5/20/2025
Joe Morrison
BLOG - On the Go with Nitro Joe
As originally seen on RacingJunk.com
Behind the Ropes with drag race driver Joe Morrison
“Fly along with me I can’t quite make it alone as I try to make this life my own…” As I type this, sitting in the San Francisco Airport, The Foo Fighters song “Learn to Fly” is playing in my head. Despite my best intentions, this BLOG is about a month overdue. No excuses (I’m not a fan of excuses), but if you have the interest to read on I think you’ll get a sense as to why so much time has slipped by since my last entry. This will be a LONG one, but if you are interested enough to bear with me, I will work in an announcement about a new car I’m driving…
After getting home from Gainesville, there were a few things I was really excited about. This first, was the first event with the new Crazy Horse Mustang body on Dennis Champney’s alcohol funny car. The plan was to head out early morning Tuesday April 1st for the Texas Motorplex. I was going to meet Dennis at his winter home in Virginia, and we were going to take turns driving the 1,400 miles to Ennis. All that ended up being delayed because Chris Graves made the smart decision to postpone the Funny Car Chaos Classic due to an abysmal weather forecast. Unfortunately, that meant that I would end up with 8 weeks in a row of events that I am about ¾ through at this point. Neither a complaint nor a “humble brag”; just a fact. Here’s a semi-quick summary.
Instead of Texas, our first race was Easter Weekend at Sumerduck Motorsports Park with some great funny cars including my brother from another mother Rocky Pirrone, Gary Pritchett, Bobby Toth, Matt Stambaugh, and Wade King. The match race was set up “Chicago Style” meaning that the quickest 2 cars from the first round run for the “final”. Luckily, our first run was the second quickest setting us up to race Gary Pritchett in Bunny Burkett’s car. The bad news was that my pal Wade King had a parachute malfunction and while doing an amazing job trying to keep his car in one piece ended up wrecking his beautiful 55 Chevy. I was working to slow the Mustang down when Wade came by with no ‘chutes and I knew how it was going to play out. I got on the brakes HARD and managed to give him plenty of room. Thankfully, other than a few bruises, Wade walked away from the crash.
Back in the pits, we had an issue of our own when a spark plug insert decided to exit with the spark plug when we were working to prepare the car for the final. Thanks to some help from Rocky, Bobby, and Matt- we managed to put a new helicoil insert in the head without pulling the head. Unfortunately, we did not get to the line quickly enough to run Gary, so my pal Rocky ran the final in our place. We DID manage to get the car done in time to make a second pass and get paid, so as far as match racing goes, I call that a successful weekend.
I made it home for Easter and then had to prepare for my nonprofit, Right2Breathe, to head to the NHRA 4-Wide race in Charlotte. In case you’re unfamiliar, I started Right2Breathe because my dad had been diagnosed with COPD but not until he had lost about ½ his lung function. Right2Breathe provides free lung screenings so that other people have a chance to slow or stop the progression of the disease before they lose their ability to breathe well. It sucks to be at the track and not racing, but talking with fans, providing a valuable service, and helping change lives for the better is rewarding beyond words.
The real challenge in Charlotte ended up being the ride down! Some of you might know that I have been driving the same old 2000 GMC Dually that my dad bought in 2011. Well, the old girl has 347,000 miles on it but she is so dang reliable that I can’t bring myself to sell it. Also the fact that it was my dad’s makes it tough to part with. Anyway, first thing on the way down was a blown tire on my little RV trailer somewhere in West Virginia on Route 81 south. Later in the trip somewhere in Virginia, we heard another “POP” and my first thought was another tire but it did not feel like it. I pulled off the side of the road and did not see anything unusual, so we ventured onward. Only other issue was that there were a few severe bumps about 2 miles from the track, but still, I did not feel anything weird. When we pulled into the track and I got out, I immediately knew what the POP sound was: the trailer hitch had broken! I believe those last bumps had bent it downwards and the hitch was almost touching the ground.
I went to the local discount tire to replace the spare for the trailer and asked a couple of the techs there if they knew a welder. I had been calling around to see if one of the local trailer stores had a new hitch in stock, but no one within 100 miles had one. Luckily, one of the guys at Discount tire had a friend who was a welder and he agreed to fix it that day! Logan was a young guy who was working as a welder and doing some side work out of his home in Kannapolis. I headed up to his house, and a couple hours later we were back in business! I happily paid him for his work and offered him and a few of his buddies tickets to the race. They loved the idea and came out to zMax Dragway as my guests and enjoyed some great racing.
I got home Monday from Charlotte, had to spend Tuesday all day landscaping to take care of as many of my customers as possible, then left early Wednesday for Dennis’ house and ultimately the Texas Motorplex for the rain delayed Funny Car Chaos Classic. I had only gotten about 2 hours of sleep since I had to repack after working a 12-hour day, so Dennis ended up doing the majority of the driving. We drove straight through the night an arrived at the track Thursday morning. After Dennis took a well-deserved nap, we started preparing for the race.
