 322.73 mph.

“That was a pretty good pass,” Crampton said.

The leading contender for the NHRA rookie of the year award, Crampton is locked into the Countdown to the Championship, which begins after Indy. And while the championship is on his mind, Crampton and the team certainly aren’t overlooking the Big Go.

“Yeah, absolutely, it gives us some confidence going into the U.S. Nationals,” Crampton said. “We know there’s a lot more in the car, and I have a lot of confidence in Aaron Brooks and the whole GEICO team.”