DALLAS (Sept. 20) - Lucas Oil Pro Stock driver Larry Morgan drove well at Texas Motorplex, but problems with his race car plagued him all weekend.
Morgan and his team battled with the tune-up, and he lost in the first round of the postponed Pep Boys NHRA Carolina Nationals on Friday. Then Morgan couldn't find the speed in his Ford Mustang and failed to qualify for the AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals on Saturday.
"I hate it for Lucas Oil and all the people who help us," Morgan said. "We've got a problem with our front struts, and we think it's been a problem for a while now. We haven't had the 60-foot times we need. It's really been a problem lately, but we're working on it and I know we'll get it fixed."
Morgan's first pass Friday had him 16th in the order for Dallas, with Q2 also serving as the first round of eliminations from Charlotte. Morgan was the No. 15 qualifier in Charlotte and faced No. 2 qualifier Vincent Nobile.
Morgan had a stellar .016-second reaction time to get the jump on Nobile, noted for his starting-line prowess. But Nobile ran Morgan down with a pass of 6.582 seconds at 209.72 mph, outrunning Morgan's 6.676-second pass at 206.95 mph.
"I like racing Vincent," Morgan said. "I've known his dad forever, and John has helped me out on occasion. Still, I wanted to crack Vincent, and we did, but it wasn't quite enough."
Morgan then focused on getting into the Dallas field, but despite having solid horsepower under the hood of his Mustang, he couldn't crack the top 16.
His best official qualifying pass was 6.707 seconds at 206.16 mph.
"The front struts aren't acting right," Morgan said. "That hurts our 60-foot (times), and it's hard to overcome that in this class. Plenty of people have told me we have the horsepower and I think we do. We've been trying to tune the car, but with the struts messed up, we've messed up other parts.
"But I think once we get the front struts fixed, we can get the other parts of the car right. We'll keep working on it, that's for sure. We'll be all right."
