Lucas Oil pro Richie Crampton earns lofty perch during Charlotte qualifying

CHARLOTTE, NC – The city of Charlotte is used to good ol’ Southern boys showing off their racing prowess at local tracks, so it should be no surprise that Lucas Oil Top Fuel pilot Richie Crampton excelled in Saturday’s qualifying action at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals. The only difference is that Crampton hails from South Adelaide, Australia, which is a tad bit further south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

“I’ll take Southern hospitality any way I can get it,” said Crampton, the 2014 Rookie of the Year. “The folks here couldn’t be nicer, and although it’s a little different than Australia, race fans are race fans and we all share a love of motorsports. I’m perfectly happy and comfortable here, especially now that I’ve raced this track a few times before. I’m not a wide-eyed rookie anymore.”

After posting a respectable 3.827 at 312.28 mph in the day’s first session, Crampton, crew chief Aaron Brooks, and the rest of the crew cooked up an improved 3.771 at 327.03 mph in the final round to lock up the No. 7 qualifying position.

“No one was able to run yesterday due to the rain, so it really put an emphasis on today’s two runs,” Crampton said. “Because we didn’t get all four qualifying sessions we weren’t able to make a run on each of the four lanes, so we knew lane choice was going to be a bigger deal than normal. The goal quickly became making sure we were in the top half of the field so we could pick our lane in Round 1. Mission accomplished.”

Crampton will have the second pick of lanes in his quad of racers, with No. 1 qualifier Pat Dakin (3.715 at 318.84 mph) picking first. After Crampton comes No. 10 qualifier Brittany Force (3.826 at 318.32 mph) and part-timer Chris “the Golden Greek” Karamesines, who topped out at 4.343 at 185.72 mph.

“The way the four-wide deal works is that four cars race and then the top two advance to the next round,” Crampton explained. “So as long as we’re one of the two in each round, we’ll be happy. This Lucas Oil car is capable of improving on what we ran today, for sure, and if the weather stays nice and cool like this, we’ll get after it. Aaron loves when you can unload all our horsepower on a track, and now that we’ve had some runs down this strip and there’s more rubber downtrack, it should only get better.”

With three races in the books, Crampton is sixth in the Mello Yello championship points, a position he’d like to improve on Sunday.

“It would be great if we moved up a spot or two,” Crampton said. “We’re bunched together because it’s early in the season, so big changes can happen. We like to be steady and consistent, so we’ll just do what we do and see what happens.”

Elimination racing begins at 1 p.m., Sunday, with ESPN2 carrying the action.