TOPEKA, Kan. (May 24) - Larry Morgan put his Lucas Oil Ford Mustang in the No. 11 qualifying position for the NHRA Kansas Nationals this weekend at Heartland Park Topeka.
The Pro Stock veteran will square off against 2012 series champion Allen Johnson in the first round of eliminations after Johnson snagged the No. 6 qualifying spot.
"We've sort of gone in the wrong direction this weekend, but I think we'll be all right," said Morgan, whose best qualifying pass came in the first session Friday. "We made a good run in Q1 but then went backwards a little bit. Some of that was us trying some stuff, so we'll go back to the drawing board and come up with a good tune-up. We'll be fine."
Morgan's best pass was 6.642 seconds at 208.07 mph, and that had him near the top half of the field in Q1. After Friday's second session was rained out, Morgan made a run of 6.669 seconds at 207.27 mph in Saturday's first session. In the final session, he shook the tires and shut off early.
"The other two runs were not bad," Morgan said. "The first one was our best. Today, we put a little more gear in it and we shook. It actually shook pretty good, so we were surprised it ran a .66."
Morgan and his team made adjustments for the final session but were surprised the run went south.
"For Q4, we went back to the setup we had for Q1 and we left a little higher, and it ran through the clutch," Morgan said. "We don't know why. I short-shifted a little bit, but we're going back to the drawing board.
"We didn't have enough clutch. It hit the wheelie bars a second time, and that was that."
Knowing his Mustang was securely in the field, Morgan experimented with a new carburetor setup for the final session, but the aborted run didn't allow for a proper test.
"We were really hoping to make that run because we wanted to try a little different carburetor setup," Morgan said. "We knew we were in the field, so we wanted to experiment some. We never got to that point because we shut down early."
