Race Notes from Bosie

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NHRA FEDERAL-MOGUL DRAG RACING SERIES - NORTHWEST DIVISION FIREBIRD RACEWAY, BOISE, IDAHO

RACE NOTES

RECORDS, RECORDS, RECORDS

Eighteen national records were set this weekend at Firebird Raceway between the Comp. Super Stock, and Stock categories along with numerous track records. The most notable record was in the Stock category when Robert Pond drove his '67 Fairlane to the first ever nine second run. NHRA times and records are adjusted for the air and altitude and with Pond's run of 10.229 seconds, Pond becomes the first driver to break the 10-second barrier in the A/Stock category. Moments after Pond's run, Joe Aluise Jr. ran a 10.266 in his A/Stock Automatic '63 Belvedere. NHRA requires a driver to back up a run with a second run within one percent of the first run. Aluise beat pond to the "9-second" record by backing up his run first, hence, setting the first 9-second NHRA National Record in Stock. Listed below are the NHRA National records set this weekend at Firebird Raceway:

Comp. Eliminator Jim Warter, B/SM, 8.884 seconds, 151.26 mph Adam Bowdish, C/SM, 9.155, 148.02

Super Stock Byron Setters, GT/DA, 10.068, 131.28 John Gallina, SS/DX, 8.722, 155.17 Rod Stults, SS/MA, 11.331 Abe Loewen, SS/DM, 9.400, 142.63 Tony Hewes, SS/GA, 10.020, 132.39 Gary McGlasson, SS/IA, 10.057, 128.95 Art Congdon, GT/CA, 10.033, 131.94 Mike Ogburn, SS/AA, 9.005, 146.05 Cameron Kallas, SS/TB, 9.508,

Stock Robert Pond, A/S, 10.229, 131.22 Joe Aluise Jr., A/SA, 10.266, 129.31 Travis, Gusso, N/A, 12.392, 107.37 Fred Deucher, L/S, 12.154 Steve Wann, C/SA, 10.688, 123.15 Gary Harper, ET/SA, 12.419, 105.39 Sean Cour, F/SA, 11.150, 118.85

Setting track records in Federal-Mogul Dragster were Rick Santos with an elapsed time of 5.464 while the speed record fell three times with Greg Lawrence walking away with the record at 262.77 mph. The previous records were 5.550 seconds held by Rick Santos and 255.33 by Melanie Troxel. Bucky Austin of Fite, Wash. bettered the track Federal-Mogul Funny Car record, held by Steve Sommer at 5.880, with a run of 5.861 seconds in qualifying.

AUSTIN, HENTGES TAKE HOME SEALED POWER MONEY

Bucky Austin and Mark Hentges led the Federal-Mogul Funny Car and Federal-Mogul Dragster fields in qualifying to take home $1,000 each in the Sealed Power Low Qualifier Award program. Austin lead the field from the get go with a pass of 5.861 seconds at 241.87 mph while Hentges overcame engine problems in his first qualifying attempt to grab the top spot with a pass of 5.468 seconds at 253.02 mph. In Competition Eliminator, it was Jim Warter grabbing the Sealed Power money with a pass of 8.884 seconds, 0.766 under his index. Michael Ogburn and Joe Aluise Jr. joined in the fun, leading the Super Stock and Stock categories respectively with runs of 9.005 seconds for Ogburn, while Aluise clocked in at 10.266 seconds. Sealed Power pays out a total of $2,500 between the five classes at all NHRA Federal-Mogul Drag racing Series events and Winston Drag Racing events. Lee Smith was awarded the Freeway Trailers Best Engineered award for his '58 Corvette while the Freeway Trailers Best Appearing Car went to the '63 Corvette of Dan Schwartzkopf of Torrington, Wyo. The Best appearing Crew award went to the Mike Johnson/Brian Hough Federal Mogul Dragster Team. Johnson is the team/car owner while Brian handles the driving duties.

GOOD CLEAN RACING FOR SCHWARTZKOPF

Dan Schwartzkopf has been running his drag cars on clean burning Ethanol for the past five years. In it's first trip down the quarter mile, Schwartzkopf's Wyoming Ethanol sponsored Top Comp Corvette named "The General" missed the field by one tenth of a second, covering the quarter mile in 8.177 seconds at 165.59 mph at this weekends Federal-Mogul Drag racing Series event. "The General" was built out of necessity when Schwartzkopf suffered a car destroying crash, on the drag strip last September in Marrion South Dakota. "This weekend is a testing period for both the car and myself," expressed Schwartzkopf. "This is my first time back on the track after the accident. I need to regain my comfort in the car and on the track, along with shaking out the bugs in the car. We didn't make the field, but we've learned a lot and will switch over to the Super Pro class and get a couple of extra runs on the car. We're just testing now." Schwartzkopf, who is the General Manager for Wyoming Ethanol, began racing and promoting ethanol fueled race cars in 1996 on the NHRA circuit. Ethanol now fuels 100's of sportsmen racers including funny car racer Mark Thomas who was the first to run the clean burning fuel. The team has been involved in numerous displays throughout their racing career, most recently, this weekend when Dan joined NBC News 7's Larry Begert who gave weather reports live from Firebird Raceway Friday morning. The team is also scheduled for the Clean Cities Show in Philadelphia, where they will be part of the General Motors display. General Motors will be supplying 1000 of their E85 vehicles to the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. The fuel in the E85 vehicles is 85% ethanol.