TWO TEAMS BECOMING ONE AT MORGAN LUCAS RACING

BAYTOWN, Tx. (March 25) – Morgan Lucas Racing has made a shift in its team and the realignment now places the tuning duties of Lucas’ Top Fuel dragster and teammate, J.R. Todd’s car squarely on the shoulders of capable crew chief and general manager, John Stewart starting at this weekend’s O’Reilly Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park.

The repositioning was prompted by car owner, Forrest Lucas, who formed his NHRA teams in 2006, in his pursuit to have both of his racing operations sharing information in becoming one team with two drivers.

“This is something we’ve been determined to achieve in getting both of our cars running the same and we felt it was the right time to make an adjustment,” said driver, Morgan Lucas. “Stewart will be preparing the cars working with all the team members in an effort of gathering information from both dragsters and deducing what tuning changes are needed to meet the track conditions.”

Former crew chief, Richard Hogan was relieved of his MLR responsibilities last week and his assistant, Bryan Shipman resigned in his decision to side with Hogan.

“We’re looking forward to our new setup having both teams throwing in together for a common cause,” said Lucas. “It will benefit both cars so much in having J.R.’s engine and clutch data to compare with ours looking into which would be the best setup for the entire team. These procedures will double our flow of information in finding out what makes these cars run. We’re in the top 10 in POWERade points and we are looking at improving our Sundays for our fans. This was a necessary step in our growth process and we can’t wait to see the results beginning at Houston Raceway Park.”

The start of the 21st annual O’Reilly Spring Nationals begins at the Houston Raceway Park on Friday, March 28 with two nitro qualifying sessions starting at 3:00 p.m. (CDT) and 6:00 p.m. Saturday's time trials start at 12:00 p.m. for the nitro classes followed by a second session at 3:00 p.m. The race starts promptly at 11 a.m. on Sunday, March 30.