2015 NHRA U.S. NATIONALS - TOP FUEL NOTEBOOK

TOP FUEL NOTEBOOK MONDAY

LUCAS CLAIMS SATISFYING TOP FUEL TRIUMPH ON HOME TURF - Top Fuel team owner /part-time driver Morgan Lucas called the task of winning the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals, the NHRA’s showcase race, “a tough row to hoe.”

It was – and he plowed through it to join fellow first-time winners Jack Beckman (Funny Car), Erica Enders (Pro Stock), and Jerry Savoie (Pro Stock Motorcycle) on the podium Monday at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis.

His winning 3.864-second elapsed time at 319.90 mph on the 1,000-foot course produced a host of firsts for the Lucas Oil Dragster driver.

“This is the first time I’ve won this in Top Fuel. It’s the first time I’ve won this since I lived here. And I don’t think I’ve ever won a race when it’s this this hot before,” Lucas said after easily defeating Dave Connolly in the final round.

Moreover, the style in which he eliminated Leah Pritchett, Richie Crampton, and Brittany Force to reach his first Indianapolis final was a unique experience for the No. 6 qualifier. The route to the final thrust him into every scenario: a close side-by-side dash against Pritchett, a holeshot against his own employee/former crewman/teammate Crampton, and pedalfest against Force.

“Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever covered that many bases getting there before,” Lucas said. “We as a team . . . they carried me first round. They carried me in the final. I had to do my part in the second round and the semi. Sometimes God does things for you and you just have to sit there and just let it happen and be happy about it and go up there clear-headed. That’s all we can do as a team and have fun doing it. So I’ll take it how I can get it.”

Lucas said he didn’t expect to get that 12th career victory Monday.

“There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell I thought this was going to happen today out of my car,” he said. “I thought Richie’s car could have pulled it off.”

He truly was concerned about how he would perform on this sweeping stage this hot, sticky holiday weekend.

“I got a lot of nerves about this whole weekend. I was nervous that we’d have another weekend like we had in Brainerd – and Epping and Englishtown and Gainesville and Atlanta. I was nervous that we were going to come out there and suck horribly in front of all of the friends and family,” Lucas said.

Qualifying ended well and buoyed the team, yet he still wasn’t convinced about how he would respond on race day.

“After that Saturday night run, went [3].79, that helped some of the esteem in the pits. That helped the confidence,” Lucas said. “But I don’t think it bolstered the driver to think we were going to come out here and set the world on fire today. And we didn’t. We just raced smart, and we survived. At the end of the day, it had nothing to do with me. I just got to drive the car that won all four rounds today.”

After the confetti blew away and he had hoisted the trophy for photographers, he said he was “still pleasantly content. I feel good. There’s nothing bittersweet about this. This is just amazing. I don’t care how many parts we have to throw out. I don’t care if at the end of the day you could lift our trailer up on end, shake it really hard, and not have anything fall out of it because we left it all on the racetrack – that’d be fine. I’m so happy about this whole deal.”

He was especially eager to celebrate with his team members.

“Most of the guys live around here and they’re from here. Some of the guys came in to work from other parts of the country. And they don’t have U.S. Nationals trophies on the shelf. This is a pretty big thing for all of us,” he said. “And we got a lot of help from Riche’s team, as you can always expect. Aaron [crew chief Brooks], as usual, did a good job. I got to take my son [Hunter] on stage afterwards and got to kiss my wife a million times at the big end. And I’ll tell you what, that’s should make our household happy for a long time, too. Just got a lot of good things going on this particular weekend.”

Runner-up Dave Connolly, who clinched a berth in the Countdown to the Championship with his semifinal victory over Shawn Langdon, clocked a 6.235, 83.47 against Lucas. The C&J Energy Services Dragster driver for Bob Vandergriff Racing advanced past Khalid al Balooshi, Antron Brown, and Shawn Langdon.

Lucas, who gave his team back-to-back U.S. Nationals victories after Crampton’ win here last year, headlined the second straight quartet of first-time Indianapolis winners.

Crampton said after dropping out, “In the big picture, it was the Lucas Oil car going rounds, whether it's Morgan or my own. I'd really love to see Morgan win this thing. I know how much this race means to him. He's an Indianapolis boy at his hometown track at Lucas Oil Raceway. I wanted to win that with him, being his crew member for the past 10 years. It really didn't have any points implications [for himself]. We were locked in third place. We couldn't do any better or worse.”

For Lucas, the struggle made it that much more memorable.

“It's a tough row to hoe,” he had said even before the event started, “but I have faith in my guys to put the car together right and keep all the weird stuff from happening."

Ultimately, they didn’t keep anything weird from happening. But, Lucas said, “Special things always come with funny memories.

“The first time I won Gainesville, I can go back and remember the fact that the parachute came out first round after we qualified No. 1. Why that happened, we still can’t figure it out. But it did,” he said. “And we somehow survived and went on to win the race. There’s always those lucky rounds. Last year in Pomona, we sneaked by first round, we dropped a hole against Shawn [Langdon] in the second round and we get to the finish line and he’s smoking the tires so we got lucky. There’s always a lucky round. Then in the semi and the final, Aaron just wicked the thing up and we got around everybody we needed to. That’s just the way it works.”

And in the facility with his name plastered everywhere one looked, back home again in Indiana where he was born, in front of his family and friends, Morgan Lucas can say it worked perfectly Monday afternoon.

MONDAY TOP FUEL NOTEBOOK - TOP FUEL PROVIDES SPOILS FOR MORE THAN JUST WINNER LUCAS

Top Takeaways From Monday:

Morgan Lucas wins the Top Fuel trophy at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals.

Team owner/part-time racer Morgan Lucas said he didn’t expect to earn his 12th career victory Monday.

“There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell I thought this was going to happen today out of my car,” he said after beating Dave Connolly in the final round with a 3.864-second, 319.90-mph pass on the 1,000-foot course. “I thought Richie’s [teammate Crampton’s] car could have pulled it off.”

Lucas genuinely was concerned about how he would perform on this sweeping stage that bears his family’s name everywhere fans looked.

Qualifying ended well and reassured the team, but not necessarily the driver.

He was among a quartet that represented the second straight year that all the U.S. Nationals winners were first-timers. He joined Jack Beckman (Funny Car), Erica Enders (Pro Stock), and Jerry Savoie (Pro Stock Motorcycle) in the winners circle. Lucas’ victory also marked several firsts for him personally.

Moreover, the style in which Lucas eliminated Leah Pritchett, Richie Crampton, and Brittany Force to reach his first Indianapolis final was a unique experience for the No. 6 qualifier. The route to the final thrust him into every scenario: a close side-by-side dash against Pritchett, a holeshot against his own employee/former crewman/teammate Crampton, and pedalfest against Force.

After the hype faded Monday, Lucas said he was “still pleasantly content. I feel good. There’s nothing bittersweet about this. This is just amazing. I don’t care how many parts we have to throw out. I don’t care if at the end of the day you could lift our trailer up on end, shake it really hard, and not have anything fall out of it because we left it all on the racetrack – that’d be fine. I’m so happy about this whole deal.

Tony Schumacher will lead the Countdown field with a 30-point edge.

