Schumacher Racing Funny Cars make field in final Phoenix NHRA qualifying

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Round 2 of 23
CHECKER SCHUCK'S KRAGEN NATIONALS
FIREBIRD RACEWAY
CHANDLER, ARIZONA
SATURDAY, FEB. 22, 2003

POST-QUALIFYING:

WHIT BAZEMORE: No. 6, 4.853/320.43
GARY SCELZI: No. 7, 4.861/319.98
SCOTTY CANNON: No. 16, 4.966/304.80

WHIT BAZEMORE, MATCO TOOLS IRON EAGLE DODGE STRATUS R/T FUNNY CAR, led the
Schumacher Racing Funny Car team after four qualifying rounds, placing No. 6
with a solid 4.853-second pass at 320.43 mph. His earlier lap, in the third
qualifying session today, was less than stellar when he smoked the tires and
slowed to a 9.391-second effort at 90.10 mph. The final qualifying round
found him paired against his rival John Force. Admitting that his heart rate
was up at the starting line, Bazemore handily bettered Force's 4.905/291.89
with the 4.853/320.43 pass.

"We struggled a little bit early yesterday and today, and the run today kind
of put us behind a little bit, because we wanted to be in a position to go
for the pole. But because we smoked the tires this morning we were forced to
back off a little bit and just go down the track and try to run a mid-.80,
which is what we did. We're pretty happy that the car responded exactly to
Lee's (Beard, crew chief) tune-up, so we feel like we have a decent baseline
for tomorrow. Ultimately, that's the most important thing." ON RUNNING
AGAINST FORCE: "I said it on T.V., it makes your heart beat a little more.
I've been really relaxed this weekend and my lights have been good every
run, and I'm just really comfortable in the car, really comfortable with the
entire situation here now and I'm not letting Force rattle my cage at all.
It's really important for us to have a good day tomorrow. I think we're in a
position to do that."

GARY SCELZI, OAKLEY TIME BOMB DODGE STRATUS R/T FUNNY CAR, and his crew
chief Mike Neff continue to impress, posting four strong qualifying runs in
two days (4.937/307.16, 4.861/319.98,4.879/314.24 and in the last session,
4.909/315.05). He ended up No. 7 qualifier, just behind teammate Bazemore,
with the 4.861/319.98 pass from yesterday evening.

"We went down the race track every time. We were a little disappointed with
the 4.90 run; we thought it was going to run quicker, but it looks like
right now the supercharger was down on boost and it was sluggish when I hit
the gas and it never really recovered the rest of the way down the race
track. At least we know what it is, so we'll change superchargers for the
first round tomorrow and hopefully bring it back to the way it was. The
supercharger we ran earlier in the weekend needed to be restripped. We
wanted to try this one to see how it was, and obviously it's not good after
two runs. We will put in the one we ran the .80s with, run it for the
weekend. If we have to restrip it, we'll restrip it between rounds. We're
feeling pretty good. I think we were the only car to go down the race track
four times in a row again, so we're pretty happy. If we can have a little
luck tomorrow, it could be late when we're talking again."

SCOTTY CANNON, OAKLEY TIME BOMB FUNNY CAR, hung on to No. 16 qualifying
position, scoring a 4.966-second run at 304.80 mph in the final qualifying
round.

"I'm just happy we qualified, and that's it. We're going to try to get the
car running better for the first round tomorrow, that's it."

###