NHRA (TOPEKA) - LUCAS RUNS 4.619 SECONDS

From all appearances, it looks like Morgan Lucas is back to his appreciative racing stride placing his Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster in the provisional No. 6 starting position for the 19th annual running of the O’Reilly Summer Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka. Lucas recorded an elapsed time of 4.619 seconds, 323.04 mph at the Kansas quarter-mile and would have liked to improve on his run, but after intermittent rain showers appeared around 10:30 p.m. CDT, NHRA officials decided to pull the plug canceling the Friday night qualifying session. "That's a great way to go into Saturday, especially the fact that it looks pretty good for us to stay in the field" said a satisfied Lucas. “We have struggled in the last couple of races and it’s good to know we’re heading in the right direction. We're steadily chipping away at it and you can tell it by crew who are having fun again. It's only one run, but it’s amazing what a good E.T. can do. The track is surprisingly good from what everybody thought it was going to be like. I’m just going to look forward to tomorrow and even more on race day.” Lucas has two semi-final finishes in his young career at Heartland Park with the highlight of his past performances of 328.94-mph, his fastest of his career, when he set low elapsed time of the event here in 2005 with a effort of 4.502 seconds in the opening round of Sunday competition. Lucas will get two more qualifying attempts at HPT on Saturday beginning at 12 noon and 2:30 p.m. ESPN2-HD will air qualifying highlights at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Saturday, June 2.