NHRA.com (January 6, 2016) - Richie Crampton and the Lucas Oil Top Fuel team had an excellent follow-up to their 2014 campaign during which Crampton won the 2014 Automobile Club of Southern California Road to the Future Award honoring the season’s top rookie on the strength of wins at Englishtown and Indy, where he became the first Top Fuel rookie since Larry Dixon in 1995 to win the prestigious Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals.
Crampton and the team led by crew chief Aaron Brooks avoided the dreaded “sophomore slump” in Crampton’s second year of driving by winning five events and finishing No. 3 in the points standings, which is a career-high for any driver under the Morgan Lucas Racing banner. For the Australian-born driver, the matter of progress from 2014 to 2015 was pivotal toward the longevity of his driving career.
“Ironically, I hadn’t really heard the term [sophomore slump] very much,” said Crampton. “I definitely knew that my first year was a good year, but 2015 was really going to determine whether I belonged driving one of these cars against the best drivers in the world. I was either going to continue being on the up-ramp or, if I plateaued as a driver and didn’t improve and get more wins, the reality of how tough our sport is might have hit home.
“I still feel like I know I have a great team and one of the best young crew chiefs. Having a fantastic team gives me every opportunity to go out and win. I still look at it as, ‘I don’t want to be the reason why this team doesn’t succeed.’ I’ve worked with these guys for 10 years now, and winning races is what we all want to do as a group. I don’t think I’m ever going to lose that mindset. I don’t want to take a good team and turn it into junk.”
Improvement behind the wheel was one factor in Crampton’s 2015 campaign with his reaction-time average improving from .089 to .079 and faring better in race situations where both competitors battled traction issues. Another area of improvement was Brooks’ ability to strike in all sorts of conditions, be it a warm events like Las Vegas in the spring or Dallas in October where Crampton won with 3.9-second elapsed times in the final or a performance extravaganza in Brainerd where Crampton recorded his first 3.6-second run to win the event.
“Our first win was in Vegas, which was relatively early in the season,” said Crampton. “To get what was my third career victory at the time with more than three-quarters of the season ahead of us let me know that we were on the right track. Last year, we finished ninth in the championship, which wasn’t what we wanted to do after Morgan finished fourth the prior year. I was really hoping we could finish in the top 5 during my rookie season, which was a pretty lofty goal. To be able to get a victory early in 2015 and know that we had time to win more races and, for me, to continue to learn how to win was really the turning point.
“We’re really trying not to change too much and pick away at the little things. Consistency is a huge part of our sport. Whether it’s hot weather or cooler weather, we want to qualify a little more consistently. As a driver, I’ll continue to try to work on my reaction times. That’s so important. If I can bring 100-percent to the starting line, this team can go a long way. I’m going to be working on the practice Tree at the shop this winter. My team is going to be working on the consistency. If we can execute on race day, maybe we can finish third again or try to do a little better.”
Crampton has been able to take advantage of his opportunities in the late rounds. Outside of the four-wide format where he reached a final in 2015 and had a third-place finish, Crampton has been a perfect 7-0 in career finals.
“This season, I had so much confidence in my race car, my crew chief, and my team when we rolled up for the final round at each of those events that we could win, which we did,” Crampton recalled. “I’m pretty realistic. Standing back and taking a look at it, we know the law of averages will catch up with me sooner or later. For me, the more runs I get on race day, the more confidence I get. I think that helps my driving, and it helps Aaron Brooks get his handle on the race track. I love going up there for final rounds.”
Continuity has played a large role in the team’s ascension. Brooks and assistant crew chief Rod Centorbi have been with the team since 2012, and they retained many of the crewmembers who were there before they arrived.
“It’s huge,” said Crampton. “Team chemistry, everyone getting along and being able to work well together on the road and at the shop, is important. We have such a good group. Aaron, Morgan, myself Morgan basically built this team over the last 8-9 years. He wants to keep these assets, which are these great group of guys that we are working with.”
Though Crampton doesn’t benefit from being part of a multicar team at every event on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour, he is joined by Lucas on a limited schedule. Lucas has taken advantage on many of those opportunities with two wins in 2014 and a victory at Indy in 2015.
“Finishing No. 3 says a lot about Aaron Brooks basically putting a single-car team that high in the points, and that doesn’t happen very often anymore,” said Crampton. “We have Morgan out on a limited schedule, which helps us a little bit. For the most part, we’re a single-car team, which makes it impressive that Aaron went out and got us those wins.
“The competition seemed closer in the whole category. Any weekend, the race could have been won by any of the 16 cars racing. It was a unique year. We had a lot of luck, and of course there was a lot of hard work by Aaron and the entire Lucas Oil team. I’m just part of a great group that Morgan has put together here, and I’m really lucky to be the guy who gets to jump in the driver’s seat.”
