“I’m excited about our second consecutive final,” said Litton, “but I’m also just thankful to be out here. It’s been a great weekend and everyone on this Lucas Oil team has done a phenomenal job. We’re leading the points, which is a nice start to the year.

“This was our first race with the Karsyn Bell tribute, and it received a lot of support,” Litton continued. “I am thankful for that. Hopefully that will continue throughout the year. Our sponsors, Lucas Oil and United Trailers, are behind us not only in our racing program, but also in this tribute. It’s great to have them work with us in this for a good cause. I was just glad to be able to be out here this weekend raising awareness for Riley Hospital, but making another final round appearance for the team was icing on the cake.”

For the first couple months of Del Cox’s Top Fuel career, he was referred to as “the guy driving Spencer Massey’s old ride.” Not any more. Cox broke out of Massey’s shadow in a big way Sunday afternoon, blazing past Litton in only his second ever IHRA race for team owner Mitch King.

“That thing (car) was smoking at mid-track. Bruce was out front, probably by half a car and we just started pulling up on him and my heart dropped about five times going down the track. That is when I started screaming and pulled the chutes,” Cox recalled.

Cox beat Litton to the line with both cars smoking the tires at mid-track, finishing on a 5.049 elapsed time at 284.21 miles per hour, beating out Litton’s 5.365 at 253.61 mph.

“It is unreal. We had the car to win at Baton Rouge and I don’t want to bite my tongue, but that is what we came here to do. We come to every race to win and we are going to go do it again in Dallas,” Cox added.