Lucas Oil pro Richie Crampton idles to No. 5 perch at rainy NHRA Keystone Nationals

READING, PA – With three of four qualifying sessions lost to rain, racers vying to make the elimination field of the NHRA Keystone Nationals had just one chance to post a number. On paper, Lucas Oil Top Fuel pro Richie Crampton’s coasting 7.995 at 80.39 mph would be nothing to brag about, but with just two drivers posting normal e.t.s on the dodgy racing surface, it turned out that Crampton’s pass ended up being the fifth best in the class, putting him on the favored side of the ladder.

“I hit the gas and we didn’t get very far before we lost traction,” Crampton said. “I’d talked to Aaron (Brooks, crew chief) before the run and he said the track had no rubber because of all the rain and he knew it was going to be very hard to make it all the way down, so he wanted me to be prepared for what happened. He told me to pedal it if I could, so I did, and although it lost traction again, that extra little blip probably moved us into the top side of the field.

“Tomorrow is definitely going to be a crapshoot but we’re all in the same boat, so it’ll come down to crew chiefs making the best educated guesses they can make to get from A to B. From my standpoint, I need to be ready to pedal and do whatever it takes to get the car down the track and turn on the win light. It’s the playoffs; it’s time to go for broke.”

After starting the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs in third place, a pair of first-round losses have relegated Crampton to seventh. However, he’s only a round and a half out of third, a difference that could easily be made up Sunday, especially if the affable Aussie can record his fifth victory of the year.

“We have proven we have the ability and the equipment to win any race we enter,” Crampton said. “It’s time we show that off again because no one in this pit is happy with back-to-back Round 1 losses, especially at the start of the Countdown.

“What’s crazy, and I know this from my years working as a crewmen with these guys, you work just as hard and put in just as many hours when you lose early as when you win the Wally. It usually ends up being just a matter of inches and thousandths of a second, and sometimes it falls your way and sometimes it doesn’t.

“We are hungry for success, and no matter what we have to do we’re going after it tomorrow. We’re ready.”

Crampton opens eliminations against pat-time racer Smax Smith, who had troubles of his own in posting a 9.210 at 69.14 mph.

Eliminations begin at 11 a.m., with ESPN2 carrying all the action Sunday evening.