INDIANAPOLIS (Aug. 20) -- GEICO/Lucas Oil driver Richie Crampton likes the new-car smell -- and the new-car performance -- of his Morgan Lucas Racing Top Fuel dragster.

Crampton and the MLR team debuted the new car during testing today at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis, posting a best pass of 3.773 seconds at 324.36 mph on the first full run with the new chassis.

"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.

Rain hampered the NHRA team's testing at Indy in preparation for the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals on Aug. 29-Sept. 1, but Crampton was happy with the progress.

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

Then came the 3.773-second pass that was close to the track record of 3.740 set by Shawn Langdon in 2012.

"We were very happy with the new car and the way everything is working on it," Crampton said. "I'm pretty excited to run it tomorrow and learn some more and get it ready for Indy."

Crampton, crew chief Aaron Brooks, and crewmember Jason Rush built the new car in the MLR shop in Brownsburg, Ind., improving on previous models built there. The plan is to use the car at Indy and during the Countdown to the Championship playoffs, for which Crampton clinched a spot in Brainerd, Minn., last weekend.

"Credit to the MLR chassis shop for putting together another fantastic car and to the GEICO team for doing a fantastic job on preparing it for today and making it race-ready right out of the box." Crampton said.