Is Richie Crampton the Del Worsham of 2016?

He certainly thinks so. And he got off to a great start in proving that in St. Louis.

Attempting to follow in the footsteps of the 2015 Funny Car world champion, who famously went all season without a win and limped into the playoffs only to come on strong in the Countdown to the Championship and win it all, Crampton knows his team is capable of big things and plans to show it over the final five races.

“I think the Top Fuel teams know what Aaron Brooks and my team are capable of. We have stumbled a lot this year, so I think they take us a little lighter than last year when we were number three in the championship and won five races, where we’ve only been to one final round this year,” said Crampton, driver of the Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster. “If we can get our race car back like we know Aaron Brooks can run one, we might catch a lot of them by surprise. And there is no better time to do it than these last five races.”

Crampton’s quest for a big turnaround got off to a great start on Friday as Crampton placed the Lucas Oil machine squarely on top of the ladder with a solid 3.733-second pass at 323.50 mph under tricky conditions at the AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway Motorsports Park.

“In the Countdown is when you want to run your best and you can’t start a weekend much better than being on the pole,” Crampton said. “I probably shouldn’t be looking at the scoreboard going 320-something miles-per-hour, but I saw the 73 pop up. I knew the thing was on a really good run by 330 and I knew it had stuck and I knew it was probably going to be a decent time. When you see a good number go up on the board, it is pretty exciting.”

Crampton separated himself nicely from the field, with Doug Kalitta placing his newly designed DeWalt dragster second with a 3.752 at 325.92 mph. Tony Schumacher qualified third in the Army machine with a 3.757 at 320.58 mph. J.R. Todd (3.772) and Leah Pritchett (3.773) round out the top five.

“To be ahead of the field that little bit more and do it on what seemed to be a trickier racetrack, is pretty rewarding,” Crampton said. “We have made some really good runs lately, but I think that is definitely one of the top ones.”

If Crampton’s time holds on Saturday, it will be his second top qualifier award of the season and fifth of his career. Crampton’s last time topping the field came way back in March at Gainesville. In a season of struggles, with only one final round visit and 11 first round exits, Crampton is hoping a strong start on Friday will lead to big things come Sunday. Especially after losing in round one last weekend in Charlotte in the Countdown to the Championship opener, dropping him to 10th in the standings.

“Hopefully that will get us a softer first round draw on Sunday. But, obviously, we can’t take anyone lightly anymore. It doesn’t mean a huge amount in the big scheme of things today, it is all about what we can do in the hot weather on Sunday,” Crampton said. “The hot racetrack has always been the great equalizer in drag racing, particularly in Top Fuel and Funny Car. It is so much harder to get your car to hook-up and stay on all eight cylinders, so that is when you see those big upsets like we did in Charlotte. And you could very well see it again here on Sunday.

“It is awesome to be number one and get the three bonus points for that session, all of that is really big for us. But big picture, we have got to figure out how to cleanly get down the racetrack four times on Sunday.

“Every run that we run from here on out is just so much more important to us. We are trying to keep our focus and that falls in line with knowing that we have the confidence in ourselves to go out and win races. We know we are a good team. We know we are a contender. Things just haven’t gone our way up to this point.”