Richie Crampton and the Kalitta Air team suffered a tough first round loss at the Arizona Nationals.
The qualifying portion of the weekend was solid for Crampton. In the afternoon session on Friday, Crampton nearly scored bonus points with a career-best tying run of 3.683 seconds. That seeded him fourth going into Saturday. The Kalitta Air team was unable to improve in the final two passes of qualifying and was bumped from fourth to fifth. His first round opponent was Scott Palmer.
Crampton got the jump at the line and was leading at the 60′ line. However, the Kalitta Air machine had issues shortly after and Palmer was able to drive around Crampton’s machine and score the round win.
Statistics:
Qualified: No. 5 (3.683 sec., 323.27 mph)
E1: Crampton defeated by Palmer – 5.061 sec., 144.95 mph to 3.768 sec., 325.45 mph
Quotable: “Definitely a building weekend for this Kalitta Air Toyota team. I think we got caught waiting for an oil down in front of us. No excuses, but we have confidence we know where we wrong. We will be ready for Gainesville.”
Point Standings: 15th; trails Blake Alexander by four points for 14th.
Kalitta Motorsports PR/Photo Gary Nastase Photography
