Las Vegas, November 2, 2014 - Top Fuel pilot Richie Crampton added another elimination round-win to his impressive rookie resume Sunday before bowing out to Billy Torrence in the quarterfinal round of the NHRA Toyota Nationals. A two-time winner this season, Crampton now has 19 individual round-victories, tied for most among rookie drivers.
"It was a decent outing but we all wanted more, to be honest," Crampton said. "A few of the drivers we're very close to in the Mello Yello points went out early, and I feel like we had a great chance to move up a spot or two but it wasn't meant to be.
"We ran OK today. We had some mechanical issues here but that's actually pretty normal for this track because the air is a bit thinner. As we all saw, there was a lot of engine carnage out there today."
Cloudless skies over The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway allowed temperatures to increase, slightly slowing Crampton's GEICO/Lucas Oil dragster, which had run three 3.7-second passes in qualifying. He beat first-round opponent Bob Vandergriff Jr. with a 3.831 at 270.43 mph but then lost to Torrence with a 3.868 at 293.09 mph.
"It's quite a challenge for the crew to back the car down when conditions aren't as good as they were earlier in the weekend," Crampton said. "You go from a deal where Aaron (Brooks, crew chief) can just absolutely get after it to where you have to ease off just a touch to make sure the car gets down the track. It's a very fine line between just right and too much or too little when you're applying horsepower.
"Give Billy credit. He ran a career-best number in the first round and that gave him lane choice against us, which may have been the difference in the end. I had him off the line by a nice amount (.073 to .104), but the engine started going away downtrack and he went past."
Sunday's race will air this evening on ESPN2.
The next race on the schedule is the season-ending NHRA Finals, held Nov. 13-16 in Pomona, Calif.
