One of these days before he knows it, GEICO/Lucas Oil Top Fuel Dragster racer Richie Crampton will be reading daughter Emma, who’s only about four months old now, the classic children’s book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”

The Laura Numeroff tale starts with a boy giving a cookie to a mouse. That begins a chain reaction of requests from the mouse: a straw, a napkin, a mirror to make sure he doesn’t have a milk mustache, and on and on.

And maybe as Crampton and his daughter read about the silly mouse and all his crazy needs, one after another, he’ll see that he’s kind of like that mouse.

The Adelaide, South Australia, native and naturalized U.S. citizen began his NHRA driving career with a simple wish: “If I could just drive a Top Fuel car, that would be amazing. I always wanted to get an opportunity to drive a Top Fuel dragster just once. I said, ‘Just once I’d like to drive one of those cars. They’re so cool and so fast.’ Once you drive ’em once, you want to drive ’em some more. Once you win a round, you want to win a race. And so on.”

Sure enough, that happened for this young man who started with his father Alan as they raced their ’58 Holden right-hand-drive, left-hand-shift outlaw doorslammer sedan up and down the Australian coast. He worked in the U.S. first on Sydney native Andrew Cowin’s dragster, then on Melanie Troxel’s dragster for Don Schumacher Racing, in charge of piston and rod assembly and left-side cylinder heads. When he joined Morgan Lucas Racing in 2007, Crampton became the clutch specialist at MLR and did that for seven years until he got the call to replace Lucas in the seat this season. By then he was eager to do more.

“It became ‘I’d really like to race someone in a Top Fuel car,’ ” he said. Of course, it didn’t stop there: “I’d like to win an event,” he said. Now that he has gotten all he has wished for – a victory in June at Englishtown, N.J., to become the 100th different NHRA Top Fuel winner and one at the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Nationals — Crampton said, “What’s next? I’m not sure.”

Oh, but he is sure. It’s an NHRA championship, although he did say at Indianapolis he thought it was “weird” to be talking about the possibility of a series title in just his rookie season.

Regardless of how the Countdown to the Championship plays out, the driver from Down Under is over the moon. Crampton already has achieved more – and made a mark more quickly (winning in just his ninth start) – on the U.S. drag-racing scene than anyone else from Australia. And that includes some distinguished company.

At the 2005 Topeka race, popular Brisbane import Dave Grubnic was the first non-North American to earn a Top Fuel victory. He claimed three victories for Kalitta Motorsports – including another at Topeka 2012, his first since the 2006 Gainesville event. But earlier this month at Indianapolis, re-emerging since being dismissed during the March race at Las Vegas, Grubnic said he was done with driving: “I had a great run at that. It’s time to let the kids do it. I’ve got a technical background. It’s time to move on to the technical side.”

Grubnic did have a great run of 337 races, 17 final-round appearances, 10 No. 1 qualifiers, and 200 round-wins in driving for John Mitchell, Bill Miller, and Connie Kalitta. And Grubnic has loved the experience so much he has settled in first Ennis, Mont., now Bozeman, although he remains an Australian citizen.

Twenty years ago this March 6, at Houston, Australia’s Rachelle Splatt became the first woman in NHRA history to record a 300-mph pass in her Top Fuel dragster. With that, she also became the 16th and final member – and only female member – of the Slick 50 300-MPH Club.

Following in her footsteps, sort of, was Top Alcohol Dragster competitor Kate Harker, whose 278 MPH pass at Gainesville in 2010 makes her still the fastest woman in America in the Top Alcohol dragster class. She ended her three-year layoff by re-establishing her career back home in Australia in June, driving a Top Alcohol Funny Car.

Jim Read hasn’t been on an NHRA track in decades, but the lone Australian in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame made an extraordinary first impression in February 1982 at the Winternationals with his Good, Bad, & Ugly Dragster. As an NHRA newcomer, he led the Top Fuel field, the first non-American to do so. Here’s how the legend recalls kicking off his American adventure, prefacing with an explanation about sponsor rep Ross Warders:

“Ross knew nothing about drag racing but fell in love when he saw it. He then gave me money to go to America. He paid for all the airfares and parts and gave me a personal introduction to Wally Parks. When we got there, the car wasn’t what we were promised, so we worked day and night to get it prepared. When we were ready to go out, the race director, Steve Gibbs, ambled up and told us not to embarrass him. It launched like a bullet. It started heading towards the wall, so I shut it off and Steve said, ‘Thank you.’ They were all wetting their pants. Then I came back and ran a 6.598 [-second elapsed time]. Well, you should have seen their faces. Unfortunately, we lost in the first round, but we gave them one hell of a fright.”

Australian racers making short appearances in the U.S. have been both famous and infamous. Sixteen-time alcohol champion Gary Phillips, called “the Frank Manzo of Australia,” raced here a little, and Pro Modified’s Troy Critchley never regained any traction after a 2009 accident during a Selmer, Tenn., burnout exhibition at a charity event that claimed the lives of six spectators.

