Cannon back on track with Oakley Funny Car, heads to The Strip

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Round 4 of 23
SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals
The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
April 4-6, 2003


LAS VEGAS (April 1, 2003) -- Scotty Cannon feels good about his Oakley Time
Bomb Funny Car right now. It took a trip back to his Indianapolis race shop
to inspect, measure and even fabricate parts to get his team back to
fighting form, which was evident at the last POWERade Drag Racing Series
event in Gainesville, Fla. Cannon posted his best run of the season there (a
4.923-second lap) in the first round against No. 1 qualifier Tony Pedregon.
Although he lost that round, his spirits are high as he aims for the fourth
event of the year, the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las
Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend.

"We're going into Las Vegas with a winning attitude," said Cannon, who has
qualified in each event so far and is 15th in the point standings. "We went
back to the Indy shop after Phoenix with the guys and found a lot of little
problems with the motor. We looked at all the parts, measured them, made
some special tooling to check some stuff, and changed some things. We had
the same motor, the same heads and basically the same bearings in the car
all weekend during Gainesville. That's the first time we were able to keep a
motor in the car all weekend this year."

A testing session on Monday following the Gainesville race was also
productive. "We left the same combination in the car for Monday testing that
we had in it for that first round, and we went a 4.88 at 319 mph and
followed that with a 4.86. With those three runs put together, we think
that's good enough to go some rounds and even run some low .80s in Vegas.
That's what we're looking for and it makes us feel real good that we've
actually worked through a lot of the problems that we've had."

In 2002 at The Strip, Cannon qualified fifth in the first event of the year
and sixth in the second, but the Lyman, S.C., resident with the patented
Mohawk hairstyle says past performances at a particular race track don't
mean much to him. "I don't really care if I've qualified good at a track
before," he claims. "I just look at how good is my program at this point in
time when I'm going into a race. And, basically, that's about as good as
you're going to do or run until you get your program moved a little closer
to the top. Phil (Shuler, crew chief) and I have worked a lot of the bugs
out of the new combination, and I think it's just a short matter of time
before it really shows up good, and I hope Vegas will be it."

And, what would make him happy at Vegas? "Nothing but a win," he quipped.
"That's all. I'm not happy unless I'm winning. There's no room for second
place."

Nitro Qualifying at The Strip begins on Friday, April 4, at 3:30 p.m. and
again at 6:30 p.m. On Saturday, April 5, qualifying is at noon and 3 p.m.,
with final eliminations beginning at 11 a.m. on Sunday, April 6.