Do you think driving a Mopar helps build your fan base?
Morgan: I remember when I first came over from GM to run a Dodge I thought, ‘Boy, this oughta’ be good,’ but the Mopar crowd, they’re incredible, they accepted me very well. Of course I had some past with them, so I guess I was okay. But let me tell you, you wouldn’t believe the Mopar following. I’ve got to take a day every month to do fan mail, but I love it. Without the fans we wouldn’t be here, any of us, we have to have those fans. I’ve got a great fan following and I appreciate every single one of them.
Switching gears here, why do you think there aren’t more multi-car teams in Pro Stock, like the three- and four-car teams we see in the fuel ranks?
Morgan: Well, because it costs so much more money to do one of these cars. People just don’t realize the money it takes to run a Pro Stock car. I mean, I’m so under funded, but you know what? To be able to come out here and do this for a living, we’re just as happy as can be. Now if we had the money to do it right—which we don’t, and there’s only a couple of teams in this class that do—we could
win a lot more races.
I mean you look at teams like Greg Anderson’s or (Victor) Cagnazzi’s, their budgets are probably five times what mine is, so you can imagine the difference and it shows out here. But hey, if we can come out here and qualify and those guys make a mistake so we have a chance of winning, then we’re happy. Trust me, to do it right takes an awful lot of money, but we’re doing alright. A lot of people might choose to stay home, but I’m a racer and I enjoy the people and just because I don’t have all the money I could use doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it. And I can tell you right now, without us little guys there wouldn’t be any drag racing, there’d just be two or three teams and that wouldn’t last long at all.
So do you think it’s more challenging to race in Pro Stock than a nitro class?
Morgan: The difference in our cars is that we have to make all the parts, develop all the parts, and they (fuel teams) can basically drag race from a phone booth. We can’t, it’s impossible for us. Our stuff is all hand-fitted, whereas they can just order parts and throw them in the cylinders. That’s why the real good (nitro) teams out there, they finesse the cars; the others—and I’m not knocking anyone, I love all those guys—but they’re out here like I am trying to make a living.
The difference is, they can throw a bunch of crap together and go out there and run. I can’t. My stuff’s got to be top notch and to be top notch you’ve got to spend a lot of money and maintain it. Just the people we’ve got, there are nine of us at my shop and that costs a lot of money itself. If you own a fuel team, you can spend $50,000 on a car, get a motor that the sleeves are out of John Force’s car, the pistons are out of Tony Pedregon’s car, and get a set of rods and if they last you can make a race. We couldn’t do that; we couldn’t do a burnout. And that’s the difference. It costs us more to operate our shops, except for the Taj Mahals out there like Schumacher’s got. It costs a lot for him to make his show happen. In other words, he’s working on the outside. The real teams work on the inside to make their parts better; he’s worried more about the show, what people think of him. That’s just how it is, he’s out here to put on a show and whatever happens, happens.
Do you think that’s why Schumacher’s Pro Stock effort (which Morgan initially was part of with Bob Glidden as his crew chief) didn’t take off like his fuel teams?
Morgan: Well, I don’t think he was ready for Pro Stock and he had Glidden working on it. Now, Glidden without a doubt can get the job done, it’s just nobody can work with him. Nothing against him, and if he was here I’d say the same thing to his face, he knows how I feel about him. But he just doesn’t have any respect for people as human beings. He wants to work them as dogs and treat them the same and people just don’t like it. I mean, that’s just his mentality and God love him, but that’s just how it is. And he doesn’t care whether it’s Don Schumacher or George Bush or anyone else, that’s the bottom line, he just doesn’t care. So that’s why that didn’t work. It’s not that Don didn’t have the money to do it; Don surely has the money to do it and could make it successful, his own program, but Bob had it such a mess over there that nobody wanted to work and that’s what happened.
What is the biggest challenge in operating a Pro Stock team these days?
Morgan: There’s not enough factory support out here any more, the money that it takes to do this. The sponsorships in Pro Stock, I think they (NHRA) look down on them because it’s not a fuel car. Actually, all we are is traffic to NHRA. They could care less if we’re not here, but they do have to have us to fill the show in. Now, I’m speaking for myself, but I’m speaking for a lot of other people that probably wouldn’t have the balls to say what I say, but it actually is the truth. We’re traffic for the fuel guys; that’s just how it is.
You know, we all accept that, so why do we think we ought to get more money? We just know what it takes to do this to be competitive. Actually, we’d be better off to run Pro Mod because you could go out and buy a Brad Anderson engine, buy a good car and go out there and be in the thick of things, but with this you can’t do it. I mean, what is this, the sixth race? Greg Stanfield leased engines to Ron Krisher and he’s paying almost three-quarters of a million dollars from this point on because he wants to qualify so bad. I mean, so far it’s not working so well for him, but it will in the long term as long as he can stick with it. But you don’t have many Ron Krishers around here.