NEWS - Aussie Richie Crampton flies in new GEICO fueller at Indy test

Aussie Top Fuel pilot Richie Crampton has posted the second quickest run on the opening day of testing for the Chevrolet Performance US Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis.

Testing an all-new GEICO/Lucas Oil dragster, Crampton posted a best pass of 3.773 seconds at 324.36 mph to trail Wednesday leader, Kalitta Motorsports' JR Todd by just 5/1000s of a second (3.768).

"We wanted to shake the thing down and make sure it responded well to all the stuff we were trying to do with it, and it did," Crampton said of the car built in-house at Morgan Lucas Racing by himself, crew chief Aaron Brooks, and crewmember Jason Rush.

"We got rain-delayed a little bit today, so we were only able to make three runs.

"The first one was a planned shutoff as a precautionary measure to make sure all the pistons were working. The second run we made, I shut it off at about 700 feet and ran 3.91," he said.

"We were very happy with the new car and the way everything is working on it – credit to the MLR chassis shop for putting together another fantastic car and the GEICO team for making it race-ready right out of the box."

Crampton will continue testing tomorrow, with the 60th Anniversary Chevrolet Performance US Nationals beginning next Thursday (Australian time).

Crampton will be joined in Top Fuel by fellow Aussies Rapisarda Racing, which will campaign a car for experienced US driver Dom Lagana.

Shane Tucker will resume his US campaign in Pro Stock, while three-time Australian Super Sedan Champion and former Nationals Super Stock winner, Graeme Cooper will contest Super Stock.