Alderman & Johnson Face Off in Round One
Mopar Motorsports NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series 34th Annual Mac Tools Gatornationals Gainesville Raceway Gainesville, Florida Final Qualifying Release Alderman & Johnson Line Up Together in Round One Bazemore Collects Fourth in the Funny Car Category GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 15, 2003) Three-time NHRA POWERade Pro Stock World Champion Darrell Alderman will face off against Mopar factory teammate Allen Johnson in the first round of eliminations for tomorrow¹s 34th running of the Mac Tools Gatornationals at historic Gainesville Raceway. Alderman, who won his 28th career NHRA national event here last year, earned the eighth-qualifying slot with a 6.806-second elapsed time at 202.20 mph during today¹s first session. ³We made a nice run this morning,² said the Morehead, Ky., resident. ³We came back this afternoon and shook a little bit in second (gear). I have to run my teammate in the morning, which isn¹t my favorite thing to do unless it¹s in the final. But that¹s a lot better than not running at all. We¹ll just go out there and have a good, old-fashioned drag race. ³I¹d say the lanes are pretty equal this weekend,² Alderman continued. ³At least that¹s what I thought about it today. Usually the left lane is the best, so we¹ll just have to see.² Johnson placed his Hemi-powered mount ninth, wrapping up a weekend best elapsed time of 6.808 seconds and 202.42 mph. The Greeneville, Tenn., resident is gunning for the third NHRA national event victory of his career. ³We really didn¹t make great runs this morning,² Johnson said. ³We¹ve raced each other a bunch before so we¹ll just go up there and have some fun. At least we know we¹ll have a car in the second round. ³Conditions tomorrow will be about like our last run today,² continued Johnson, on the hot-and-sticky weather conditions. ³We made a decent run in those conditions, but it wasn¹t anything to brag about. I think we have a good baseline for tomorrow though.² Gene Wilson made some breakthroughs on his brand new Dodge Stratus R/T Pro Stocker this weekend. Despite missing the show by only a hundredth of a second, the Georgia resident¹s 6.836-second elapsed time at 201.83 mph made for an optimistic end to qualifying. The Stratus R/T Pro Stock machine made its competitive debut in the season-opening Winternationals at Pomona (Calif.) Raceway earlier this season. ³I¹m really happy with the way things turned out for us this weekend,² said Wilson, who made his NHRA Pro Stock debut during last years Gainesville round. ³We showed a little bit of promise in Friday¹s runs so we went into today with a great deal of hope. We made major changes to the car last night and it responded very favorably. We¹re extremely excited about the new Stratus and the direction of this program. ³There¹s no secret that this is going to take time,² Wilson continued. ³We¹re still not where we want to be but the progress is there. My guys are really setting up the car well. It¹s all about making the car happy. When you don¹t have a lot of runs on a new car you don¹t know what it needs in every situation. And it takes making the right series of calls to get into these very competitive fields. I think we¹ve finally hit somewhat of a sweet spot on the car and we¹re going to be able to build upon that. ³We changed everything from the transmission, clutch and four-link (suspension),² Wilson added. ³The car is responding real well to the changes now. And we¹ve finally got the car going straight. I believe we¹ve got it figured out.² It was a frustrating weekend for Mopar¹s Larry Morgan, as the Newark, Ohio resident missed the show with a weekend best pass of 6.885 seconds at 200.04 mph. BAZEMORE LEADS DODGE FUNNY CAR EFFORTSŠ Two more Dodge Stratus R/T¹s qualified on the Nitro Funny Car side. The Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge Stratus R/T of Whit Bazemore landed the fourth-qualifying slot with a 4.835-second lap at 321.88 mph. Bazemore has a first round match with Cruz Pedregon. ³We¹ve had a good weekend, but not outstanding,² Bazemore said. ³We come here to qualify number one. And we have the team; the tools and the car to accomplish that at every race. Anytime we¹re not number one, we¹re a little disappointed. If we had a little more experience with this new Dodge body, we might of have done better with it. It¹s much better aerodynamically than what we¹ve had, but we don¹t have the weight balance right on the car. ³We were really trying to get after it on that last run,² Bazemore added. ³We were trying to run a seventy and it raised the nose up. We are in a good position and we¹re not here to be runner up.² Gary Scelzi wielded the Dodge Motorsports/Oakley Dodge Stratus R/T Funny Car to the 10th-qualified slot. The California resident will take on 11-time POWERade Funny Car World Champion John Force in round one. ³Dodge says ŒGrab Life By the Horns,¹ and we grabbed the race track by the throat,² Scelzi said. ³We¹ve had such good luck with these new Dodge Stratus bodies. We¹re a lot better team than we¹re showing right now. We¹re consistent and we just don¹t smoke the tires. We made some changes in Phoenix and knew they worked on (teammate Whit) Bazemore¹s car. We gave that set up two shots on Friday and they just didn¹t work. It got us behind, but we¹re okay and we can race this car now. ³Right now I like the left lane,² continued Scelzi, who relinquishes choice in round one tomorrow. ³Mainly because the sun is on the right hand side of that tree. Even with the LED lights, it¹s awfully bright. If we have choice tomorrow, we¹re going to try and stay in the left lane. It¹s slippery and I was driving it. It¹s planted, so I don¹t have to wrestle it like the old car.² -Mopar.com- For more information, contact: David Harris, Cox Marketing Group Public Relations Manager Mopar Motorsports NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series davidh@coxmarketinggroup.com (704) 799-2114 office (704) 756-9301 - mobile Mike Mooney, Cox Marketing Group Account Manager Mopar Motorsports NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series mikem@coxmarketinggroup.com (704) 799-2114 office (704) 906-5818 mobile Fac