Morgan Lucas spoiled the ultimate party for Tony Schumacher Sunday.

On Saturday, Schumacher clinched his eighth NHRA Mello Yello Series Top Fuel world championship. Instead of Schumacher putting an exclamation point on his stellar season, however, Lucas derailed him in the finals of the Auto Club NHRA Finals at Auto Club Raceway Sunday.

Morgan Lucas spoiled the ultimate party for Tony Schumacher Sunday.

On Saturday, Schumacher clinched his eighth NHRA Mello Yello Series Top Fuel world championship. Instead of Schumacher putting an exclamation point on his stellar season, however, Lucas derailed him in the finals of the Auto Club NHRA Finals at Auto Club Raceway Sunday.

Lucas clocked a track record run of 3.704 seconds at 325.14 mph to edge the Sarge’s 3.742-second run at 324.98 mph.

“It’s always fun to beat the guy who won the championship, but not in a bad way because I like Tony,” Lucas said. “He earned the championship and he raced hard just like everybody who wins a championship.”

Lucas’ run was the second fastest in NHRA history since the sanctioning body went to 1,000-foot racing for Top Fuel and Funny Cars in July of 2008.

“Not really, to be honest,” said Lucas when asked if he was surprised about the performance of his car. “I’m not saying that in a cocky way. Aaron (Brooks, Lucas’ crew chief) is one of those guys who has a lot of confidence in what he does. Our 70.7 semifinal run we ran against Antron (Brown), our numbers early were actually slower than Richie (Crampton’s) Saturday night. So it looked like there was something left there and he (Brooks) wanted to gobble it up for the final. I know right now he is probably kind of ticked off because he didn’t get to run a 69 or 68, but that’s just the kind of guy he is, and when you have somebody like that around you can trust to be surprised.”

Lucas, who only ran a limited schedule of seven races this season to concentrate on working in his family’s business, won for the second time this year and the 11th of his career. Lucas also won the Lucas Oil Nationals at Brainerd, Minn., in August.

“I feel like I’m actually doing a better job behind the wheel doing this part-time thing than I ever did on a full-time basis, so apparently I didn’t handle the pressure quite as well as I could have,” Lucas said. “Honestly, I kind of like this (driving part-time) it is more cost effective and I still get to come out and have fun and I get to see my friends and family and I’m still learning a lot about Lucas Oil and there’s a long path ahead of me there. If my dad (Forrest) said 'hey, this what I want you to do, this is what’s best for our company' then it is what I’m going to do. Until then, I’m going to enjoy the time I get to spend with him, my son (Hunter), my wife (Katie). I hope nobody gets me wrong, because I have so much respect for the opportunities I have.”

Morgan also had no definite 2015 plans to announce at his post-race press conference.

“Honestly I wish I knew,” Morgan said. “I can tell you we are working really hard at securing funding for Richie (Crampton’s car). That’s a big deal to us. We have a lot of leads, but any team owner could tell you it’s never final until the ink is starting to dry. Hopefully we will get something going in the near future and as soon as we know something we will let everybody else know.”

Lucas disposed of Billy Torrence, Shawn Langdon, and Antron Brown before defeating Schumacher with his blistering pass. When Lucas beat Brown, he clocked a 3.707-second pass, which was the third fastest run to 1,000 feet in NHRA history.

“At the beginning of the season we were setting the goals of just qualifying and being respectable,” Lucas said. “Then, when we won Brainerd and that put things in a different direction. After we won first round, it is like you get a little bit more content with your finish. It’s more or less a feeling that’s already been a great day so let’s go up and try and finish it. I think just taking that pressure off it just makes you feel that much better about what you are doing.”

Lucas also took a moment to talk about his two electrifying elapsed times.

“It was fast and to be honest something else was in control because the car was on a string,” Lucas said. “I didn’t have to steer it, I didn’t have to do anything. It almost like the most lazy drive for me, but it felt like you were strapped to a missile.”

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