Track and weather conditions played a part in postponing the Pep Boys NHRA Carolina Nationals at zMax Dragway after the first rounds of Top Fuel and Funny Car.
Richie Crampton went out in the first round on his best pass of the weekend dropping a close race to No. 2 qualifier Steve Torrence in a rematch of the final of the U.S. Nationals, a race Crampton won.
“It wasn’t the weekend we were looking for, but we put up a pretty solid run there,” Crampton said. “It obviously wasn’t enough to get around Steve-O.”
Crampton’s pass was 3.819 seconds at 321.12 mph, bettering his qualifying run, but Torrence’s dragster has been fast all weekend, and his pass of 3.793 seconds at 318.54 mph was enough to knock out Crampton.
The Countdown to the Championship began in Charlotte, with Crampton in eighth place. In a topsy-turvy round one of eliminations, only four drivers ahead of Crampton in the points standings advanced to the first round. The top-three drivers in Top Fuel points all lost, including leader Doug Kalitta, who was knocked out by Crampton’s Morgan Lucas Racing teammate Morgan Lucas.
Crampton was hoping to score his second consecutive victory after his triumph in Indy, but he’s still on Cloud 9 after the U.S. Nationals.
“No one can take that away from the entire GEICO team,” Crampton said. “That was a pretty awesome weekend for everyone, including myself. We know how good this race car is just by looking at how many 3.70 runs we strung together in Indianapolis.
“It just didn’t show here in Charlotte, which is kind of weird, but the Countdown is not over yet.”
In Pro Stock No. 14 qualifier Shane Tucker and his Auzmet Chevrolet Camaro were slated to face off against No. 3 Dave Connolly in Charlotte; however, due to the rescheduling, the match will occur when Pro Stock eliminations take place in Texas.
“Going up there we knew the starting line was really good,” Tucker said. “Knowing that, we made some changes in the staging lanes. We moved some weight around on the rear of the car to compensate for the really good starting line. We did that because we figured we probably miscalculated the transmission ratios. In saying that, we moved the weight because downtracking makes this thing really loose.”
The first round of eliminations was halted on Sunday when Pro Stock racer Vieri Gaines crashed during his run. Pro Stock drivers then returned to their pit area with Pro Stock Motorcycles following suit. The decision was later made by NHRA to postpone the event.
“You can’t really tell what the track is doing from the fuel cars,” Tucker said. “But as soon as the first pair of Pro Stock cars went, we ran to the car scrambling to move weight back in the car. We knew after seeing that first pair, Richie Stevens and Shane Gray, that it was going to be whoever has the biggest ego is probably going to get to the end first.
“The left lane was definitely not the lane to be in. In hindsight, it’s probably best for us that they moved the event to Dallas.”
Charlotte eliminations will take place at the next stop on the Countdown to the Championship, Sept. 18-21, in Dallas.