NHRA: Gainsville NHRA Chevy Elimination Notes
20 March 2000
CHEVROLET NOTES AND QUOTES MAC TOOLS GATORNATIONALS GAINESVILLE RACEWAY, GAINESVILLE, FLA. NHRA WINSTON DRAG RACING SERIES SUNDAY, MARCH 19, 2000 FUNNY CAR ELIMINATIONS RON CAPPS, U.S. TOBACCO CO. CAMARO Z28, defeated Al Hofmann, Del Worsham and Scotty Cannon to reach the finals against Jerry Toliver, in the WWF Racing Camaro Z28. This will mark only the second all-Camaro Funny Car final in NHRA history. The first was in Phoenix in 1998, when Chuck Etchells, in the Kendall Camaro Z28, defeated Ron Capps' Camaro Z28. WHIT BAZEMORE, KENDALL/MATCO TOOLS CAMARO Z28, lost the first round to Kenny Sayers, with a 5.129/286.80 to Sayers' 5.074/306.33. BAZEMORE: "We went out and at about 300 feet, when we were ahead, everything was fine. We dropped a cylinder at 1.6 seconds. It had ignition problems maybe. It's just one of those things. It's a mechanical problem that cost us the first round. It's incredibly frustrating for the whole team. On the other hand, you know it's racing and you are going to have that. We are in a slump. The thing that is good is that the whole team is very determined to make this right and it's a very, very good team. I'll take this team over any other team out there. Our results don't show the effort that's made at this team. That's what's frustrating, but when that happens you have to keep doing what you are doing, working harder. We will make it right." WHAT NEXT? "We're looking forward to a good first round in Las Vegas. But first we have to go there and qualify. The Camaro runs very strongly; it was quick and consistent in Phoenix testing, we had our career best on Friday qualifying and so the tune-up is there, the performance is there, everything is there; we just have to change our luck. That's what it comes down to. We have a little problem here, and a little problem there. They seemed to rear their heads in the first round and it cost us. We got beat by an underdog. They qualified for this race. Just qualifying for this race is an accomplishment. It was pretty awesome for them. We don't take anyone lightly. If you qualified for this race you were in with a chance of winning. That's how competitive it is." PRO STOCK TRUCK -- CHEVY S-10 Defending Winston Champion BOB PANELLA JR., PANELLA MOTORSPORTS CHEVY S-10, was defeated by David Spitzer in the second round with a 7.821/144.50 pass to Spitzer's 7.582/176.49. PANELLA: "It pretty much just got out of control. In both runs today. I don't know if we lost what setup that we had or the track changed enough to make us lose our setup. But we were not even close. It went nuts two times in a row. There wasn't much I could do with it either run. The first round it moved around a little bit, it got in the marbles. In the second run it didn't move around, it was just spinning and shaking. I put it in fifth gear and it just started going crazy. There's nothing I could do with it. I wasn't going to scratch it up to try to get the win. It isn't worth it." ON JEFF GRACIA (BOB'S TEAMMATE) REACHING THE SEMIS FOR THE FIRST TIME: "He's driving good, and we're sneaking up on the performance. If we can keep picking up some here and there we might have something for Randy." (Note: Gracia lost to Randy Daniels in the semis.) BRAD JETER, JERRY HAAS RACE CARS CHEVY S-10, was eliminated in the second round by GREG STANFIELD, in a Bart Price Chevy S-10: 7.584/177.04 for Jeter, 7.619/176.49 for Stanfield. JETER: "I feel better about everything. We are getting closer. We finally got two good runs under our belt we can tune from. I think it will carry us to the next level. I'm satisfied with how we ran this weekend. We qualified well, everyone worked together, the guys did a great job. We have to get a little luck going our way and hopefully get this thing in the finals real soon. I have got to sharpen up a little more on my lights, the .442 and .453 are not good enough. I think I need to be back in the .420s and .430s. Everyone here is tough; there's no room on the table for error. It's a matter of time before we get into the winner's circle. Greg admitted he got lucky (with the .410 light). I don't care if he got lucky or not I should not have had a .450 at the tree. Regardless of what he did, it's neither here or there. The bottom line is I should have been better at the tree." PRO STOCK ELIMINATIONS -- CAMARO Z28 KURT JOHNSON, ACDELCO CAMARO Z28, defeated Mark Pawuk in the first round, then was eliminated by Ron Krisher in the second round: 7.349/159.95 for Kurt, 6.928/198.64 for Krisher. KURT: "We've been fighting this thing, trying to keep it going straight. We had Don Ness (chassis builder) over here. He was helping us last night, and we got Dad's (Warren Johnson) concept on it. We don't know why this thing is wanting to go left. We have it on the scales right now trying to figure it out. If you have a race car that doesn't want to go straight you're not going to get from point A to point B the quickest or consistently, and consistency is what we need right now. We made a little straighter run this morning. There was maybe a hundredth (of a second) or two left in the Camaro because it definitely wanted to go left and then it wanted to hunt down track. We're going to scale this thing down and see what we can find and look over it during the week, and then we have to go run it, to get the thing to where it's consistently straight -- let the clutch out and take your hands off the wheel. That's what the Jeg's cars are doing out there. They're getting down the track real straight. If you can read the door at 60 foot, that's not good." ###