One of only four Top Fuel racers to clinch a playoff spot before this event began, U.S. Army Dragster driver Tony Schumacher has the advantage of leading the field into the ninth edition of the Countdown to the Championship. It will start at the Carolinas Nationals at zMAX Dragway at Concord, N.C.

Race runner-up Dave Connolly bumps inactive Spencer Massey from Countdown.

The Top Fuel convert from the Pro Stock ranks beat Khalid alBalooshi and series champions Antron Brown and Shawn Langdon to overtake Spencer Massey in the Countdown lineup. In securing that No. 10 spot in the standings, class rookie Connolly guaranteed team owner Bob Vandergriff will have both of his C&J Energy Services-branded dragsters in the chase for the series title. Larry Dixon, his teammate, will be going for a fourth Top Fuel crown I his first season with BVR. Massey, dismissed at Don Schumacher Racing earlier in the week, was not entered in this event and did not have any chance to ward off Connolly’s charge.

The Top Fuel Countdown field is set

The racers, in order, who will be gunning for the 2015 Top Fuel series title are Tony Schumacher, Antron Brown Richie Crampton, Larry Dixon, Brittany Force, Shawn Langdon, Doug Kalitta, JR Todd, Steve Torrence, and Dave Connolly.

Schumacher will have to wait to make more U.S. Nationals history

Despite a mid-pack start (at No. 9), the U.S. Army Dragster driver was on the verge of breaking his tie with drag-racing / Pro Stock legend Bob Glidden for most Indianapolis victories. But that 10th triumph is proving elusive. Schumacher smoked his tires around mid-track Monday in his first-round meeting with 2013 U.S. Nationals winner Shawn Langdon. “These are the four days you look forward to most,” Schumacher said. He has 363 days to think about his next chance.

Doug Kalitta upsets the No. 1 qualifier in the opening round

Knocking off top qualifier Larry Dixon to begin pursuit of his first Indianapolis victory certainly was positive for the DeWALT/Mac Tools Dragster driver. But for the second time this weekend, he had to face Shawn Langdon, who on Saturday had knocked him out of the Traxxas Shootout bonus race. And this second time, Langdon returned the favor. Kalitta is seeded seventh in the six-race playoffs. “Did not get the result we wanted, but now we can turn to the Countdown. It was great to have so many people out from DeWALT this weekend.”

Billy Torrence is on a roll in his 2015 debut

In his first appearance on track this season in the second Capco Contractors Dragster, Billy Torrence helped son Steve collect valuable data. Dad scored a No. 2 starting position, his best in 16 Top Fuel races as his son’s teammate,and had a quarterfinal finish. For Steve Torrence, an undetected oil leak put enough liquid under the rear tires after the first-round burnout that, for the second time in three days, Torrence had to watch Richie Crampton drive away for the victory. Crampton eliminated him in the Traxxas Shootout, too.

Shawn Langdon’s Countdown future uncertain.

Shawn Langdon’s No. 6 ranking in the Countdown-kickoff standings, his Winternationals victory, and his record-setting runs might be for naught if his Alan Johnson Racing team can’t secure adequate funding before the Charlotte race.

TOP FUEL NOTEBOOK SUNDAY

DIXON RETAINS NO. 1 STARTING POSITION - Larry Dixon jumped from 14^th place to first in the Top Fuel order Saturday night with a 3.744-second pass and held onto the lead through two Sunday qualifying sessions at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals.

This marks the second time in five races Dixon will lead the field in the Total Equipment Dragster from Bob Vandergriff Racing.

With his 53^rd overall No. 1 start, Dixon will go for his fifth Indianapolis victory. However, he got a rude awakening – he’ll starting out in Sunday’s first round of eliminations at Lucas Oil Raceway against unlikely No. 16 qualifier Doug Kalitta.

“I don’t care where I’ve qualified this year – I have never had an easy draw first round,” Dixon said. “If you’re going to hold the trophy at the end of the day, you’ve got to earn it. Might as well start the day strong.”

Said Dixon, “We ran well when conditions [permitted]. We had a little trouble getting down the track today, but I’d rather have those runs today and that information going into tomorrow.”

He has four U.S. Nationals victories in seven final-round appearances, and he has reached five final rounds this season without a triumph. Still, he said he feels “blessed every day I’ve been able to get in one of these cars.”

Besides, he said, at the beginning of this first year with BVR, “I didn’t have goals set this high, because of the competition. You’re running against the Force team, the Alan Johnson team, and a whole stable of Schumacher cars. And they’ve been out there running for a number of years, refining their set-ups. We’re a start-up team.”

He said BVR’s relationship with Don Schumacher Racing enables his team to have “nice equipment.” Moreover, he said, crew chiefs Mike Guger and Joe Barlam “are turning the knobs the right way and making the right moves. We lost five final rounds, but we didn’t lose five rounds of information. We got great information. When we put ourselves in that position again, hopefully we’re better prepared for it.”

He’s hoping he can find out Monday.

FINALLY HEALED – For all his reassurances after his serious Gainesville accident in March, Larry Dixon did sustain injuries and is just now starting to be fully functional again. And he said he is just happy overall to be back in the racing groove.

Dixon was sidelined for much of the previous three seasons because of team changes and sponsorship searches for his own organization. But the three-time series champion said he’s enjoying his return as a fulltime racer, in spite of a shocking accident in that third race of the year.

“I am having fun, in spite of Gainesville,” he said. “Overall, I’m finally healed up from that. I finally started working out again. I got the green light after Seattle.

“I had some small compression fractures. I kind of had to wait for those things to heal up. I could drive a race car. I just couldn’t run down the racetrack,” Dixon said.

“The great thing about this town and living here,” the Avon, Ind., resident said of the Indianapolis area, “is Dr. [Terry] Trammell from Methodist [Hospital, now called Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital]. He’s done so much work with some great people. You always go to the best people, and he’s the best. He gave me the green light to race. He gave me the green light to work out.”

LUCKY 16? – How Doug Kalitta ended up in the No. 16 starting position is a bit puzzling. But the driver of the DeWALT Made in the USA Dragster indicated Sunday evening that he is relieved just to be in the lineup at all.

“Tough conditions out there,” Kalitta said. “We got behind it and should have gotten bumped out, and we didn’t. That is probably a good sign for the DeWALT team tomorrow that we have that luck on our side.”

ZIZZO’S STUGGLE ENDS WELL – T.J. Zizzo, normally one of the most cheerful racers in the Top Fuel class, was in a sour mood Saturday night after experiencing two broken engines and accompanying fires in his Rust-Oleum Dragster during qualifying. And like everyone else, he lost the chance to have that extra, fifth session when rain washed out Friday night’s program. So he entered Sunday’s final day of qualifying off the grid in 17^th place with passes of 4.080 and 4.452 seconds.

“Frustrated right now," he said after the second pass of the day. "It’s a simple word that I can use right now: I’m frustrated. You get behind the wheel of one of these cars and you have all the confidence in the world that everyone on your team has put everything together well and all is well.

"That's still is the case, but it seems like half the runs I’ve made since Indy last year are balls of fire. That last one, we broke a crankshaft I believe. Where does that come from? When does this end? It’s just become too costly and too ridiculous," Zizzo said.

