Cannon qualifies 13th in Houston final qualifying

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Round 5 of 23
O'Reilly Spring Nationals presented by Pennzoil
HOUSTON RACEWAY PARK
Race Date: April 11-13, 2003
Saturday, April 12, 2003

CANNON QUALIFIES 13TH IN HOUSTON

HOUSTON (April 12, 2003) -- Scotty Cannon didn't expect to do so well, but
in the final qualifying session for the O'Reilly Spring Nationals at Houston
Raceway Park, he pulled off a 4.928-second pass at 312.86 mph, which was the
fifth quickest elapsed time of the round, earning him the 13th qualifying
position for tomorrow's final eliminations in his Oakley "Elite Special
Forces" Funny Car.

There were concerns going into this last round, as Jack Wyatt was No. 17 and
Cannon No. 16. The team was relieved when Wyatt, first car out, smoked the
tires and shut it down, remaining unqualified in 17th.

Cannon was next up and comfortable in the knowledge that he was already in
the field.

"We had some problems that we didn't realize we had in the first round in
Vegas; we thought we were doing so good," he said later. "We got by the
first round in Vegas, but we got looking back at it and the car is doing the
same here in all the qualifying runs that it did in the last two runs in
Vegas. We addressed the problem; hopefully we fixed it. But going in the
last session, Jack Wyatt was in front of us and none of us had really been
down the track. So we went real, real safe on a whole bunch of stuff. And,
to be honest with you, it surprised me it ran as good as it did.

"We were just hoping to run 4.90-anything, just so we could have a seat here
tomorrow at the races. It really gave us a little more. We dodged a couple
of bullets earlier in the year. We actually earned this one. We have to earn
our way through this. This is a rough deal out here. You're racing the best,
so we ain't giving up, that's for sure."

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