Commerce: Morgan Lucas Saturday summary

LUCAS VERSUS HERBERT FIRST ROUND IN ATLANTA COMMERCE, Ga. (May 6) -- Morgan Lucas driving his powerful Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster will roll out ninth at the 26th annual Summit Racing Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway and race Doug Herbert in ...

LUCAS VERSUS HERBERT FIRST ROUND IN ATLANTA

COMMERCE, Ga. (May 6) -- Morgan Lucas driving his powerful Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster will roll out ninth at the 26th annual Summit Racing Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway and race Doug Herbert in the first round of eliminations.

Lucas started his weekend in grand style by taking the No. 1 spot after the first session of qualifying running an elapsed time of 4.571 seconds, 321.19 mph, which he will take with him into Sunday's race.

In head-to-head match ups with Herbert, their record stands at a tie of 4-4 with the last encounter between the two being the first round of the 2005 Auto Club NHRA Finals at Pomona Raceway.

"We just need to keep going and collect all the data we can," said an optimistic Lucas. "It's basically a new team and we're trying as hard as we can to understand the track conditions and match that effort to our performance. We will probably be the first pair on Sunday, but it's all right, we'll be ready."

NHRA2Day presented by Lucas Oil will air at 11:30 a.m. EDT on ESPN2-HD with final round coverage of the Summit Racing Southern Nationals starting at 7 p.m.