Earlier in the week, Top Fuel racer Morgan Lucas told the media that he wanted to win the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals for his parents because they gave so much to the sport.

Sunday in Brainerd, the good son presented his parents with quite the present.

For the second time in his career, Lucas hoisted the NHRA champion trophy high above his head in the Top Fuel winner’s circle. The victory also marked his second Brainerd victory since winning Top Alcohol Dragster back in 2004.

“This is the best day of my life and the best feeling in the world,” said Lucas as he addressed the assembled media. “I’m so weak everywhere in my body and I still have goose bumps. I gotta say that I don’t know what to do because we’ve accomplished the goals we set at the beginning of the year.”

 

Earlier in the week, Top Fuel racer Morgan Lucas told the media that he wanted to win the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals for his parents because they gave so much to the sport.

Sunday in Brainerd, the good son presented his parents with quite the present.

For the second time in his career, Lucas hoisted the NHRA champion trophy high above his head in the Top Fuel winner’s circle. The victory also marked his second Brainerd victory since winning Top Alcohol Dragster back in 2004.

“This is the best day of my life and the best feeling in the world,” said Lucas as he addressed the assembled media. “I’m so weak everywhere in my body and I still have goose bumps. I gotta say that I don’t know what to do because we’ve accomplished the goals we set at the beginning of the year.”

Lucas wanted to first, have a pair of competitive teams, qualify No. 1 at least once and win multiple races.

Completing his goals was nice but beating Larry Dixon in the finals was the icing on the cake.

Turning up the wick with each round, Lucas and crew chief Jimmy Walsh kept searching the edge of the envelope and with each hit the cliff stretched a little more. The end result produced round wins over Chris Karamesines, Brandon Bernstein and Cory McClenathan with the icing on the cake being personal bests in each of those triumphs.

Even when he hung the rods out, he still won. A blind man could clearly see Sunday in Brainerd was Lucas’ day.

“In the semis, the thing was trying to run an .81 and even an .80-flat and it blew the rods out and it was a problem with the fuel system and that was our lucky round for the day,” Lucas admitted. 

The competition should have consulted their record books and then it would have been apparent that when there are rain delays, Lucas has a tendency to make the competition pay. Four months earlier, Lucas pedaled his tire-smoking Geico dragster past Spencer Massey to win his first professional race.

“For me it seems like yesterday because that was my first win in Top Fuel,” Lucas said.

He might have won that first national event by the skin of his teeth but in Brainerd, cannibalistic tendencies aside, it was the competition’s skin on his teeth because he ate them alive.

“To win this race, this soon and move right into sixth headed in the Countdown, and clinch, so many things that we haven’t done, and to do it in one day …” said Lucas, pausing to smile.

Realizing all those goals in one fell swoop put the team ahead of schedule, a schedule which included a run for the championship next year, not this year.

“The approach we had at the beginning of this year was to win races, to be competitive, to finish in the top ten, and to prep ourselves at a run for the 2010 championship,” Lucas said. “Right know if things keep going this way I feel like we have one of the best cars out there. I think at the beginning of the year, Shawn [teammate, Langdon] had top eight cars. Now I feel like we have top four cars. That really says a lot for our team because we’ve come a long way.”

What led to the transformation? Lucas believes it was due in no small part to the two heads are better than one mentality which has permeated the team this season.

“We have two really good crew chiefs [Jimmy Walsh and Jon Stewart (Langdon) … and it took me a few years to find two really good crew chiefs that could work really well together,” said Lucas. “Jon Stewart is probably one of the easiest going guys in the world and Jimmy Walsh … they are both neck and neck at the top of that list. When I say that, you can never say anything that will offend them or offend them permanently. They are not too filled with ego to discuss anything.
They work and they work their butts off.”

Just to think, Lucas was worried about starting Sunday for the top spot.

“Every time we’ve qualified number one, and I’ve only did it three times and every time we’ve lost three times,” Lucas explained. “I started to think we were jinxed and when we made that run yesterday … I said man, I hope we get another run I want to be second or third. It’s huge.”

On Sunday evening Lucas is glad he didn’t get that extra run. He would have really been weak.

LOVING THE GECKO – Lucas might have sought out Geico a lot sooner if he knew their backing would lead to two national events in one season. Prior to this season, Lucas was winless in professional competition.

“For Geico, they have probably been one of the largest additions to our team outside of the help from Lucas Oil … the fact they’ve brought in extra funding and a lot of moral support … they are a great family-based type of business. It’s an honor to represent them.”

How about those naysayers who continually tried to press Lucas into the belief that green on a race car was bad luck?

“A lot of people told me that green was bad luck and I told them to kiss my rear,” Lucas concluded.

 

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