Bazemore, Scelzi Go to the Semis in G'ville

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Round 3 of 23
MAC TOOLS GATORNATIONALS
GAINESVILLE (Fla.) RACEWAY
SUNDAY, MARCH 16, 2003

FINAL ELIMINATIONS

BAZEMORE, SCELZI GO TO SEMIFINALS

The Don Schumacher Racing Funny Car team continues it move to the front. In
the third race of the 23-event 2003 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, Gary
Scelzi and Whit Bazemore advanced to the semifinals and Scotty Cannon had a
good first-round run against Tony Pedregon as Cannon's team continues to
solve its teething problems.

Bazemore defeated Cruz Pedregon in the first round with a
track-record-breaking top speed of 324.32 mph and a 4.827-second pass versus
Cruz's 5.203/218.07. In the second round he easily ousted Johnny Gray with a
4.880/319.82 against Gray's 5.567/181.08. But it was Del Worsham in the
semifinals who sent Bazemore home packing when a clutch disc failed on
Bazemore's Dodge, causing him to smoke the tires and lose with a
5.315-second pass to Worsham's 4.997/306.33.

WHIT BAZEMORE, MATCO TOOLS IRON EAGLE DODGE STRATUS R/T: "We're disappointed
because we really felt like we had the car to beat today. Things were really
going our way and for some reason a clutch disc came apart and we smoked the
tires. Stuff's going to happen. It just proves in this sport you don't win
the race until it's over. Things can be looking really good for you and
going perfectly and then, boom, you get beat. Just one of those things. Gary
did a great job today on the Oakley Dodge team. A Schumacher car has beaten
Force in the last two races in early rounds, so we feel good about that. We
just have to keep doing what we're doing and solving our problems each race
and addressing things and making our car better. We're doing all those
things, and that's what makes the team good and that's why we have a good
team."

WHO WAS YOUR BIGGEST COMPETITION TODAY? "They all are. There are no easy
runs. We take our loss in the third round (against Del Worsham) as a perfect
example. We had a considerable performance advantage going into that round
but at the same time we know what that team is capable of, so you can't take
them lightly. You let your guard down and you're going to get beat. You have
to be on the edge all the time. We don't have a 10th of a second advantage
on the field yet. Hopefully, we'll work hard and we'll find that. Then you
can operate with a little bit bigger margin for error. Right now we have
both our Dodges tuned up as aggressively as we think we can get away with.
Right now in Funny Car that's what it takes to win. You have to be right on
the edge and not go over it. And we had a part malfunction which caused our
tune-up to be over the edge at half-track and we smoked the tires. There's
no room for error, so we got beat."

ON LOOKING FORWARD TO THE NEXT RACE: "If conditions are good in Vegas then I
think we're on to a good performance here. We're just trying to realize our
potential and our potential is huge, it really is. If it all falls together
when the stars line up, watch out, because we had a great car at the end of
the 2001 season and a tremendous team and I feel we're back where we were at
that time with our team. We're just working through our problems. We have
unlimited potential and our intent is to realize it."

LEE BEARD, CREW CHIEF, WHIT BAZEMORE'S MATCO TOOLS IRON EAGLE DODGE STRATUS
R/T: "We have a great race car and Whit's doing a fantastic job of driving.
I couldn't be happier with the team and the performance of our car. We're
having some little inconsistencies in our clutch still. The reason the thing
smoked the tires is that it pretty much disintegrated a clutch disc and when
it does that it causes the clutch to instantly lock up. So we're going to
have to get involved a little closer on what we're putting in the thing
quality-wise. We do put a tremendous effort into that area, but obviously
we're still having a small percentage of misfires. They bite you obviously
at the worst time. It's tough to have a guy beat us with a 4.99 (Worsham in
the semis) when we're sitting on a race car that's been running pretty
consistent 4.80s and real big mile per hour. It's a little frustrating, but
we've got a long season ahead of us and we know we have a good car. They're
not going to beat us with those chump runs every race. You have a small
percentage of those things happen to you. Over the course of 100 runs you're
going to maybe have that happen four or five times. We just have to hope and
pray we can go the next 100 runs without having it happen. We're not
depressed. We came in here and ran good in qualifying and left here with the
track record for speed at 324 mph, a shot right there in the first round. It
wasn't like it was a bad weekend for us. We look at it that anytime you can
get to the semifinals, which are down to the final four cars, you had a good
weekend. Obviously winning is a great weekend. That's where we're at."

