NHRA'S 2009 PLEASANT SURPRISES
This story is about four drag racers who had a tough 2008 season and have rebounded for a stellar start towards 2009. At least three of the four drivers can claim the aforementioned statment as their story. One professional competitor had no clue that he'd even be on the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.
One driver believed he'd found nearly every way to lose a race in the last four seasons.
Another driver had a tough elder who demanded excellence in every aspect of the race team.
One driver was all but ready to quit, figuriing his time in the sport had elapsed.
Another competitor looked at racing on the big stage as something "others" did.
In this article, CompetitionPlus.com will tell the stories of Morgan Lucas, Bob Tasca III, Mike Edwards and newcomer Doug Horne.
They are four pleasant surprises of 2009.This story is about four drag racers who had a tough 2008 season and have rebounded for a stellar start towards 2009. At least three of the four drivers can claim the aforementioned statment as their story. One professional competitor had no clue that he'd even be on the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.
One driver believed he'd found nearly every way to lose a race in the last four seasons.
Another driver had a tough elder who demanded excellence in every aspect of the race team.
One driver was all but ready to quit, figuriing his time in the sport had elapsed.
Another competitor looked at racing on the big stage as something "others" did.
In this article, CompetitionPlus.com will tell the stories of Morgan Lucas, Bob Tasca III, Mike Edwards and newcomer Doug Horne.
They are four pleasant surprises of 2009.
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MORGAN LUCAS - TOP FUEL
Success has a way of changing a race team's outlook.
Morgan Lucas won his first career national event title during the recently competed NHRA Summit Racing Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway. The accomplishment was the result of a season that began on the right foot and has stayed there.
Admittedly prior to the 2009 season, Lucas learned not to be surprised as he seemingly discovered new ways to lose a race.
About the only way he hadn’t lost a race in the last four years had been to hit a deer.
“I’ve seen that happen, but not to me,” Lucas said, warning this writer not to laugh.
Heading into the NHRA O’Reilly Midwest Nationals in St. Louis. Lucas is riding high on the euphoria of the pleasantly surprising start to the 2009 season.
“We’re on Cloud Nine to be honest,” Lucas said. “The best things happen when you least expect it. That’s the biggest truth I’ve ever heard. I’ve just learned through my faith in God that there are some things that are completely out of your control in the big picture.
“I’ve tried as hard as I possibly could to win races and I’ve driven my butt off a lot of times but it just didn’t happen. I’ve had the same crew together now for a while and we’ve worked our tails off. When we decided just to work as hard as we could and let the chips fall where they may is when things started to happen.
“We’ve just learned not to force things. It just doesn’t work out well that way,” Lucas admitted.
Lucas’ first career Top Fuel victory came in the midst of a season where both he and teammate Shawn Langdon have been sending subtle messages that they were prepared to fight for a piece of the championship action.
Lucas and Langdon are ranked fifth and seventh respectively in the Full Throttle championship point standings. Both drivers have consistently finished in the top eight during the first six races of the year. The last five races have also netted top half qualifying efforts.
“Having good people on this team has a lot to do with it,” Lucas said of his and Langdon's performance. “I think having Jon Stewart on the team for as long as he has been with us and bringing in Jimmy Walsh has really relieved a lot of pressure and we are doing really well.
“I do believe that a lot of times people lose sight of the fact your crew chief has to consistently make the right calls and the driver has to react and drive consistently. The crew has to do their jobs. I think a lot of people forget this is a team effort.”
Lucas believes the way Morgan Lucas Racing, with both the Geico Powersports and the Lucas Oil dragsters, have come together as one has made a tremendous impact on their 2009 status. He cites last year’s championship effort by the Tony Schumacher U.S. Army team as a prime example of what a team in sync can accomplish.
“You look at that team and I don’t ever remember them [U.S. Army team] getting shut off one time on the starting line,” Lucas explained. “That car went up there and it was put together right and it went down the track. To do something together that many times on that kind of level without a mistake is impressive.
