Teammates Morgan Lucas and Shawn Langdon both exited the 30th annual Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals
in the quarterfinal round but the mood was still very positive in the Lucas Oil pit.
The two youngest drivers in the nitro ranks recorded great passes in their second-round losses,
they were simply edged out by fractions of a second by their opponents. Lucas lost to point leader
Antron Brown by .004 seconds in his GEICO Powersports/Lucas Oil dragster, while Langdon bowed out
to Cory McClenathan by five hundreds of a second in the Lucas Oil/Dixie Chopper dragster.
"There's no reason to hang our heads," Lucas said. "In fact I'm very proud of the whole team for
the exceptional work they did in turning two mediocre cars from qualifying into two racecars that
were fully capable of winning today."
Lucas opened the day by dismissing Brandon Bernstein in Round 1 with 4.005 at 295.66 mph to
Bernstein's 4.137 at 278.40 mph. He then squared off against Brown, who managed to edge his 4.034
at 292.52 mph with a slightly slower 4.042 at 296.70 mph, the difference coming on a marginal .055-
to .067-second holeshot by Brown.
"A race like that you just walk over and shake the guys hand and tell him he did a great job,"
Lucas said. "I had a .044 reaction time in Round 1 and a .067 against Antron, I'll take that any
time. He just beat me straight up.
"I'm real proud of Shawn and the job he continues to do. The same thing just happened to him
against Cory. That's the way drag racing goes some times."
Langdon started strong with a win over Joe Hartley that started with a nice .059- to .092-second
reaction time edge. He never looked back, even as both cars started to haze their tires, winning
with a 4.263 at 251.39 mph to Hartley's 4.397 at 198.50 mph.
In the quarterfinals, Langdon once again got off the starting line first with a .063 to
McClenathan's .095, but this time his opponent was able to catch and pass him for the win, taking
the stripe in 4.000 seconds at 305.01 mph to Langdon's 4.086 at 294.18 mph.
"Me and Morgan were both having a rough time of it in qualifying but the guys never gave up and
turned it all around for today," Langdon said. "This really pegs our confidence heading into
Seattle and Sonoma (Calif.) because we know we have two good racecars over here."
The Northwest NHRA Nationals run July 17-19 at Pacific Raceways in Seattle.
