TOPEKA, Kan. (May 20) -- Larry Morgan is taking his Lucas Oil Ford Mustang Pro Stock car to Kansas, and the gloves are coming off.
The veteran racer and engine builder has been working the bugs out of his new Ford engine all season. In the process, he's burned up a lot of parts and pieces, which has forced him to be semi-conservative at the races to make sure he makes it through the event.
Thankfully, those days are over, as Morgan thinks all the gremlins have finally been chased away. He says starting at this weekend's 22nd annual O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka the babying of engines is a thing of the past.
"I've had too many Sundays off this year and that's going to stop now," Morgan said. "We've been so scared of hurting parts it's caused us to be soft on the tune-up. But we figured out what was wrong and now we're going to stand on it every run."
Morgan has failed to qualify for five of eight races so far this year, including a DNQ in each of the last four races. He said a cascade of small problems has lead to a lot of burned up parts during qualifying.
"We're pretty excited because we've found a lot of little things," Morgan said. "I'm ready to step over, not just step up, at this point."
Pro Stock is one of NHRA's most competitive classes where hundredths of a second can mean the difference between qualifying in the top half of the field or going home early.
Morgan currently is in 17th place in the Pro Stock standings with nine races left to close the 128-point gap on 10th-place driver Rickie Jones before the start of the Countdown to 1 playoffs.
Qualifying for the O'Reilly Auto Parts Summer Nationals begins at 5 p.m. CDT Friday. Eliminations get underway at 11 a.m. CDT Sunday. Racing will be shown on ESPN2.