Fast-forwarding to the present again, Pro Stock’s Shane Tucker divides his time between the U.S. and Australia. The ANDRA Jr. Dragster champion at 16 turned pro in 2005 and spent two previous seasons in the NHRA with Cagnazzi Racing as teammate to Jeg Coughlin and Dave Connolly. This year the Brisbane native has been impressing in the Auzmet Architectural Camaro with Elite Performance power that has produced a semifinal appearance at Joliet, Ill., this summer and strong horsepower at the recent U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis.

“In Indy, we had the second-fastest car in the first round of eliminations. The only person faster than us was the guy we were racing,” Tucker said. “This is a great problem to have, actually, because most of the time teams are trying to find horsepower. We’ve already got a great powerplant from Elite Performance, and that showed on the scoreboards. Now we need to adjust the car properly to fully utilize the horsepower these motors are making.”

His appearance at Charlotte was his ninth here this year. Tucker has returned to Australia for a month to compete in ANDRA with his dad’s now-North Carolina-based Rob Tucker Racing team, which centers on Shane’s sister, Kirsten Tucker-Cannuli. But he said he plans to close the NHRA season with races at Las Vegas and Pomona, Calif.

“It’s up to us to see how much trouble we can make for the title contenders,” Tucker said. “We’d love to help out Erica [Enders-Stevens] down the stretch, if possible, but the main focus is to win rounds ourselves and put this Auzmet Architectural Camaro in the winners circle. I believe it can be done, and our performances have shown the potential of that throughout the year. I feel pretty good with my driving. Obviously, the more seat time you get the better you are, but considering we have a bit of a stop-and-start thing going I’ve been very pleased.”

Tucker was the first Australian pro to earn an NHRA Pro Stock license. And he said as he embarked on his American journey, “We owe a lot to the Australian scene, and we feel like Pro Stock back home is up there with the toughest competition in the world.”

South Carolinian Grace Howell is taking her chances against that competition. She moved to Australia last year to be with her Australian partner, ANDRA Pro Stock racer Scott Porter, and she debuted in June at the Fuchs Winternationals at Willowbank Raceway after a nearly two-year Pro Stock hiatus.

A number of American drivers have raced and achieved in brief tours in Australia, most recently Santo Rapisarda, racing on both sides of the Pacific, has hired Tommy Johnson Jr., Larry Dixon, and Cory McClenathan. Funny car headliner Ron Capps will go back for a second straight year this NHRA off-season. Current ESPN commentator Mike Dunn raced there in 2006, along with Grubnic and Scott Kalitta.

Some might not know that Funny Car veterans John Force and Gary Densham raced extensively in Australia.

“Australia gave me my start, and I imagine Australia will give me my end,” Force said. “I look forward to going back. After visiting Australia, I have never been back in the ocean. I saw a Great White Shark in the water at Adelaide that could swallow a Volkswagen, and I have never been back in the water since.”

Read, a 17-time champion, said, “I raced John Force at Oran Park [a now-shuttered dragstrip in New South Wales], and he was so broke I bought the back wheels off his car so he could buy dinner. John Force is probably the greatest inspiration to anybody who aspires to go drag racing.”

Comparisons between the NHRA and ANDRA are natural, but John Doig, the expert Australian Auto Action writer who has covered seemingly countless events sanctioned by both, said, “The Australian Drag scene mirrors the NHRA scene, albeit on a smaller scale. We run Top Fuel, Top Alcohol, Pro Stock, Doorslammer /Pro Mod, Pro Stock bike, and Top Bike under the Group One category. All appear at the same event only twice a year, at the Winternationals and Australian Nationals.

“ANDRA still supports quarter-mile racing for all Group One categories at the three main tracks – Perth Motorplex, Willowbank Raceway, and Sydney Raceway; 1000-foot racing is held at Adelaide International Raceway and Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne,” he said. “Sportsman Racing is primarily based around American-bodied cars. However, Japanese turbocharged cars have developed a cult following. Racing under lights is intrinsic to the sport in over-the-summer months, particularly at the Perth Motorplex.”

Doig said, “Doorslammer features an eclectic range of cars similar to Pro Mod, and it is no surprise that the most successful car in the category over the past decade has been the home-grown 1972 Holden Monaro of six-time champ John Zappia.”

ANDRA, too, is having its growing pains, he said, but its issues are akin to the NHRA’s.

“Since 2007, there have been several attempts to grow the sport that has remained basically unchanged since the ’60s. These efforts have been based around the formation of an elite series around Top Fuel and several but not all Group One categories. The latest attempt,” Doig said, “is under the guise of Top Fuel Australia – the team owners group – formed in 2013. Amongst the issues TFA is tackling are prize money – basically unchanged since 1996 – and moves to link prize money to spectator numbers, a viable television coverage, sponsorship issues for both teams and events, and to make a day at the drags a more fan-friendly experience.”