“I have to say that my team and Shawn’s team has gotten really good at that. We don’t make a lot of mistakes … knock on wood … and that adds to our success this season. You have to put yourself in a position to win but in order to do that you have to be consistent. The crew plays a huge role in this success. It’s so easy to make mistakes and they don’t.”
Lucas admits that he was given a sneak peak of this season’s success following the first test run back in January.
“In our first run this season we ran the car to half-track and clicked it,” Morgan said. “The incremental times on the run said it would have been a 3.84 right out of the trailer.”
For Lucas, that was the pleasant surprise he needed to start the season of right.
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BOB TASCA III - FUNNY CAR
The phone calls were tough.Chances are Bob Tasca III’s turnaround 2009 season had much to do with last season’s phone calls from his famous grandfather Bob Tasca Sr., the Ford dealership tycoon who is credited for coining the phrase, ‘Race on Sunday, sell on Monday’.
Grandfather refused to cut his 34-year old grandson any slack.
“The man is so determined,” Tasca said in an interview following his breakthrough NHRA Gatornationals victory. “He’s so focused. It’s almost scary. He’s 83 years old now. My first season was just brutal coming home because he didn’t care it was my first season. He doesn’t care I’m a rookie. Why isn’t the car running better? Why didn’t you win? Why did you red light? He’s hard-core, because for him, it’s winning. That’s why he raced. There was no other reason for being there.
“I kept telling him, ‘Pop, we’re working on it. We’re getting better.’ And I know he wanted me to win so bad.”
Tasca and the crew are still working on “it”.
“As hard as we tried to win last season, that light was pretty dim at times,” Tasca admitted. “This year has a totally different outlook.”
Tasca went out and landed a couple of prominent free-agents last October. His first was forming an alliance with series runner-up Tim Wilkerson. The second was bringing nitro tuning specialist Chris Denner, formerly a teammate to crew chief Chris Cunningham of the disbanding Worsham Motorsports team, into the fold.
The team is still trying to integrate all the pieces together into a single cohesive unit that will get grandpa of their collective backs. If only they could make him understand this is today, not yesterday. Tasca Racing is still a relative babe in the woods.
“It's been quite a ride very early in my career,” Tasca said. “I remind people were not even blessed with a year and a half of experience. This is literally a program that started from scratch with no help from anyone. Obviously, now we are getting some help with Tim. I wouldn't even know if I would call it help. It's another brain in the fold to help sort through the different decision making processes that these guys go through.
“It's been quite a ride, the last eighteen months or so.”
The win, a pleasant surprise, might now have come if not for Tasca's ability to look past the next sunrise.
“We couldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for what we did last year,” Tasca said. “Even though we were frustrated at certain points of the season last year and struggled to get our arms around this tune-up, [this success] it's a result of the hard work and decisions that were made last year that have really put us in a pretty strong position this year to compete and to legitimately contend for a championship. It takes time. I think a lot of people in this sport that are close to it -- appreciate it … but some people who look at it from the outside don't see the struggle.”
Neither do they know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of grandfather’s phone call.
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MIKE EDWARDS - PRO STOCK CAR
Mike Edwards has been a standout driver in the NHRA Pro Stock division through the first six races of the 2009 season. When asked if his results this year have been a pleasant surprise Edwards didn't hesitate with his answer.
“Pleasant surprise,” Edwards agreed immediately. “That describes it the best.”
Edwards, the former NHRA sportsman world champion Broken Arrow, OK., has driven his way to two final rounds, losing one and then winning in Atlanta and four No. 1 qualifying positions this year.
Despite his early season success, Edwards shies away from being labeled a front-runner, even though several media outlets proclaim him one without reservation.
