NHRA: Reading NHRA Chevy Qualifying Notes
19 September 1999
CHEVROLET NOTES AND QUOTES NHRA TRUE VALUE KEYSTONE NATIONALS MAPLE GROVE RACEWAY NHRA WINSTON DRAG RACING SERIES SATURDAY, SEPT. 18, 1999 FUNNY CAR -- CAMARO Z28 -- FINAL QUALIFYING RON CAPPS, COPENHAGEN CAMARO Z28, is No. 3 qualifier, 5.001/291.26, posted in the final qualifying session, bettering his 5.090/279.76 pass of this morning. CAPPS: "The funny part is it's nice to have a plan and go through with it and change that plan and come out today and try to improve in two runs to get set up for the eliminations. Wit the air being close today to what it will be in eliminations tomorrow we wanted to go down the first run and be soft at the other end, which we did with a 5.09. And then we just tickled the tuneup a litle bit. I did lift a little bit early on the 5.09 run so we knew it could have been a 5.05. This time it moved pretty hard from half track on. This track is a very fast track, but it has a very thin groove. You really need to keep the car in the very center, in the blackest part of the track, where the rubber is. If you get out of that groove you can be in big trouble. We may end up with the fastest car tomorrow, but it's going to come down to who can keep it in the center and run decent. The Camaro runs great, and handles great. Every run it's gone as close to the center as it could go in the lane. It's exciting to not have to worry aboat pedaling the car and to have a lot of confidence in the car. It's still very soft in the beginning, we are playing with that a little bit. I think we will get after that tomorrow morning." CAN YOU FEEL THE DIFFERENCE WITH THE NEW CAMARO BODY AND CHASSIS? "It put cylinders out right at the finish line. It put out one early at 900 feet, that's why I lifted early in the run. Last year it would have moved the car over 6-7-8 feet and the only indication I had that it put a cylinder out was when I felt it stop pulling hard. That's the great part about having as much downforce as this Camaro has. Even putting a cylinder out at 800-900 feet it doesn't want to dart over, and that's important when you have a narrow-groove race track." WHIT BAZEMORE, KENDALL OIL/SUPERWINCH CAMARO Z28, is No.10, 5.142/281.33. BAZEMORE: "There's no question that we struggled in qualifying. We made two 5.14 (-second) runs and shook the tires on the others. I'm sure Tim and Kim (co-crew chiefs Richards) will go over the data and see what the car is telling them. I knkow that they're capable of making the changes necessary to give me a good competitive car on race day." ON NOT QUALIFYING IN THE TOP HALF: "This will happen from time to time in racing. You're not always going to qualify in the top half. These are competitive fields, and we are one of the few teams to qualify at every race, which we naturally expect to do. Every member of this team will have to concentrate on doing their paraty tomorrow, so we an rebound from our struggles." PRO STOCK -- CAMARO Z28 KURT JOHNSON, ACDELCO CAMARO Z28, is No. 2 qualifier, 6.872/200.13. "We're not exceptionally happy with today's runs, we need to tune this thing up. We ran a .92 this morning and we were shaking. Tonight I got in some of the (Top) fuel guys oil down in that left lane a little bit. It wasn't a very good run from the start. We obviously have to get after the set-up. The track is not as good as we think it is. We will have to get aggressive with this Camaro and get it to go quicker. We ran an .87 last night on an exceptional run, so we will have to simulate those conditions in the daytime somehow tomorrow. I'm excited about tomorrow. There is no reason why we can't go four rounds and win this thing. We have as much power as anybody. All we have to do is get it hooked up." MIKE EDWARDS, DEWCO PERFORMANCE CAMARO Z28, runnerup here last year, is No. 6 qualifier, 6.915/199.11. Mike improved on his 6.946/198.32 lap of last night. EDWARDS: "The track is pretty tricky, it's real loose in the middle, but it's getting better. It was a lot better in that session in the middle. I think it was the combination of us making the right adjustments to the car plus the track getting better for us. It was a good run for us; it's the best run we have made for a long time. We picked up considerably from the 6.94 (-second) run and went all the way up to a .91. I feel that if I could have made that run this morning it would have been really good. Last year we had pretty good success, we got to the finals, got beat by Kurt (Johnson). It's OK. We're looking for a little better outcome in the final tomorrow." ON FACING JIM YATES IN THE FIRST ROUND: "They're all tough, you just have to go up there and do your thing and hope you come out all right. We're just glad to be there. Qualifying is over, we won half the battle, now we have to win the war." ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS RICK JONES CHASSIS THIS YEAR: "The car is coming around, we're getting better with it. Steve Schmidt has come on board with the engine program. He's been exceptionally good to us. I owe a lot of my success to Steve and David Amberbury. We've run the Schmidt engine since Sonoma. Other than one race we really ran good. It wasn't the engine that one race, the engine program has really stepped us up." ###