"But hey, we’re at the U.S. Nationals. You try really hard to qualify, and we blew up an engine today, two of them, and oiled the racetrack twice. It’s very frustrating, and I don’t like to do that. We’ll see how tomorrow goes, but there are a lot of cars out there that aren’t qualified” he said Saturday, referring at the time to Kebin Kinsley, Wayne Newby, Terry McMillen, Doug Kalitta, and Luigi Novelli. It’s either feast or famine out there, and there was a lot of famine out there. And that includes us.”

His perseverance paid off Sunday. Zizzo earned the No. 15 starting slot and will meet Billy Torrence, another part-time driver who scored a No. 2 position.

AlBALOOSHI BOTH SHINES AND STRUGGLES – Khalid alBalooshi, the newest Top Fuel driver at Don Schumacher Racing, is doing double duty as a Pro Modified racer in the Frank Manzo-tuned Precision Turbo and Engine ‘69 Camaro. And he fared better in the Pro Mod class. AlBalooshi advanced to Monday’s second round of eliminations when opponent Donnie Walsh red-lit. Meanwhile, he struggled a bit in his return to the Top Fuel class. He needed the fourth and final qualifying session to put the Sandvik Coromant / Red Fuel Dragster in the 16-car lineup. He did, thanks to crew chiefs Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler and their seasoned team who guided him to a 3.887-second, 315.78-mph pass in Q4.

Al Balooshi is the 2011 NHRA Pro Mod Series, and in that category he’s seeking his first victory since 2011. He has four Top Fuel victories from his 2012-14 stint with Alan Johnson Racing and is seeking his first at Indianapolis.

He had not been behind the wheel of the 300-mph dragster since last November and said, "We struggled a little bit in a couple of qualifying runs this weekend, but everybody has been trying their best. We knew were going to do something good for the last qualifying run. There wasn't too much pressure on that last run. We've been focusing, especially me. I've only had four runs in this car, so I've been telling myself not to make any mistakes, just focus. Everyone has focused. We'll do the same for race day tomorrow."

AlBalooshi said of his return to Top Fuel racing, “It was really unbelievable. Especially when I get to work with such good people. Everybody respects each other. We've been working well together.”

HAD ABOUT ENOUGH - It was an ominous sign for Terry McMillen, the puddle of fluid underneath his Amalie Oil/UNOH Dragster as he finished his burnout in the third overall qualifying session Sunday. He stopped immediately when he discovered the problem. It turned out a broken barrel valve sent all the car’s fuel to the motor, pumping 11 gallons out through the headers.

McMillen hopped quickly from his car and exited over the wall, and T.J. Zizzo in the other lane got a single pass that put him and his Rust-Oleum Dragster into the field.

Afterward, McMillen, who operates out of Elkhart, Ind., was angry and frustrated at missing out at one of his home-area racetracks.

He said, “I’m beginning to hate Indy, or Indy hates me. I’m not sure. I’m not sure if I can afford to continue racing with these oildown penalties. It’s nobody’s fault but our own. I’m just going to have to take next week to do a little soul-searching.

“It’s hard to pay NHRA and buy parts. How are the smaller teams ever going to get ahead?” McMillen asked.

Sunday’s results are not the first disappointing ones for McMillen. Last year he also failed to qualify, and another time he made the Countdown field but got an oildown penalty, which deducted enough points to hand his playoff spot to Dave Grubnic.

OTHER DNQs – McMillen had some company on the DNQ list: Kebin Kinsley, Luigi Novelli, Wayne Newby, Clay Millican, and Chris Karamesines.

Newby, of Rapisarda Autosport International, said, “I’m disappointed for all the boys on the team not to be racing on Monday. We struggled all weekend. Our first run today was very similar to how we went yesterday. The car left all right, and I thought we were going to make it. Then we smoked the tires around the 330-foot mark. The positive was we never damaged any parts. Then on the second run, the car went up in smoke on the hit.”

BROWN AIMING FOR LEADER SCHUMACHER - Antron Brown, Saturday’s Traxxas Shootout winner, took the No. 12 qualifying spot. And as he prepared to line up against No. 5 starter JR Todd, said, “There's a lot on the table tomorrow.”

He’ll be going after his fifth victory but more importantly he’ll be trying to close the 53-pointgp in the standings between him and leader Tony Schumacher as the Countdown fields are set on a points-and-a-half format here. Each round-win Monday will be worth 30 points instead of the standard 20.

"Tony's our teammate but we want to get around him and get those extra bonus points by being No. 1 after the U.S. Nationals," Brown, the 2012 champion, said. "Our teammate, the U.S. Army car, is running great, and it's going to be a battle. Our main goal is to get as many points as we can, because we want that 30-point cushion going into the Countdown. And doubling-up at Indy would be nice, real nice.

"It's going to be anybody's ball game on Monday, especially for that first lap at 11 [a.m. ET],” he said. “We're running earlier than we have all weekend, so the track will be better before it gets too hot."

The forecast calls for afternoon temperatures in the mid-90s for a second straight day.

"Our main focus during qualifying was to get some quality runs in the heat and we did that on Saturday. The first run today it just dropped a [cylinder] early. We can fix that. We're going to try to duplicate what we did on Saturday and try to run in the mid-3.80s. We're confident we can do some things with this Matco Tools car. We have to get by the first round and take it from there."

HISTORY LESSON – Points leader Tony Schumacher and his U.S. Army Dragster team is on the verge of U.S. Nationals history. He has nine victories here and is tied with Hoosier Pro Stock legend Bob Glidden. He passed “Big Daddy” Don Garlits’ record of eight Top Fuel U.S. Nationals triumphs with his 2012 victory.

The first racer to stand in his way Monday will be Shawn Langdon.

Schumacher has reached the final here 11 times in 19 U.S. Nationals appearances. That including his storybook debut in 1996, when he started 16^th and made a solo pass because top qualifier Blaine Johnson had been killed during qualifying.

The weekend he unveiled his U.S. Army-sponsored car in 2000, he earned his first U.S. Nationals crown. All nine of Schumacher’s Indianapolis victories have come in the Army Dragster. He also won three straight Labor Day classics (2002-2004), then four in a row from 2006-2009.

This weekend, he debut a special-schemed U.S. Army Dragster designed to commemorate the 15^th year of the partnership between the U.S. Army and Don Schumacher Racing.

ALL SHOOK UP – Indianapolis is a mecca for drag racers and drag-racing fans. But for Gianna Rapisarda, who’s overseeing Rapisarda Autosport International here at this event in the absence of team owner father Santo, coming here provided the chance to make another pilgrimage. The Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, native took a two-day side trip to Memphis to visit Graceland, shrine to singing idol Elvis Presley.

“I’ve been to America a few times now. And what have I seen? Nothing. I’ve seen racetrack after racetrack,” she said.

“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,” Rapisarda said.

She left a note for the team that read, “Gone to visit Elvis. Be back tomorrow.” And off she went on her seven-hour drive to Memphis.

There she visited Graceland, Elvis-related museums, and Beale Street and stayed at the Heartbreak Hotel.

She’s deciding between New York and Chicago for her next venture.

