Stevens takes No. 5 in St. Louis qualifying

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2005 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 12 of 23
NHRA NATIONALS
GATEWAY INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
MADISON, ILL.
Race Dates: June 24-26, 2005

MADISON, Ill. (June 25, 2005) - The Team Mopar/Valspar HEMI-powered Dodge
Stratus that Richie Stevens Jr. drives for Don Schumacher Racing hit all its
marks in Pro Stock qualifying this weekend for the NHRA Nationals at Gateway
International Raceway, qualifying in the top half in each round and finally
ending up in No. 5.

Stevens' 6.772-second ET at 203.43 mph in the last pass was his quickest of
the weekend, and it followed a series of strong runs: 6.839/202.58 in the
first session (No. 7 qualifier); 6.781/202.91 in the second (No. 5
qualifier) and 6.809/202.88 in the third (No. 6 qualifier).

The first and third rounds were in the near 100-degree heat, while the other
two night sessions were under cooler conditions.

"That was good. We needed that," said Stevens, "especially after coming into
the last session having been bumped down a couple of spots. But we made a
really nice run. It was in the better lane, which is the left, we got a
top-half spot for tomorrow, and we have lane choice. That is definitely
going to help out here because the left lane is definitely the preferred
lane.

"Lane choice seems to be really important here," said Stevens, whose last
pass was the third quickest ET of the session. "Hopefully we'll go up there,
do our job and go to the second round.

"The heat today was pretty bad as well as in yesterday's first round. The
two night sessions were obviously the better two sessions of the weekend.
Tomorrow it will be hot when we run the first round; it will be like running
during the day. We ran pretty good yesterday on the first lap, so I think we
have the setup during the day for the heat. It should go right down the
track, like it did tonight."

Stevens will face Greg Stanfield in first round of eliminations on Sunday.