Meanwhile, Lucas' teammate Shawn Langdon suffered a rare first-round loss due to parts failure, which allowed Brandon Bernstein to take the win with a 3.918 at 308.78 mph.

"It's frustrating to have an opening-round run as good as the one we put together and then an hour later you go completely backwards and lose a race you could have won," Lucas said. "And I totally missed the tree. It's hard to be in a good mood right now."

Lucas opened with a 3.856 at 310.13 mph against Doug Kalitta, but slowed to a 4.007 at 297.35 mph versus Dixon when his engine lost power in one of its cylinders at the hit of the throttle. That allowed Dixon, who also encountered some engine problems later in the run, to win with a laboring 3.902 at 291.38 mph.

"The tuning window we're operating in at the moment is so small," Lucas said. "Until that changes, we're going to continue to struggle."

After ceding a slight headstart to Bernstein, Langdon quickly pulled even and appeared to be steaming away for the victory when his Lucas Oil/Dixie Choppers dragster suddenly went silent. Upon closer inspection at the top end, it was determined that the throttle cable broke.

"That was another new one for me," Langdon said. "My immediate thought was that we'd tossed the blower belt but when the engine went quiet I started to figure it out. At that point all I had was a front-row seat to watch Brandon take the win light. I was absolutely dead in the water.

"It's been a frustrating two weeks because we continue to have a great racecar. We're just having weird things happen to us. Hopefully, we can shake it off and put this behind us real quick and get set for Englishtown. Our next round of racing is Friday."

Up next for the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series is the 40th annual United Association NHRA SuperNationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J. Qualifications begin at 3 and 6 p.m. Friday afternoon.

Courtesy of Rob Geiger