By Darr Hawthorne
Photos by Ian Tocher
8/8/06
Larry Morgan’s carreer in drag racing stretchs over three decades and he has driven and won in almost every type of doorslammer race car there is, from gassers to Comp Eliminator,to Pro Stock and has even expressed the desire to drive a Pro Modified should the opportunity ever present itself. Morgan is a throwback to the golden age of drag racing where you had to do it all from building the car to securing the sponsorship and everything in between. He is known to be brutally candid and shoot from the lip on almost any subject. Since it has been at least three controversy’s since DRO has had the pleasure of sitting down with the trim and slim Buckeye State native we decided to remedy that situation and had DRO’s Darr Hawthorne do so at the Mile High Nationals in Denver, Colorado. Instead of the normal/standard interview DRO which is known to be abnormal went with a 20 questions format. Enjoy!
Why do you think the Pro Stock class isn’t as popular as some of the other professional classes?
LARRY MORGAN: I think it probably is! NHRA probably just doesn’t promote it enough. I mean we all think it is amongst us guys (Pro Stock racers), that it’s not promoted well enough, I can’t blame NHRA or anybody else for that though.
Is promoting the Pro Stock class really the responsibility of the owners and drivers?
MORGAN: No, but I think ESPN could help us out more. When we do get TV time they have blurbs from the fuel cars, which I don’t think is right. Actually what I think what
they (NHRA) should do is have a Saturday show for Pro Stock, not even race us on Sunday. Leave Sunday for the fuel cars and they could have a really good show for Sunday. The show that we get on Saturday, if we have a (Pro Stock only) race, would be good for all the media and get us into the Sunday newspapers; you know, run the whole Pro Stock race on Saturday and be totally rid of us. Because we’re not really part of their(NHRA’s) show, all we are is traffic to the fuel cars. Now, I don’t mean that in a mean way, but we(Pro Stocks)are just filling in until the fuel racers get their cars tuned-up for the next round. I don’t have any disrespect for the NHRA or any of the other drivers in the fuel ranks , but I think the show would be better if Pro Stocks raced on Saturday.