Battle of teammates on tap for Morgan Lucas Racing

PHOENIX (Feb. 20) -- For just the second time, Morgan Lucas Racing teammates Morgan Lucas and Shawn Langdon will race one another in Top Fuel action. After two days of qualifying, which was shortened one round by rain, Langdon ended up sixth overall with a 3.857 at 315.12 mph, while Lucas garnered 11th place after a 3.935 at 297.55 mph in his GEICO Powersports/Lucas Oil dragster.

"The good news is one of us will be going on to the second round," said Lucas, who at 26 years old is the youngest nitro driver on tour. "Of course the flip side is one of us will be out. That's just the way it goes in this sport. We have two great cars that just about always make the field so it's bound to happen. It's really kind of crazy that this is just the second time."

Lucas' run of record came in Saturday's lone session. From the onset, he appeared to be on a great pass but fire flashed from his motor just before the finish line, obviously knocking some ET and speed off the run.

In Friday's first two sessions, Lucas had slight engine issues in his opening attempt of 3.984 and spun the tires in Round 2 en route to a 6.845.

"I'm extremely disappointed in where we are with the tune-up at this point," he said. "And losing a session to weather didn't help any. I'm not sure about the NHRA's decision to cancel the session anyway because it appears we could be running this afternoon.

"We've been stuck with our tune-up before and the guys always find a way to work out of it. We've got a bunch of veterans on this team and I know they're as frustrated as I am right now. It just sucks we have to race Shawn in first round. I'm sure the order would have changed if we could have run again."

For the record, Lucas beat Langdon in the first round of the Memphis race last year, an event he went on to win. Currently, Langdon is fifth in the Full Throttle points, while Lucas is ninth.

"Best case scenario is we both stay in the top 10 and one of us takes the trophy here," Lucas said. "I know we're going to race each other hard and the winner will be capable of getting the Wally."

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