Rapisarda is CFO of her father’s flagship company, Titan Cranes, and controls the books for the drag-racing team. And she said her dad would have enjoyed being here this weekend.

“I wish he was here. We all miss him,” she said. “He’s got a lot on his plate back home with work and projects. If it was a budget thing, we wouldn’t be here with the way the Australian dollar is. We enjoy it. It’s a family hobby.”

Gianna Rapisarda is one of only two women running a Top Fuel team. Connie Dote, co-owner of Leah Pritchett’s Gumout Dragster along with husband Mike, is the other.

TOP FUEL NOTEBOOK SATURDAY

DIXON MISSES SHOOTOUT BUT REIGNS OVER TOP FUEL FIELD - If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em.

That was Larry Dixon’s motto Saturday as he missed the excitement of competing for $100,000 in the Traxxas Shootout bonus race like eight of his Top Fuel colleagues.

So he used the evening session of qualifying for the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals to surge to the top of the tentative order.

Dixon drove Bob Vandergriff Racing’s Total Equipment Dragster to a 3.744-second elapsed time on the 1,000-foot Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis course.

He held off the Torrence tag-team of second-place dad Billy (3.771) and third-place son Steve (3.778), who also was fastest in the field with a 326.08-mph speed.

Dixon’s E.T. was just four-thousandths of a second off Shawn Langdon’s two-year-old track mark.

Qualifying is scheduled to wrap up Sunday with two more chances.

“First and foremost, I’m just happy to get our car qualified in the field. We’ve never qualified before Sunday for this race. So to be able to get in on Saturday, the number’s going to at least keep us in. We got our car in, and I’m thrilled with that,” Dixon said. “You’ve got to fire a pretty good shot tomorrow [to take over his top spot], but you never know.”

The three-time series champion has no victories to show for his five final-round appearances this season. But he wasn’t fretting about that. He said he has other goals.

“Other than trying to win the event, we’d like to try to get ourselves back into third place. We got bumped down last week. If we at least could up into third, that’s worth those points at the end of the year. I’ve lost the championship by two points. So you never want to leave any on the table,” Dixon said.

He said his dragster made “a great run. It didn’t make it to the finish line. It quit probably 40 feet or so before the finish line and knocked all the teeth off the belt. Then I saw the board and I went, ‘What?!’ It was still a pretty good run.

“On the first run, when it pulled the tires loose,” he said, “it was trying to run a .77-.78-type of run. When Antron ran .82 in that middle [Shootout] run, you knew the track was coming around. But I also knew Mike Guger. He wasn’t going to try to run a .77 or .78 that session, either. Did I think it was going to run a .74? No. But I wouldn’t have been surprised with a .75 or .76.

“Mike’s [crew chief Guger is] doing such a great job. Bob’s hustling the money with C&J. And to put a good show on for [C&J boss] Josh Comstock never hurts,” he said.

Dixon said it has been a long time since he has participated in a high-stakes bonus race at Indianapolis.

“The last time I was in a shootout at Indy, I was on Snake’s crew in 1989,” he said, referring to his days with Don Prudhomme Racing. “It brought back good memories, but it’s our fault we weren’t in the race. We didn’t win a race, and we didn’t get ourselves seeded. It would have been nice to be in it, but I’m not worried about it now.” Susan Wade

RFC TO RAFFLE OFF HELMET – Most professional NHRA competitors and driving legends attending the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals will have signed the special Racers for Christ helmet that will be raffled off Monday. Tickets are $5 for a single ticket, $50 for 10 tickets, and $100 for 20 tickets. Entry forms are available at the booth located in the Midway near the T-shirt trailers, between the Don Schumacher Racing and Alexis DeJoria pits. That’s where the drawing will take place at 1 p.m. or after the first round of eliminations

MILLICAN ON HIGH – Clay Millican always was popular but never the underdog in the IHRA, but he has become an NHRA fan favorite people love to cheer for as he pursues that first elusive Wally trophy to go with his Ironmen statues. And he gave his well-wishers – as well as his crew and himself – a thrill Saturday in the opening round of the Traxxas Shootout.

He eliminated top seed Tony Schumacher and said a prayer as he crossed the finish line: “Praise the Lord."

He said he and his mother, Martha Millican, have a tradition: "Me and Momma usually text one another, ‘PTL!!!’ and it's our way of saying, ‘It's a good day.’ "

Certainly emotions are strong just about trying to qualify for this show, and Millican said the emotions of simply winning a round are, too.

“It was huge. That wasn’t me – that was special, that’s what that was.,” he said, “I mean for that win light to come on against [the U.S. Army car], one of the greatest cars there is in drag racing, we all know that, and to have been basically voted in by the fans, it don’t get any better. To go out there in the No. 8 spot [of eight] and turn that win light on . . . it’s just incredible. I had the best reaction time that I’ve had all year. Shallow stage, that wasn’t me.

In a sense, Millican allowed, he felt like he already had won the bonus race, no matter what happened.

“As far as I’m concerned, absolutely, the rest of it is easy. The rest of this is easy now,” Millican said. “Am I planning on going up there and winning? Sure I am. Am I already happy? You better believe it. I’m going to start this thing up and go win another round.”

But the Parts Plus/Great Clips Dragster didn’t deliver another victory. Millican lost to eventual runner-up Doug Kalitta in the semifinal.

NEWBY A NEWBIE – WITH LOTS OF SEAT TIME – Wayne Newby has three Top Alcohol championships in Australia’s ANDRA series, which is distinctly different from what he’s encountering in NHRA action. The Rapisarda Autosport International racer drove a dragster for 18 or 19 years, then switched to a Funny Car for the past two or three years. Now he’s familiarizing himself with a 10,000-horsepower, nitro-burning Top Fuel car.

“We race the dragsters against the Funny Cars over there. The rules are we run different brakes and blower overdrive to make them even. You might as well say we virtually run the same as your Top Alcohol Funny Car. Our Top Alcohol Dragster runs your Funny Car rules. So it’s pretty competitive. The Funny Cars are starting to get a little bit of the edge. That’s why a lot of people have gone that way. But you get on a bad track and a dragster will beat ‘em every time.”

He said he sees unique characteristics with the Top Fuel car.

“In the Top Fuel dragsters, the speed is unbelievable, compared to the Alcohol Dragster. In the Alcohol Dragster you’re a little bit more busy. You’re looking for shift lights, and you have to shift gears going down the racetrack. You still have to concentrate a lot more with the Top Fuel car on where you’re going, where with the alcohol car you’re looking away, but you’re also looking for shift lights and when to shift gears. It’s a lot easier, but everything happens twice as fast.”

Newby said he regards this appearance as a chance to make up for his disappointing 0.468-second reaction time in the first round at Brainerd that resulted in a loss to Doug Kalitta with a frustrating 5.323-second clocking.

“I do,” Newby said. “No doubt I didn’t drive very good in Brainerd. I did stuff up [mess up] a little. I’m the first one to put my hand up and say that. I want to do well for the boys [tuners Santo Rapisarda Jr. and Tino Rapisarda and the all-Australian crew], and I want to do well for myself, because I know I can drive better than that. That’s the plan this weekend – the plan’s to win.”

A victory would be nothing short of thrilling for Newby, who came into this event with just 20 passes on the car, only six in the United States. (In testing last week, he ran a 3.82/309 mph, an effort he called “solid.”)

