MORGAN REACHES FIRST 2012 SEMI-FINAL WHEN MARTINO COMES UP LIGHT AT SCALES

After a successful run in his first race running Victor Cagnazzi horsepower, driver Mark Martino's hopes were dashed when his car turned up five pounds light at the scales.Crew chief Kevin “Lump” Self was beside himself in attempting to find out what went wrong.

Self, crew chief for Mark Martino, a surprise semi-finalist at the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., couldn’t figure out what went wrong causing the Charter-sponsored Pontiac GXP to turn up five pounds light at the scales after his win over Larry Morgan in the second round.

Martino was disqualified and Morgan was reinstated. Self wondered if something had fallen off the car during the course of the run.

“It has been (23)55 (pounds) on the scales all day,” said Self. “Why it’s (22)45 now, I can’t tell you. The last run, it was bouncing between 50 and 55 on the scales. We haven’t changed the weight since we got here.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Self exclaimed. “We weighed before the race, and after winning first round and then we weighed it three times and it came up 45 each time. Why? I don’t know. We didn’t change wheels, tires or anything. It couldn’t have been fuel because after the last time when it came up 50 – 55, we added more fuel. We put more fuel than we usually do. We filled it all the way to the top of the opening just to make sure. That alone should have been an extra pound.”

The victory essentially put Morgan into the top ten standings amongst Pro Stock point earners; into the ninth spot ahead of V. Gaines.

Morgan, by his own admission, had already changed his clothes and was headed to the airport where he planned to catch a flight back to Newark, Ohio.

“How can you come up light?” Morgan asked. “I feel bad for him. We all run these things on the edge. It just happened, there’s nothing you can really do. It’s part of racing and I will take them whatever way I can get them. I’m not picky.”

The victory moved Morgan into a semi-final match against Erica Enders. This marked Morgan’s first semi-final appearance in 2012.

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