Scelzi may have struggled to qualify this weekend, making it into the field
only in the last qualifying session, but his performance in eliminations was
impressive for a man who's new to a full-time Funny Car ride. For the first
time in his NHRA career, Scelzi found himself facing the 12-time NHRA Funny
Car champion John Force in the first round. It wasn't the quickest run down
the quarter-mile for Scelzi, but his 4.905 at 313.91 mph was good enough to
beat Force's 4.973/296.54. When asked if he was nervous at the start of the
match-up, he responded that he thought he was going to throw up a Dodge
Dakota! In fact, he claims he wasn't nervous at all.

In the second round he faced Dean Skuza, and cleanly disposed of him with a
4.924-second pass at 313.58 to Skuza's 6.379/141.84. In the semis he found
himself against another member of John Force's team, Gary Densham. They
launched with identical reaction times, .058, but by the one-eighth mile it
was all over for Scelzi when his new red Dodge dropped a cylinder. Although
he made it to the line with a decent 4.933/308.95, Densham's solid
4.870/321.19 was too good to overcome.

GARY SCELZI, OAKLEY "GRAB LIFE BY THE HORNS" DODGE STRATUS R/T: "I think
that just shows the strength of this Oakley team, how well we did. We got
way behind in qualifying, we got the car in the show, we didn't make any
mistakes. We got in here and we beat John Force in the first round. We raced
the race track and not John Force. We beat him. So many people hand him
races because he's a champion. We showed him that we're going to play and
we're going to play all year long. I think that shows the depth of this
team. I wasn't lying in the beginning. And then second round we won and in
the semis we were actually beating Gary Densham and we had a cylinder go
out. We think we may have an ignition problem. It misfired a couple of
times, then it put a hole out. But we were running plenty fast enough to
beat him and we were actually ahead. We know it's not going to be easy, but
we know that this team has a lot of depth and we're very excited. Like Dodge
says, we're going to grab life by the horns and we're doing that."

WERE YOU NERVOUS GOING AGAINST FORCE? "You know what, I really wasn't. I'd
raced Bernstein, I've raced Amato, I'm a several time champion. The problem
was we had to wait so long and I try to keep myself calm until I get in the
car because you don't want to go on a roller coaster on adrenaline.
Fortunately, I've been around this thing long enough it doesn't bother me.
In fact, if anything, I was probably too relaxed racing Force. My goal and
our team's goal is to win races and to go rounds. We did that. Beating Force
came early. I'd probably be more excited if I'd beat him in the semis or the
final. It's all good. I respect the man; he's great, but we got a good team
and we can race him and that makes me feel good. This wasn't a bad weekend.
We went the first round in Pomona, second round in Phoenix, semis here,
let's go to Vegas."

MIKE NEFF, CREW CHIEF, GARY SCELZI'S OAKLEY "GRAB LIFE BY THE HORNS" DODGE
STRATUS R/T: "We are happy. We got off to a bumpy start. We never like to go
to the last qualifying session not qualified, but we hung in there and did
what we had to do and got it pretty solid into the show and made a
respectable run first round. We were fortunate enough to beat Force and
anytime you can do that, that's a huge accomplishment. We were able to go to
the semis. Anytime you can go to the semis I consider that a good day.
Unfortunately, in the race against Densham we put a cylinder out at two
seconds and it killed us. We were on a good run, fast run of the day for us;
just unfortunate to have that happen. We feel we could have easily won that
round and possibly went on to win the race, but overall I'm really happy.
Gary is doing a fantastic job and so is my crew. I'm just proud to be part
of Schumacher Racing."

ANY PARTICULAR WORRIES GOING AGAINST FORCE? "No. I was nervous going up for
the last qualifying session, but once we got a good run in I was fine for
today. You're really just racing yourself. You're trying to go as good as
you can, so it really doesn't matter who's in the other lane."

WHAT'S IT GOING TO TAKE TO WIN FOR THIS TEAM? "Well, we're going to stay
here and test. We've got some blower stuff we need to test that's kind of
been a weak link in our program for a while, and we know it. And hopefully
we'll get a good blower on there that will go eight runs or four runs and
we're not having to change that. We had to change blowers from the second
round to the semis. It changes your setup. It's something different. It
makes it a lot easier for something to go wrong. It's just a lot easier to
leave all the same parts on there if you can. If we can get that part of our
program straightened out, there would be one last thing I've got to change
on Sunday. I think we're close, I think we're right there."

NOTE: Gary Scelzi's Oakley "Grab Life By The Horns" Dodge Stratus R/T won
the Hedman Headers Best Engineered Vehicle Award today.

POINT STANDINGS AFTER THREE EVENTS:
1. Gary Densham            246
2. Ron Capps                235
3. Tony Pedregon            232
4. Whit Bazemore            206
5. Johnny Gray                182
6. Del Worsham                179
7. Gary Scelzi                159

15. Scotty Cannon            93

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