“I’d like to do it mainly for Santo,” he said. “He’d be stoked. The boys would be stoked. Everybody would be stoked. As you know in drag racing, anything can happen. The little team can win in drag racing.”

Newby runs a fabricating business in Sydney that he took over from his father – who is on hand to watch him compete in America’s biggest and oldest event. For him, “this is a dream come true,” he said. “A year ago, I wouldn’t have even thought of it. When I made my debut with Rapisarda Autosport International in Sydney last year I had no idea that nine months later I would be racing at the biggest drag event on the NHRA calendar- Indy.” Thanks to Santo, I’ve been given an opportunity. When you roll in and you see the other teams, you know you’re with the big boys. You see the big trailers. We have some [at Australia races] but not as many, because we run eight-car fields.”

He said he isn’t intimidated by the larger-than-life style of this event. However, he said, “I felt I got a little bit overwhelmed when I raced Doug in the first round [at Brainerd]. That’s when I got stuffed up.”

Newby should have a better time of things this weekend, thanks to the hot, steamy weather.

“I think the boys would rather see a hot, slippery track, because then you don’t have to run the big numbers to run with the big boys. If it’s a hotter track, then you can win with 3.80s. And this car will run 3.80s,” he said.

The best Newby could bring out of the car Saturday was a 4.804-second clocking. That left him 19th in the lineup.

LIKE GRANDPA, LIKE GRANDDAUGHTER – Longtime Top Fuel racer Chris Karamesines clearly is proud of granddaughter Krista Baldwin for earning her A/Fuel license. But the Lucas Oil Dragster driver said he doesn’t think the two of them ever will race against each other someday in the Top Fuel class.

“Nah, she’ll be on her own. I’ll sit in my nice easy chair and watch TV and watch her run down though there,” he said, hinting that he might retire one of these days. “You don’t think so?” he whimsically asked a doubter. “I may go boating. It’s hard to say what will happen. I can’t tell anyone my age. They say I’m 83 – I’ll go with that. I’m over 80 – and anybody that’s 50 years old can’t work for me. They’ve got to be younger.”

As for Baldwin, daughter of the late Top Fuel driver Bobby Baldwin, Karamesines said, “I think that’s great – as long as she finishes college, gets a good job, goes to work, and finds a sponsor and gets a race car. She’s pretty smart. She’s been pretty smart when it comes to race cars. She got it from her dad. She’s a great kid.”

NOT MONKEYING AROUND – Texan Kebin Kinsley said he was pinching himself, awed that he and his Roger Hennen-owned Gas Monkey Dragster are competing in the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals after trying to enter as a sportsman racer in the past and being a spectator here last September.

“I tried to come a couple of times. I made it as close as Bowling Green,” he said, alluding to Kentucky’s site of the Hot Rod Reunion. “If I did well there, I was going to come here and race. But I never did make it.” He drove the “Wild Child” Top Alcohol Funny Car.

He’s here, with seasoned racer and tuner John “Bodie” Smith, Gas Monkey branding from the Discovery Channel reality show “Fast N’ Loud,” and extra support this weekend from Havoline.

“Havoline has come on board with us. I’m excited because my dad retired from there after 35 years. We always made fun of him, saying he had Havoline running through his veins. They helped clothe us and give us a nice house, gave us a nice living. It’s extra-special, having them with us this weekend,” Kinsley said. “My dad passed away 10 years ago. I know he’s smiling down.”

Kinsley match-raced Dom Lagana at Englishtown, N.J., recently, but he hasn’t raced at an NHRA national event since the May race at Topeka. However, Kinsley said what he saw was encouraging.

“The car in Topeka really showed some great numbers down low,” he said. “We had a couple of little issues with some head studs. We ran [opposite Shawn] Langdon at Topeka in qualifying. He ran a [3.]76, and we had better numbers. Then we broke a head stud and had a flash fire, so it was only on seven cylinders and still went 3.85. It still was pulling. I saw the flash of fire, but it was still ripping my head off. So I was hanging on. It still ran a good number. So I think it’s going to be good [here].

“We got all brand-new head studs and parts from Kalitta, heads and blowers. We’ve got a pretty good arsenal for the weekend. We’ve been really working hard, preparing everything, because we know what we’re up against. The toughest guys in the world are here,” Kinsley said. And they’re 22-strong for the 16-car field.

Richard Rawlings, the mastermind of “Fast N’ Loud,” has been here, encouraging Kinsley.

Kinsley smoked the tires in his first qualifying pass Saturday and lost traction early in the night run. He is 18th and will start over with no times when the final day of qualifying resumes.

NO DOMINATORS – Shawn Langdon said of Top Fuel competition, “If you look at the results from different teams this year, it has been an interesting season.” His analysis showed that no one is running away from the rest of the field.

“Richie [Crampton] has won four races, but he DNQed at one and is third in points. Larry [Dixon] is fourth in points. He has been to a bunch of final rounds but hasn’t won a race yet. Antron [Brown] and Tony [Schumacher] have won quite a bit. But most of the teams in the top 10 have won a race or two and had some success – but also had some struggles. We’ve all gone through it,” Langdon said.

“So there really hasn’t been one car that has just dominated the season. Some have done better than others, but I think the Countdown will be a shootout all the way through Pomona.”

TODD STILL HAS PRIZE TO EARN – Although JR Todd’s fantasy of earning $100,000 for his Kalitta Motorsports team in Saturday’s Traxxas Shootout evaporated with his first-round loss to Antron Brown, the Optima Batteries Dragster driver still has something satisfying to shoot for. He can guarantee his second straight top-10 finish Monday with an opening-round victory in eliminations.

The NHRA inserted Todd, winner of last month’s Seattle race, into the Traxxas Shootout following Spencer Massey’s abrupt exit from Don Schumacher Racing. That marked Todd’s first appearance in the elite-eight bonus race.

“Indy is our biggest race of the year and draws in tons of fans, including a lot of my family and friends since this is my home race,” Todd, of Lawrenceburg, Ind., said. “There is a lot on the line this weekend with points and a half.

Optima Batteries will be the primary sponsor for Todd in three of the last seven events on the 2015 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season.

LUCAS LIKES NEW ROLE - Morgan Lucas is an 11-time winner in the Top Fuel ranks. But the mostly retired driver said, “I feel like I've accomplished a lot in my 10-plus years of driving a Top Fuel car. Being a blocker is something I'm more than happy to be, as long as it doesn't affect Richie and his program. We want to win a championship, and anything we have to do to get Richie's car to that point is priority.

"I feel like I get as excited, if not more, for Richie to win the race," Lucas said of fulltime Morgan Lucas Racing driver Richie Crampton. "Watching him win the U.S. Nationals as a rookie was epic, to say the least. That was a lot of fun. My wife and son were there to watch Richie win that. Being it's a home race, we get a lot of friends and family that come out to watch. Winning in front of that crowd is so special, but then having the U.S. Nationals trophy, that takes the cake."

Crampton is third in the standings with one race remaining before the start of the Countdown to the Championship. Lucas is racing a part-time schedule in 2015.

After winning twice in 2014, Lucas has struggled this season, though a recent test at Indy improved the team's confidence.