We had discovered a clutch engagement issue at Sumerduck, so we were excited to see an improvement in the car’s performance. That dreaded “R” word (Rain, if you’re wondering) cost us the first qualifying session, but we had 2 left to get qualified and earn a place in the 32 cars out of 40+ that were looking to race Saturday night. Our first pass was too aggressive, and we hit the wheelie bar hard and unloaded the tire. We had one more shot to get in the show, so our strategy was to take some primary weight off the clutch and I planned to “short-shift” second gear. To our surprise, the car easily ran a 4.11 in the 1/8 mile to place us 2nd in the “C” Field.
We prepared for Round 1 with optimism. Under the clause of Murphy’s Law, the shift light broke during the burnout, so I was basically flying blind. I had a decent .051 reaction time (good for a centrifugal clutch) and had .1 on my opponent, but when I guessed as to when to shift, I hit the button WAY too early, and we lost a close race by .016 ending our hopes of getting the win. I am so lucky to get to drive other people’s race cars, but part of why I get that opportunity is that I treat the equipment carefully…maybe too carefully at times. I was a bit frustrated with myself, but no regrets per se. I will DEFINITELY not make that mistake again if I ever end up in the same situation. In order to make up for my lack of driving on the way to Texas, I drove all the way from Ennis, TX to Bristol, VA on the way home.
Hey, remember that announcement I mentioned? Here it is! After Texas, once again I had one day to get all my landscape work done before heading to Cecil County Dragway in Maryland for the Top Alcohol
shootout and my first time driving for Tom Pickett and his Top Alcohol Dragster. It is cool to be back in a long car again but this time I get to “swap feet” and change gears instead of just hang on like in the top fuel car. We had planned to test on Friday morning, then qualify Friday night before eliminations on Saturday in order to be home for Mother’s Day. Well, yet again Mother Nature showed how little she cares about racers or Mother’s Day plans. To add insult to injury, I had prepaid for an expensive Mother’s Day brunch a few towns away in Lambertville along the Delaware River. Yikes.
There is always a learning curve when driving a new car, and especially when the driving technique is different that other cars you are driving. Honestly, I LOVE the challenge. The first pass in the car, I made a TON of mistakes. I came back to the pits with my list of what I screwed up and was not surprised when crew chief Kevin Cantrell and the team confirmed how badly I did. To make matters more challenging, we were battling an electrical gremlin. After changing the points box and coil, we headed back for a second pass. My burnout was better, but my launch RPM was still way too high (maybe over-compensating for Texas?). The good news is that I was settling into the car and quickly getting comfortable. By the 3rd pass, burnout RPM was spot on and with a little help from a new throttle cable, my launch RPM was pretty close. Still, the electrical gremlin caused the car to go into tire shake and we were going into qualifying with a few questions but a solid strategy.
Unfortunately, we pulled up for Q1 and when the team turned the CO2 bottle on, I felt a rush of air and could hear a leak. There are many frustrations in drag racing, but not many more than being ready, in the waterbox, and then having to tow back to the pits with a problem. After replacing the broken air line, we were ready for Q2. The track was spectacular, and other teams had laid down a few great runs After a good burnout and launch RPM, I launched the car and we were a bit too aggressive and smoked the tires. Worse yet, the electrical gremlins were still present, and we had NO data to see what happened. With all that going on, the team allowed me to head home for Mother’s Day so that I could be with my family and they could go through the car.
I was grateful that I had a couple days to catch up on landscape work before I had to leave AGAIN for a conference for Right2Breathe. Mother Nature struck again. I worked a long day Monday, but it rained every darn day for the rest of the week. I did a ton of work for Right2Breathe (which was good) and somehow managed to work after a rainy Friday morning from about 2PM until 9:00 PM. Yes, I was actually finishing in the dark. It was time to get ready to leave for the American Thoracic Society conference in San Francisco for meetings about grants and sponsorships. We had to leave the house at 5 AM, so after doing laundry and packing, and about 2 hours sleep, I was headed out again. This time, to San Francisco to meet with other nonprofits as well as potential sponsors for upcoming events. It was a very long but productive weekend.
Back to the present, as I sit in the airport with boarding about 10 minutes away, I will pause for now before attempting to get some proposals together while flying home. Next up is the NHRA East Region / Divisional Race at Maple Grove Raceway with the Top Alcohol Dragster. Hopefully it doesn’t rain tomorrow, because it’s the only day available until next week. That brings me back to the Foo Fighters: “I’m looking to the sky to save me. Looking for a sign of life. Looking for something to help me burn out bright. And I'm looking for a complication, looking 'cause I'm tired of tryin'. Make my way back home when I learn to fly…”
Article Credit: Joe Morrison
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