Clay Millican came to the The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in search of his first career NHRA Top Fuel win.

After Saturday’s action before a sell-out crowd, the excitable driver from Dummonds, Tennessee, was feeling lucky about cashing in on his history in the NHRA Toyota Nationals.

“I would not be surprised, I really, really wouldn’t,” Millican said. “I’m just so excited to know that we can run with anybody.”

Much of Millican’s excitement comes from his track-record run of 3.689 seconds at 327.27 mph in Saturday’s fourth qualifying session
That was good enough to earn Millican his second No. 1 spot of the season and fourth of his career.

“That’s my career-best run, but we still have the gigantic fish that got away at Dallas,” said Millican, referring to the most recent stop on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour.

“Friday night at Dallas, we ran a .207 and I was told that was the greatest three-thirty foot ever run, but we couldn’t make it stand. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.”

Running off that jaw-dropping baseline, Millican said he was not surprised with his record-setting blast Saturday.

“I was very confident,” Millican said. “There’s more in this car and all my guys know what to do when the conditions are there.”

Millican described his day of research, development and records with driver-turned-crew-chief David Grubnic and ambitious team owner Doug Stringer.

‘Grubby is so goal oriented and he’s very good at making plans,” Millican said. “When we left the trailer, our plan was to run .372.  [Grubnic] felt like that was a safe number that we could get to.

“By the time we got up there and [Grubnic] had made his last check of the track, he and Doug talked and the last number that I was told was a .370.  Once I got in the car, they made another change and it worked.”

Millican has appeared in eight final rounds without cashing in on a big payday, so know all the keys to success on elimination day.

“Obviously, the conditions are always different on Sunday versus what we had tonight,” Millican said. “We know that we’ve got a car capable of running with anyone. We’ve simply got to put together four good runs

“Obviously, I hope it’s cold [Sunday]. Right now, I will take our car against anybody when the conditions are right. For the little single-car team that we have, I am unbelievably happy with everything and it’s just going to keep getting better.”

Millican said he delayed his plans to watch Saturday night’s Elton John from a backstage vantage point in order to meet with the media following his top qualifying effort.”

Today’s big drama will involve Toyota drivers Antron Brown and Doug Kalitta.

Kalitta gained two points on the two-time world champion Brown in qualifying, but Brown will take a 148-point lead over Kalitta into eliminations. Kalitta will need to go one round further than Brown to extend the title race to the season finale on Nov. 10-13 in Pomona California.

Also on Saturday, it was announced that Brown and his Don Schumacher Racing team have extended their marketing partnership with Matco Tools that began in 2001.