"We made three laps with a best of 3.78 [seconds] at 322 mph," Lucas said. "We ran really close to where Richie was at, so that was very uplifting. It was a shot in the arm, but we all know testing is one thing. We did find out the car does remember to go down the racetrack. We know that we still have a lot of mountain to climb, but we're optimistic that it's going to be a better weekend than what we've had so far this year."

TORRENCE’S 10TH – This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of Steve Torrence’s U.S. Nationals victory in the Top Alcohol Dragster class, one that helped him to the 2005 championship. Now the Capco Contractors Dragster owner-driver is going for a Top Fuel series title.

In his favor are the facts that (a) he has won previously at Lucas Oil Raceway, (b) he has been the Top Fuel runner-up the last two seasons here, and (c) he was runner-up in the inaugural Traxxas Nitro Shootout here in 2013.

Richie Crampton dashed his Traxxas hopes in the first round. “We struggled in the Traxxas Shootout,” Torrence said after ripping off a 3.778-second, 326.09-mph blast that for literally a minute or two landed him the No. 1 position. “That sucks. I wanted to win that deal.”

But looking at the overall picture, he said, “Indy’s special. It’s the one race win you want on your resume when you hang up your helmet. We were fortunate to win it in Top Alcohol, and now we’re looking to bookend it in Top Fuel.”

His father, Billy Torrence, is driving the second Capco Contractors Dragster to provide valuable data that would help crew chief Richard Hogan make the best tuning calls he can.

Billy Torrence found himself ninth in the order after Saturday’s first session, four places higher than his son. At the end of the day, Dad still trumped his son. Billy Torrence is second in the order overnight at 3.771 seconds, slower only to tentative top qualifier Larry Dixon (3.744). Steve Torrence was seven-thousandths of a second behind his dad, in third place with a 3.778-second E.T.

Two more qualifying sessions remain on Sunday’s schedule.

MEMORABILIA AUCTION – Morgan Lucas has donated an autographed Wally trophy from his 2013 victory at Charlotte, and Lucas Oil Dragster driver Richie Crampton has contributed a crew shirt for an online auction as part of the Eric Medlen Memorial Golf Tournament earlier this week.

Lucas and wife Katie hosted the tournament that has raised more than $250,000 for children in seven years. For the past several years, the tournament has benefited the Peyton Manning Children's Hospital at St. Vincent in Indianapolis.

Race fans are invited to bid on one-of-a-kind memorabilia and many other items. Among the items available for bid are an Austin Dillon NASCAR firesuit, other racing-related memorabilia, and Lucas Oil packages.

Fans can view the full list and sign up to bid at https://qtego.net/qlink/ericmedlen. The auction ends at 9:30 p.m. ET Sept. 7.

Medlen was a popular NHRA racer who passed away from injuries following a testing accident in 2007 at Gainesville, Fla. He loved spending time with children, so in his honor, Morgan and Katie Lucas established the tournament in 2009.

CLEARING UP SOME CONFUSION – Spencer Massey’s dismissal from Don Schumacher Racing caused a bit of confusion among racers and fans about what will happen in the Countdown to the Championship with the No. 10 spot that Massey occupies. The top 10 racers in each professional class at the conclusion of this 18th event will be title-eligible.

Terry Blount, NHRA vice-president of public relations and communications, said – and Graham Light, senior vice-president of racing operations, confirmed – that Massey will remain the No. 10 driver in the Countdown field – unless one of three circumstances happens.

Either Clay Millican or Dave Connolly could bump Massey out of the championship. The third scenario involves Massey himself.

If Massey happens to find another Top Fuel ride, he can exercise his right to compete in the six-event playoff or jump into the mix at any point. So it’s possible he could finish higher in the final standings than 10th place.

If neither Millican nor Connolly uses this last chance to qualify for the championship-eligible field, neither will get a special entry from the NHRA. In other words, if Massey – who is not entered in the Chevrolet performance U.S. Nationals and therefore will not accumulate any more points this weekend – remains No. 10, he will be the No. 10 driver when the race at Charlotte begins the Countdown.

“He’s 10th in points, regardless, unless Clay Millican or Dave Connolly beats him,” Blount said. “There’s nothing in the rules that says if you qualify and you don’t have a ride, there’s a deadline to get in.”

Both Millican and his crew chief, Dave Grubnic, both said, “Spencer earned those points. Those points are Spencer’s.”

Grubnic was philosophical about the team’s position.

“If I had done my job better early on in the season, we wouldn’t have to worry about this. We’d be in it,” he said.

Millican said the same of himself and his own performance throughout the first 17 races. He said he understood he would have to earn his way into the championship hunt.

Grubnic said, “My understanding is if we take care of our short-term goal and we do well here, we can still earn the right to be there. And that’s what we need to focus on. So we’re going to focus on that.”

Still, he said he wasn’t exactly certain what scenario had to occur for Millican to overtake Massey in the standings: “I’m not sure. I’m looking at it as if we win the event and accumulate as many points as we can, we’ll just have to wait and see how it all pans out. We’ll stick to our short-term goals and see where we end up.”

Light said Millican, driver of the Parts Plus/Great Clips Dragster for Stringer Performance, can make the Countdown field if he reaches the final. He said Millican also might need to accumulate the maximum qualifying bonus points. According to Light, Connolly, who drives Bob Vandergriff Racing’s C&J Energy Services Dragster, needs to win the race to crack the top 10.

Curiously, Grubnic teetered on the edge of eligibility several times in his driving career.

“One year we came here and we were out – Terry McMillen won the round and knocked us out. But he oiled the track and got points taken away from him. And we were back in,” Grubnic said. “We went through an emotional roller-coaster ride.”

POINTS FORMAT CHANGES – The U.S. Nationals will award 150 percent of the standard points allocation. At a regular national event, the winner earns 100 points, the runner-up earns 80, semifinalists earn 60, quarterfinalists earn 40, and teams losing in the first round earn 20 points. At the U.S. Nationals, those point allocations will be 150, 120, 90, 60 and 30, respectively. Following tradition, the qualifying format departs from the usual “wo runs Friday, two runs Saturday” style. At Indianapolis, racers have one pass Friday, two Saturday, and two Sunday. Friday’s session was rained out, so racers won’t get that extra chance to qualify for Monday’s eliminations.

SWAN SONG? – It’s no secret that Alan Johnson has been overloaded this year, trying to keep his Knuckle Sandwich Toyota Dragster competitive and trying to keep it on the track financially. But driver Shawn Landon says he can’t confirm or deny the rumor that Johnson has decided this will be the team’s final race, at least the last one of this season. Langdon said he simply doesn’t know.

“Alan is still in search of sponsorship. At this time, I don’t have much to comment on it, because I really don’t know, honestly,” Langdon said. “I know that there’s stuff they’re working on right now. Also, we’ll have a lot more information next week.”

Despite extremely short notice that the team sponsor was stranding them for the 2015 season, Langdon won the season-opener, led the standings through the first three races, was top qualifier twice, registered the quickest and fastest passes ever in the sport, and will be running in Saturday’s $100,000-to-win Traxxas Shootout. And he said he would hate to abandon that effort.

