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NHRA: All Camaros out in the first round in Texas

1 November 1999

FUNNY CAR 

WHIT BAZEMORE, KENDALL OIL/SUPERWINCH CAMARO Z28, lost to Kenny Sayers in
the first round:  7.846/128.05 for Bazemore, 6.098187.03 for Sayers.
Sayers' reaction time was a slow .617 to Whit's .529.  Both cars smoked
their tires, but Sayers recovered first to take the win.

BAZEMORE:  "It just smoked the tires at the hit, which is disappointing,
but personally irrelevant.  Regardless of what the Camaro does, we should
be able to run a 5.80 at the worst.  We've done it before under similar
conditions.  For example, if you look at our semifinal run in Dallas last
week (when Bazemore lost traction against Tommy Johnson Jr.), we probably
could have gone 5.50 or better if I hadn't shut it off.  From that aspect
I'm more discouraged with myself more than anything else, because I
couldn't get our Kendall Camaro to recover and go down the track. 
Sometimes, no matter what you do, it won't ever come back.  But I firmly
believe that if I'm on my game, I can regain control. Going back to last
week's run, the circumstances were fairly identical, but this time it just
wouldn't hook back up.  We just got beat on a bad run.  It makes you sick
to your stomach, but that's racing."

PRO STOCK

KURT JOHNSON, ACDELCO CAMARO Z28, was eliminated by Rickie Smith's Pontiac,
6.956/200.71 for Kurt, 6.886/199.82 for Smith.  Reaction times were .512
for Kurt, .484 for Rickie.

KURT:  "It's a bad day on the boulevard, Houston was not good for the
Camaros.  It's just frustrating.  We know we have a fast race car, but it
has been so inconsistent.  It left fairly decent, it was nose down to the
ground, then I put it in second gear.  I don't know if it was because of
Del Worshalm's oildown, but it lost traction, it started to shake, got up
on the centerline and I figured it slowed down to a 10th of a second.  I
should have been able to drive round him on a smooth run.  I didn't catch
him in the corner of my eye until I saw him pass me."  ON THE CHASE FOR
SECOND IN POINTS WITH JEG COUGHLIN:  "I'm in second by almost three rounds,
56 points, so he would have to go three more rounds than me.  If I went out
in the first round (in the final race in Pomona) he would have to get to
the final.  If I win first round, he would have to win the race.  If I go
to the semis I will be fine.  We'll test here tomorrow and try a new clutch
in the Camaro.  We've changed materials, which changes the characteristics
of the clutch.  This is a whole new setup, a whole different style of
clutch.  That's the only thing we haven't changed."

MIKE EDWARDS, DEWCO PERFORMANCE CAMARO Z28, was defeated by Troy Coughlin's
Oldsmobile:  6.859/200.50 for Troy, 6.897/199.85 for Mike.  Mike had his
usual excellent reaction time, .460 to Troy's .468.

EDWARDS:  "I left on him a ittle bit, but we just missed the clutch setup. 
We slipped the clutch really, really bad.  We ran really good last night
and I thought it would be a little worse today, so we left the clutch
alone.  We were a little light, we thought with the sun on it today it
would be about right.  It slipped worse today than it did last night.  It
makes you late, makes the car slow, it was just a bad move on the setup. 
I'm really thankful we qualified in the last session last night.  We jumped
all the way up to No. 4."

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