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Sun, Feb. 14th 2010
POMONA, Calif. (Feb. 14) -- Top Fuel driver Morgan Lucas and his GEICO Powersports/Lucas Oil dragster looked sharp for about half the length of Auto Club Raceway in Pomona Sunday morning but his 8,000-horsepower overpowered the track at the midway mark, causing him to puff the tires and lose a close race to Troy Buff.
"We have a good problem right now," Lucas said. "We're making a ton of power. Now all we need to do is figure out how to harness this beast. When we do that, look out."
Lucas and Buff were side-by-side until some odd-looking flames started belching out of Lucas' engine. A moment later his tires were spinning and Buff was able to pull away. At the finish line, Buff's 3.950 at 295.85 mph was just enough to beat Lucas' 4.108 at 263.92 mph.
"We lost two rounds in qualifying because of that automatic shutoff deal and that bit us a little," said Lucas, who spent part of his youth in Mira Loma. "We need to find some time to test this thing and get the data we need to control this power.
"I'm not upset at all. I wish we had done better but it's a long season and we've already shown we have a car that is very, very quick. The deal in this sport is you have to be perfect on race day and we weren't today."
The 26-year-old from Indianapolis won't have long to wait before he can redeem himself at the 26th annual Arizona NHRA Nationals begin Friday at Firebird International Raceway near Phoenix.
"We have no problem making power and no problem getting down good racetracks," Lucas said. "We need to get past this one issue and we'll be flying every race."