Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
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CUSTOM RIGS 50 | Overdrive | December 2015 T he Meritor ChampTruck World Series crowned its first champion following last month's season finale at Las Vegas Motor Speed- way. Mike Morgan of Wartrace, Tenn., a diesel technician for Mack of Nashville, won the inau- gural ChampTruck points championship with con- sistent finishes around the top of the season's leader- boards. Morgan won the season's first race in April at New Jersey Motorsports Park and stayed around the top five in the season's eight other races. Morgan beat out small fleet owner Allen Boles and Hungarian racer Krisztian Szabo to win the series in driver points. Morgan's team, Power Shift Racing, also finished on top of the team leaderboard over Szabo's Truck Race Team USA and Boles' Jupiter Motorsports. Going into the final Vegas event, both Szabo and Boles were positioned in the overall points to pull out a win if Morgan fal- tered in the competition. "It was an amazing finish," says Morgan, who was confident he would win the first Vegas heat if he could get on the pole position to start. He did both, going on to win two more heats and placing second in another. In another heat, running then in second place, Mor- gan was "black-flagged and given a two-minute pen- alty" after his and Boles' rigs "got into it," he says. But at that point, the penalty didn't matter as far as the points were concerned. Morgan's personally designed Mack – powered by an MP8 engine the diesel tech electronically calibrated for racing – "had the best lap time for any race" all weekend long. Of the final win, "it's unbelievable," he says. It's been a long season '88 Mike' on top The first season of the Meritor ChampTruck World Series is in the books, with Mack tech Mike Morgan taking the big rig racing circuit's crown. The 2016 season will begin in April. By Matt Cole and Todd Dills Mike Morgan's No. 88 Mack at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.