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Baytown: Larry Morgan preview

Morgan working overtime to return Ford to Pro Stock mix HOUSTON (April 7) -- Pro Stock veteran Larry Morgan is quickly closing in on his 500th national event start. He figured at this point in his career he'd pretty much seen it all. But as the ...

Edited: Apr 9, 2010, 2:49 AM

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Morgan working overtime to return Ford to Pro Stock mix

HOUSTON (April 7) -- Pro Stock veteran Larry Morgan is quickly closing in on his 500th national event start. He figured at this point in his career he'd pretty much seen it all. But as the NHRA tour heads to Houston Raceway Park for this weekend's 23rd annual O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Spring Nationals, Morgan realizes there are still things to learn.

This past off-season, Morgan took on the Herculean task of making a Ford-powered racecar competitive in a class dominated by other brands for the last 25 years. He knew he'd have no usable data to work with and that he'd have to start from scratch, but with the support of Ford Motor Company and longtime sponsor Lucas Oil, he decided to take a chance.

"It's kind of like reinventing the wheel," Morgan said from his award-winning engine shop in central Ohio. "We started with a basic engine block and have just built these motors from the ground up. It's been fun but very taxing also.

"As a racer and an engine builder, you want to think everything you do is going to be just perfect, but this sport has a way of humbling you. We've been humbled."

On the surface, Morgan's red, white, and blue Lucas Oil Ford Mustang is a thing of beauty, one that has fans of the blue oval rushing to his support. Yet the heart of his mount, the 500-inch BOSS motor, has proven tough to tame at times, although Morgan already has one final four finish on his 2010 resume.

"We're making enough horsepower, that's not an issue," he said. "It's just these engines want something different. The people that supply the other components we need haven't caught on to what we're doing just yet so we're educating them as we go along.

"In the meantime, we're hurting motors because we can't seem to get the recipe right. That's on me. I'm the one tuning these things and ultimately the buck stops here. We need to keep checking things off the list until we solve our issues. It's going to be really exciting when we get it straight. I can't wait."

-source: lor

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