EPPING, N.H. (June 21) - While the numbers may not reflect it, Pro Stock driver Larry Morgan has been hard at work this weekend during qualifying to put himself in a position to record a win at the Auto-Plus NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway.
After an intense Q1 that had the Lucas Oil Ford Mustang starting in the left lane and crossing the finish line in the right, Morgan found himself playing catch-up for the rest of the sessions. With nothing seeming to go right, Morgan was able to record the 15th-quickest time, a 7.251 at 157.82 mph, putting him in a Bristol, Tenn., round-one rematch against Erica Enders-Stevens.
"The first session was an interesting one to say the least," Morgan said. "The tires shook and the wheels were spinning so hard that the car couldn't keep up with it. It was sideways in both directions at one point and ended up in the opposite lane. The worst part of the whole thing was driving around the cones and I didn't hit one, so I was pretty pumped up.
"In Q2, we shook the tires again, but we think that we actually have a bad set of tires. These have 10 runs on them and they've never been right. I never have had bad tires in my time until today, so I've been trying to race the last two races on new tires and it didn't work so well. We also haven't had a computer for three races, so I'm trying to do this from the seat of my pants, and I wasn't doing a very good job of it."
While qualifying brought its challenges, a complete overhaul may lead to an upset in the first round of eliminations for Morgan.
"We hurt a motor in Q3, so we changed that for the last run, and then it just blew the tires off," he said. "Now we're going to go in a totally different way all around for eliminations, so we'll see what it does. If it works, you could see me pull the upset on Erica."
Eliminations will start at noon, with tape-delay action of the first two rounds broadcast at 1 p.m. on Sunday and live coverage of the semifinals and finals at around 4 p.m. on ESPN.