“I don’t want to give up on the team, either,” he said. “These crew guys, they’ve stuck with Alan through thick and thin and stuck with me. Everybody here, they’re here for a reason: they love working for Alan Johnson Racing, love working for Alan Johnson. We have one common goal: to win the championship at the end of the year. We feel like we have the car to do it. We just need the funding.”

If Johnson pulls the plug on the highly successful operation that has earned three of the last five series championships and brought Johnson 11 titles and eight U.S. Nationals victories, Langdon said he would understand.

“This sport can break you in a hurry. It’s very expensive to compete with the top teams,” Langdon said, referring to the team “being a little bit underfunded” and limited to one dragster. “It’s been a tough year for us, but we feel with these last couple of races we’ve definitely turned the corner with the performance of it. We’re ready to go for the Countdown. We just need the funding.”

That they’ve been able to operate through these 18 events, Langdon said, is “all really thanks to Toyota. Toyota stepped up big-time this year. And Knuckle Sandwich and Red Line Oil have been on board with us from Day One. He expressed thanks for “the companies that have helped us” and aid, “Now it’s time for us to try to find a little bit more outside [sponsorship] and hopefully go to 2016 and beyond. It’s difficult not knowing what the future holds, but we can only do so much. We’ll keep working hard; if can we get our Toyota team back in the winners circle, we hope the rest will take care of itself.”

He extended his appreciation to “any company that’s involved with drag racing, whether it’s a competitor. We can’t run by ourselves. We need competitors out there. Any sponsor that’ involved with NHRA, we thank them. We want to give back as much as we can to those companies – and win a lot more races.”

As for the action on the track at Indianapolis, Langdon said, “There’s a lot of money on the line and a little bit of pressure with points and a half on the line this weekend. It’s a great time of the year. It’s always exciting to be getting ready for the Countdown, and it’s nice to have more on the line. We’re not just racing for points this weekend.”

The bonus race has him excited. “The Traxxas Shootout will be tough. It’s an eight-car shootout with the best of the best in Top Fuel, so there won’t be any easy rounds. First round, we’ll race Doug Kalitta, and that’s a tough draw. He’s had a good year – he had a good year last year, as well. They run strong at Indy, and having a second car with JR [Todd], they won’t miss a beat. The Traxxas Shootout is definitely a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of pressure, too.”

The Labor Day elimination itself, he said, is “the biggest race we have. All the NHRA drag racing legends raced at Indy. Winning the U.S. Nationals is a big deal. We were fortunate enough to win it two years ago, so I got a little taste of what it’s like to win the U.S. Nationals, and I’m hungry for more.”

Langdon entered the Chevrolet Performance NHRA U.S. Nationals in sixth place in the standings. That represents a climb from a season-low 10th place. He trails fifth-place Doug Kalitta by five points and leads seventh-place Brittany Force by eight points. And he spoke like a racer who anticipates still being in the mix for the last six races, the playoffs.

“In points, if we have a good weekend, we could move up to fifth place entering the Countdown,” Langdon said. “If we can get around Doug and get into fifth, that will put us 10 points closer to the points lead, so that would be big. That would definitely help when we start the Countdown and could pay off towards the end. That’s our goal; we would only be a couple of rounds out of first place going into Charlotte, and with all the Knuckle Sandwich Toyota team has been through this season, that would be great.”

He owns the track elapsed-time record here with a 3.740-second clocking on the 1,000-foot course two years ago.

DOUBLING HIS PLEASURE – Shawn Langdon is staying busy this weekend. He’s fielding his Super Comp car, tuning in tandem with driver Brad Plourd. They have advanced to Saturday’s second round.

HELPING PUT OUT WILDFIRES - Top Fuel racer Doug Kalitta owns an airline that, among other services, offers cargo hauling. His Kalitta Charters didn’t deliver pumper trucks to the wildfire-ravaged West Coast. But he said Kalitta Air, his Uncle Connie Kalitta’s company, has participated in the firefighting effort in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.

“There’s a company called 10 Tanker Air Carrier. They’ve got three DC-10s that they use to put the fires out,” the Top Fuel driver said.

Albuquerque-headquartered 10 Tanker has deployed its entire fleet, under a U.S. Forest Service contract, in Washington, Oregon, and California. That marked the first time all three firefighting planes have worked at the same time. One of them was ordered to Southern Idaho and is based at the Pocatello Air Tanker Base. The three aircraft combined to drop more than 132,000 gallons of retardant on four fires in three states in one day alone.

“We did all the modification work [on the 10 Tanker planes]. We built the retardant tanks under these DC-10s. We made the aircraft tanks and the system for it. Connie’s a big maintenance guy,” Doug Kalitta said of the man who serves as his Kalitta Motorsports team owner in NHRA drag racing. “His maintenance facility in Northern Michigan, in Oscoda, Mich., has about 900 employees.

“They’re just an incredibly talented bunch of guys,” Kalitta said of the machinists and mechanics there.

Kalitta, also a pilot, marveled at these DC-10 pilots, as well, saying, “It’s pretty exciting to see these guys in action.

“It’s amazing that there are enough fires to have dedicated DC-10s for that,” he said. “They’re always ready to roll, and we’re happy to be part of it.”

CRAMPTON’S CAREER SKYROCKETS – Two years ago, Richie Crampton got a chance to make a test pass in one of the Morgan Lucas Racing dragsters here at Lucas Oil Raceway. He got the chance to earn his Top Fuel license as a convenience for the organization in case team driver Brandon Bernstein had to take another hiatus because of a sore back. “If I had my license, [Lucas] wouldn’t have to outsource in situations when we needed a substitute - not just filling in for Brandon if he was hurt but times when we needed to test and maybe one of the regular drivers weren’t available,” Crampton said.

Today he’s enjoying his final hours as reigning U.S. Nationals Top Fuel champion.

Crampton, ranked third in the standings, said he still feels “like we have a lot to prove. There are just too many great drivers and strong teams in this category to have any kind of swagger. You have to prove yourself every week, and we're going into this race with the same mindset as we did a year ago."

This season he has four victories (at Las Vegas, Bristol, Topeka, and Brainerd) heading into the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals.

"We feel good about our performance to date, but these nitro classes keep you humble, believe me," Crampton said. "You can be on top of the world one day and knocked to your knees the next.

"Our mantra all year has been 'Let's try to be consistent.' Of course, that's extremely tough to do week after week, because the weather is constantly changing, parts fail, and each track is different. But I think everyone will agree that consistency has won more championships than pure luck, so we'll continue down that path the best we can."

In the Countdown, Crampton said, "they reset the points and separate us all by 10 points each, according to where we finished the regular season. So the teams with better regular seasons do have a bit of an edge over the ones at the bottom that have some catching up to do. But everyone is a lot closer after they reset the points than they are now, so it places a premium on how you perform down the stretch.

"It makes for exciting finishes every year,” he said. “We're just happy to be a bigger part of it all this year than any time in the past. But first things first, we would all love to defend this race win. Indy is Indy. It's the single biggest race on the schedule, and the prestige of winning it is unparalleled. We did it once, and that will stay with us forever. Now we will try to double up and really charge into the Countdown."

