Bazemore No. 8 after chute deploys in Seattle

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
CARQUEST AUTO PARTS NHRA NATIONALS
Round 14 of 23
Pacific Raceways
Kent, Wash.
Race Date: July 25-27, 2003


KENT, Wash. (July 25, 2003) - Whit Bazemore had a surprise in the first
round of qualifying today when the parachute deployed at the hit of the
throttle on his Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge Stratus Funny Car,  which
virtually aborted the run, resulting in a non-qualifying 10.863/74.74 pass.
In the second round, Bazemore pulled off a 5.030-second elapsed time in the
fourth pass of the round, which was low e.t. at the time. However, seven
cars that followed him bettered his score, dropping Bazemore to No. 8.

Bazemore's Don Schumacher Racing teammate Gary Scelzi, in the Oakley Time
Bomb Dodge Stratus, was low qualifier for the day.

"We had a part of the parachute mechanism break on the Matco Tools Dodge in
the first run, so the 'chute came out and that run was trash," said
Bazemore, second in the POWERade Drag Racing Series Funny Car point
standings. "That put us in the front of the line for the second round and we
were actually tuned up a little bit more. Then we saw one good strong car go
down there and smoke the tires so we made a decision to back it off a little
bit. It was so critical that we go down the track and get qualified, we were
conservative and at the time we were low e.t. We weren't that conservative
until Gary (Scelzi) ran. We were only a half a 10th off of low, basically,
so we're not too unhappy. It's going to be tricky tomorrow."

Bazemore was pleased for his teammate and the Oakley Time Bomb team. "They
deserve it. They've worked hard all year. They've had limited success and
it's great to see them be No. 1 and hopefully it will last for them
tomorrow. That would be a great thing. Hopefully we can catch up a little
bit and be 1-2, which would be nice. Tomorrow's going to be hard. We'll just
have to see what the conditions will let us do."