Sometimes you just know, and Billy Morris knew.
Morris drove his way to a first NHRA Heritage Series race win, stopping Tony Jurado in the Nostalgia Funny car [AA/FC] finals of the California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield, Ca.
Morris, the former drag boat racer who converted to drag racing on land, had reached the final round against Tony Jurado.
Morris, who had yet to win a national event, knew if he wanted to win this weekend, it couldn’t be status quo versus Jurado.
“We knew Tony Jurado was going to be tough in the final,” Morris said. “We knew we had to throw one at him, and we’re glad we did because he ran hard as well.”
Morris had been plenty tough through the first three rounds with a series of 5.60s to stop Brad Thompson [5.664], Nathan Sitko [5.601], and Tim Boychuk [5.620]. Jurado had worked his way to the final round on the strength of 5.77 best.
“We were planning on running another low .60, actually,” Morris said. “The 5.58 kind of came out nowhere. We knew we had to run a solid pass. We thought we had Gerardo covered, but obviously, these guys figured it out because they were right behind us, and they were coming for us because they out-mile-an-hour-ed us at the top end.”
The last time Morris raced to a final round, he reached the money run facing Bobby Cottrell. This time Cotrell was gone in the semi-finals, losing to Jurado.
What had transpired in front of Morris in the semi-finals was cause for concern heading into the finals.
“I’d like to say I was chill, but I was nervous as hell, man,” Morris admitted. “I mean, we really wanted this win. We’ve been at this thing for four years; we’ve been close. Obviously, Bobby went out; we really like to race him in the final because we owe him a few, but we went at it, and I think the ball finally fell in our court.”
Morris credits team owner Eddie Knox for getting this team to the pinnacle. Just like Morris, he was a drag boat racer. Land presents different challenges.
“You can’t pull one of these things out of the stands and expect to do big things with it, so Eddie’s really been meticulous and going over every part of the car, and it’s really showing now,” Morris said. “Finally, paying dividends.
“Right now, it doesn’t really even feel real, but just having my name up there with all the legends that have won the Hot Rod Reunion, I never thought I would even be here to race in this category. So, having my name up there, doing it with my dad and Eddie and all the guys, it just… It couldn’t be better. Couldn’t be better.”