BARELY MISSING A BEAT – Team owner Don Schumacher expressed faith in his newest hire, Khalid alBalooshi, driver of the Sandvik Coromant/Red Fuel Dragster. He said the Dubai native and crew chiefs Todd Okuhara and Phil Shuler “are more than capable of winning these last seven races."

Schumacher said it was “important to me that our Sandvik Coromant/Red Fuel team will continue to compete for wins this year. I'm excited that our team will continue.”

That team’s rhythm was interrupted late last week, just as the U.S. Nationals approached and testing at Lucas Oil Raceway had finished. Driver Spencer Massey got not an E.T. slip, but rather a pink slip (for the second time from DSR) because, according to the announcement of his dismissal, he had violated a team policy “and would not correct the violation.” For a day or two, it was unclear what would become of the team that won the Top Fuel trophy at the Gatornationals and set the national speed record speed at 332.75 mph at the most recent race, at Brainerd, Minn.

"We're excited that DSR was able to get a driver with Khalid's credentials to drive our Sandvik Coromant/Red Fuel dragster in the U.S. Nationals," team owner Don Schumacher said. Khalid does an outstanding job of representing NHRA drag racing and is a great international ambassador for our sport. He is a proven, versatile racer and showed that by quickly adapting to Top Fuel where he was very successful.”

Said alBalooshi, "I am so excited to drive again in Top Fuel, especially for DSR, one of the top teams in the NHRA. I appreciate everyone, especially Don Schumacher, for picking me out of all the drivers. I'm going to try my best for the team and everyone that supports DSR."

The veteran racer from the United Arab Emirates, became the first Middle Eastern driver and just third driver from outside North America (Kenji Okazaki of Japan and Dave Grubnic of Australia) to win in the NHRA. He has four NHRA event titles in eight Top Fuel final rounds. He has been competing in the Pro Modified category in NHRA this season, and he’s doing so at the U.S. Nationals.

PURSUING EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP – Last September, Dom Lagana qualified eighth at Indianapolis in the Rapisarda Autosport International Dragster and defeated Doug Kalitta in the first round before losing to Tony Schumacher in the quarterfinals. And just last week he won the World Series of Drag Racing at Cordova, Ill. But he’s on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean this weekend, at England’s Santa Pod Raceway, helping Top Fuel racer Anita Mäkelä continue her FIA European series dominance.

A Finnish chicken farmer from the town of Vilppula, Mäkelä won the Scandinavian Internationals Aug. 29 at Sweden’s Tierp Arena in record-setting style. She rewrote the European elapsed-time mark with a 3.878-second pass, made six consecutive three-second passes, and moved to within 18 points of leader Micke Kågered. At this weekend’s race, the European Finals, Mäkelä jumped out to the early qualifying lead with a 4.01-second pass (sharing the spotlight with Jimmy Ålund, the current European Pro Stock champion who has raced during the past two seasons in NHRA competition).

Dom and Bobby Lagana have helped Mäkelä for two years after selling her what Dom Lagana said is “a set-up similar to our car’s.” Because brother Bobby is a fulltime member of Steve Torrence’s Top Fuel crew, Dom Lagana said before leaving Indianapolis this Thursday he would be going to “kind of help them run the car – whatever I can do to help, it doesn’t matter.”

He said Mäkelä is “a great lady” and her outfit “a great team.” In 2000, she became the first European drag racer to earn championships in two classes.

POSITIVES FOR MILLICAN – Clay Millican and his Stringer Performance team spent the weekend before the U.S. Nationals fine tuning their race strategy. It paid off at Cordova, Ill., at the World Series of Drag Racing. Millican was runner-up to Dom Lagana. They also picked up a fresh sponsor for their Parts Plus/Great Clips Dragster. Nuss Truck & Equipment, which operates in Minnesota and Wisconsin, has joined Millican & Company for the rest of the season.

Millican needs to make up 124 points here this weekend to qualify for the Countdown as the No. 10-seeded driver. Extra motivation came Wednesday when the Drummonds, Tenn., native won the fan-vote-fueled special lottery to be included in the $100,000-to-win Traxxas Shootout bonus race. He joined the elite eight-car field for Saturday’s runoff during qualifying. Alluding to the IHRA, where he won six straight Top Fuel series championships in an eight-car ladder, Millican said, “I’ve won more three-round races than anybody in the [Traxxas] field.”

He had a famous motivator, as well. Drag racing legend “Big Daddy” Don Garlits sat in Millican’s cockpit before last Saturday’s final round at Cordova. He had stopped by the Stringer Performance pit to visit with the team and wish them luck heading into the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals.

RACING IN RED – For Leah Pritchett and the Gumout/Dote Racing Dragster team, it’s not enough just to run well – they want to look good while doing it. So Pritchett – the Jr. Dragster graduate who has an NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Funny Car championship, three Pro Modified victories, and licenses in Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Mod, and Heritage Series Funny Car – was jazzed about the new red paint job on the dragster.

She debuted the “Solid Gold” Gumout Expert Series Dragster in June at Bristol, Tenn. Now the team sparkles in red – and fans have had a chance to name this version via the social-media platform Twitter.

The team announced late Friday night that after receiving nearly 1,000 entries, the winning name is “The Lady In Red.”

“It is a perfect name for my Gumout car at the U.S. Nationals,” Pritchett said. “The bright red chrome color is going to be the ladies’ favorite once it runs down the track. The fans helped with a lot of great names for the car, and we felt this one is the best.”

“The Lady in Red” was a popular motion picture in 1979 and chart-topping hit in 1986 by Chris de Burgh

“With the success of the ‘Solid Gold’ car in mid-season, we thought we would incorporate the gold chrome with the red paint,” said Leah, runner-up earlier this year at the Southern Nationals. “The new red chrome look should be a popular paint scheme with the fans, and I want to thank them for voting for the dragster’s new name.”

Fans with the winning name will receive prizes from Gumout.

“The Solid Gold Gumout car received a lot of attention for the three NHRA races it competed. Now the Dote team and the Gumout folks wanted to include some of that look, and we went with red chrome. It’s a cool-looking paint for a dragster. And at night it should be fun to watch,” Pritchett said.

Pritchett, a 27-year-old California native, said she has had here eye on a victory here since her pre-teen years.

“The NHRA U.S. Nationals is our sport’s biggest drag race. So it makes any driver’s career to win at Indy. That has been my goal since I first came to Lucas Oil Raceway at age 12 in Jr. Dragsters. I’m extremely excited for this week’s events as well as the new Gumout paint scheme,” she said.

She called her preseason testing here last week “a very good test for our team.” She said, “We were able to try a number of things on the Gumout car. We never made a full run in testing, but we had some good early numbers with our passes.” She said she was ready for qualifying to start.

She has had her eye on the weather forecasts, knowing the hot, humid conditions could challenge every tuner and driver this weekend.

“It was cooler during the test runs last week. With temperatures in the 90s predicted, the track surface will be a big key to success,” Pritchett said, slyly adding, “Actually, we like the hotter conditions with our dragster set-up. It should be a very interesting weekend.”

Of course, in “Hot-lanta,” at Atlanta Dragway, she made her career-first final-round appearance.

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2015 NHRA U.S. NATIONALS - TOP FUEL NOTEBOOK