“I don't know if I am a front-runner. I definitely am in the top four cars, that's for sure,” Edwards contended. “We're running good. We're as fast as anybody. Me and Greg (Anderson), over there at Atlanta, were a hundredth apart on every run. He was just a little ahead of me on every run. On race day I was just a tick ahead of him. We're definitely running at the front.”
Running consistently just doesn't happen. It takes hard work and acceptance that what you are doing is taking you in the right direction.
“We're making good runs. I'm pretty comfortable with it,” Edwards said of the progress the team is making. “There is always the unexpected out there. We're always working on it. I test all the time. I'm always changing things up trying to make it better.
“I'm comfortable with my car, I feel like we're making good adjustments. We're trying to race the track at the same time as we're racing the guy in the other lane on race day. In qualifying we're just trying to race the track and the conditions. We've been doing a good job.”
With improved performance comes a great pressure to succeed and if a driver isn't paying attention he can quickly succumb to the slings and arrows of the competition. Fortunately for Edwards, running better than expected has brought to him a feeling of comfort; comfort that has equaled even stronger performances.
“You seem to be a little more laid back if you’re qualified number one,” Edwards said. “If you are qualified number one it only means one thing – you have a fast car. You do your job and you've got a chance to win. That's the way I am going to have to start looking at. Maybe, if you start running fast enough you might get guys to start making mistakes against you.”
The right effort and the right planning has taken Edwards from the guy in danger of making mistakes to the guy taking advantage of the mistakes of others.
“Last year was totally different from this year from the way we're running and qualifying [this season],” Edwards said. “You try to keep the same mindset every time you pull up there. It's definitely different this year then it was last year. Last year we went to the races hoping to qualify decent and this year we're going to the race thinking we can possibly win the race.”
That for Edwards comes as a pleasant surprise.
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DOUG HORNE - PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE
Doug Horne admits that his expectation levels were pretty low headed into the 2009 racing season. Two races into his rookie year, Horne is seriously considering adjusting those expectations.
Two races and two final round appearances tend to warrant a closer look.
After two races and two final rounds, the media and race fans alike are no longer asking, “Who is Doug Horne.”
Six round wins out of a possible eight have propelled Horne into fifth in the Full Throttle Pro Stock Motorcycle points standings, 51 points out of first place.
“I never expected anything to happen this season, much less to have anyone call me for an interview,” Horne admitted.
The first thing the rider does in his interviews is give credit to his team.
“I have to really thank Junior Pippen for the great engine program and the bike,” Horne said. “Bob Taft [crew chief] and Jim Brown provide such a great bike that all I have to do is my job. It helps to have a good bike with good power.”
Horne worked his way to Pro Stock Motorcycle’s main stage by getting his feet wet with a V-Rod Destroyer, a factory precursor to Pro Stock Motorcycle before jumping up to a nitro-burning Pro Fuel bike.
Horne has been a quick learner.
“I had no bike riding experience before the Destroyer, so for me it was a great place to start,” Horne admitted. “It ran in the nine-second range. Then I jumped into the fuel ranks.”
Two years into nitro racing, Horne finished series runner-up in the Destroyer class and won last season’s AHDRA Pro Fuel championship.
“Junior Pippen talked me into going Pro Stock Motorcycle and here we are now,” Horne said.
Horne would like to point out the transition from a Nitro Harley to a Pro Stock Motorcycle isn’t as easy as he’s made it appear to be in the last two events.
“You bring a few bad habits along with you,” Horne revealed. “My dad kept me on the Destroyer bike since it is a five-speed, and smaller version of the Pro Stock Bike just to keep me in the groove. He kept me on the nitro bike so I could maintain the thrill of going over 200 miles per hour.”
Horne may be a rookie, but even being a novice on the NHRA tour doesn’t make him so naïve that he believes two final rounds in his first two events is to be expected every race weekend.
“We have a brand new bike, brand new team and a brand new rider – I’m still trying to learn … to have this kind of success is amazing,” Horne admitted. “I must have a horseshoe somewhere.”
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