Lucas Oil’s Morgan becomes quickest Ford Pro Stock driver

GAINESVILLE, FL – Lucas Oil Ford Mustang driver Larry Morgan may be near the twilight of his career, but the veteran Pro Stock campaigner still has plenty of gas left in his tank.

With his No. 10 qualifying spot for the NHRA Gatornationals this weekend at Auto-Plus Raceway at Gainesville, Morgan also became the quickest driver in a Ford with his pass of 6.529 seconds at 211.69 mph.

“I’m pretty proud of that,” Morgan said. “We started with a clean sheet of paper with Ford. We were in the engineering part of it with them. It is gratifying that we went out there and ran good with it.”

Morgan switched to Ford for the 2010 season and has been the flagship for the manufacturer ever since. The Gatornationals weekend has been one of the best for Morgan in his Mustang.

In addition to his opening pass, which served as his official qualifying effort, he made two other runs in the 6.5-second bracket. For Q4, a new clutch threw Morgan for a loop.

“We burned a clutch up throughout the weekend, so we put a new unit in,” Morgan said. “It had enough that I could’ve pulled the tower down. We didn’t know where we would be because it kept slipping from a bunch of runs.”

Morgan, though, was still pleased with his weekend.

“That was a good run in Q1,” Morgan said. “We ran well the whole weekend, other than that stunt last run. We’ll be all right tomorrow. We’ll take a bunch of clutch out of it, and we’ll be fine.”

Morgan, too, knows there is more e.t. to be had out of his Mustang.

“It’ll run in the .40s,” Morgan said. “It’s more than capable of that. I feel good about going into tomorrow.”

Morgan squares off against veteran Vieri Gaines in the first round of eliminations. Gaines qualified No. 7 with a pass of 6.518 seconds at 213.30 mph.

“He’s fine, just as good as anybody to race,” Morgan said. “I don’t care who’s in the other lane, as long as someone’s there.”