Richie Crampton powered his GEICO/Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster to the semifinals while Shane Tucker recorded the first ever 6.4 second pass at New England Dragway qualifying fourth and reaching the second round at the Auto-Plus NHRA New England Nationals on Sunday.
After qualifying third, Crampton had good fortune in the first round when he and opponent Dom Lagana lost a cylinder early in the match and Crampton’s 4.028 at 300.20 mph was just enough to move on to the second round.
In round two, Crampton faced off against Spencer Massey and won on a holeshot with a .075-second reaction time compared to Massey’s .088. Crampton recorded a 3.800 at 325.14 mph to reach the semifinals.
“It’s a great racetrack, and actually the track in the semifinals was better than we gave it credit for,” Crampton said. “Actually, we kind of didn’t bring enough to it. It just goes to show how good this racing facility is, and the fans have been great and it’s just a great place to come race.”
The semifinal round saw Crampton take on Doug Kalitta, who is in the middle of a hot streak, and Crampton’s 3.822 at 325.37 mph was not enough to break through for the win.
“It was another good weekend for the GEICO team in general,” Crampton said. “Obviously, we wanted to go around Kalitta, but he’s just having an amazing year. I think this is his eighth final this year, so it was going to be tough, and it was. We’ll pick up our stuff and head on to Chicago.
This was Crampton’s first time at the New Hampshire track, and the team had little data to help with the setup on the dragster, but because it was only NHRA’s second trip to New England Dragway, most teams were in the same situation.
“For me every racetrack is new, so that didn’t really play into my duties that much,” Crampton said. “But not having a ton of data for Aaron here, I’m sure it was kind of a level playing field for the crew chiefs so to speak.”
Crampton’s next race is the O’Reilly Auto Parts Route 66 NHRA Nationals, June 26-29, at Route 66 Raceway in Chicago.
Following on from his career best qualification of 10th position in Bristol Tennessee, Shane Tucker managed to hold down qualification position number four in Epping, New Hampshire. Tuckers Q2 pass of 6.496 at 213.94 mph on Friday was the first ever 6.4 second pass and a new record for the Aussie Pro Stock sensation.
With the Elite Performance power plant under the hood Shane launched the Camaro consistently and ran two more solid passes of 6.530 and 6.54 in Saturdays Q3 and Q4. This was enough to retain the number #4 qualification position and pair Shane against John Gaydosh in Sundays first round of eliminations.
With mounting support flooding from across the pond, the Rob Tucker Race team were looking for their first semi-finals appearance and a shot at bringing home the coveted ‘Wally’.
“I am just getting up to all the overwhelming well wishes and congratulations. Guys and girls thank you all very much. My team seriously are the ones to give all the accolades to they have given me a really good car. I need to do my job today and turn them into win lights” said Shane.
Round one Shane stepped off the clutch and drove the Auzmet Architectural / GearWrench Camaro to a solid win with a 6.537 at 213.6mph, setting up a round two clash with Allen Johnson and his Mopar Dodge Dart. In a tense staging process the Camaro and Dodge both left the line spinning and shaking the tires, AJ managed to get through it first and took the win with a 7.742 at 181.18mph.
The team continue to improve every round and will head to Chicago next weekend with the confidence of qualifying in the top half of the field.