NHRA: Whit Bazemore is low qualifier for thire time this season
2 October 1999
WHIT BAZEMORE, KENDALL OIL/SUPERWINCH CAMARO Z28, stunned the crowd as well as the John Force Mustang team when he blasted by Tony Pedregon and Force (No. 1 and 2 after the third qualifying session) to the No. 1 spot in the final qualifying session, setting a track record with his 4.885-second pass at 298.40 mph. This is Whit's third pole position of the season, sixth of his career. BAZEMORE: "In the first run we ran a 5.09 and Tim (Richards, co-crew chief) said 'look, we don't know what the weather is going to be, we probably have to drive it to the finish line no matter what, within reason.' We dropped a cylinder fairly early in the run. We got in the show, that's important. Last night we smoked the tires at the hit of the throttle, which was really frustrating. This morning we shook violentluy. We strggled the last couple of races. We were on a hot streak this summer and it kind of went away. Tony (Pedregon) -- we're chasing him for the championship -- was No. 1 last week. We got beat in the first round. Fortunately for us he got beat in the second. That's our main focus (beating him). He was low qualifier tonight. The Camaro still shook and it dropped a cylinder down track so it was far from a perfect run, but it's good enough. It's the best run of the weekend. We will take it. The Camaro has more in it. Whether we press for that tomrrow I don't know. That's up to the team." ON BEATING THE FORCE TEAM: "To pick their pocket, it's the best case scenario. They were 1-2. It feels good to go out in the last session and get the job done like that. Tomorrow is a whole other day. The forecast is to be cold, if not colder. Obviously we got our tune-up right tonight, so tomorrow if the conditions are like this I expect us to be there, but anything can happen. It feels good to be low qualifier, it's going to feel good tonight, but tomorrow morning it really des't mean anything. It put John and Tony on the same side of the ladder, I think." YOU WENT BACK INTO THE GM WIND TUNNEL LAST WEEK: "We went to the wind tunnel. We have two of the new '99 Camaros now and they (GM Raceshop/Engineering) tested a lot of things and I think they were able to find out some information that we didn't find out earlier this year. I know it's an old story, that's what happened earlier this year. They (Force's team) had a huge advantage, and we have now caught up to a certain extent aerodynamically. It's made the playing field a little more level and that's helped a lot. Chevrolet answered the bell on the Mustang body and we appreciate being aligned with a company that wants to go out and win as much as we do." RON CAPPS, COPENHAGEN CAMARO Z28, made it into the field with his 5.398-second lap at 204.73 mph, good for 14th place. PRO STOCK -- CAMARO Z28 KURT JOHNSON, ACDELCO CAMARO Z28, qualified No. 10, 6.925/199.79, posted Friday night. KURT: "We tried to be more aggressive in the final session, but the car was just out of control in fourth and fifth gear. We're still too soft on the starting line, but we can put more counterweight on the clutch and pick up a couple of hundredths. We made progress since this morning, and cut our 60-ft. time by two hundredths of a second. It was a little soft going into second gear. We changaed the ratios for second and third gear based on what we learned at Maple Grove when we ran 6.87. The clutch shouldn' have slipped as much as it did, so apparently the track is better than we think it is." MIKE EDWARDS, DEWCO PERFORMANCE CAMARO Z28, is No. 16, 6.935/197.74.