Bazemore Drives Dodge to Funny Car Finals
Mopar Motorsports NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series Mac Tools Thunder Valley NHRA Nationals Bristol Dragway Bristol, Tenn. Elimination Notes & Quotes Bazemore Drives to the Finals Stanfield Makes Second Round Appearance BRISTOL, Tenn. (April 27, 2003) Tire smoke spelled the end of Whit Bazemore¹s attempt to rack up his second-straight victory in his Dodge Stratus R/T Funny Car at Bristol Dragway during today¹s Mac Tools Thunder Valley NHRA Nationals. The Indiana resident lost to Del Worsham in the final, but vaulted into second place in this year¹s POWERade Funny Car title chase. ³We have a tremendous team here at Schumacher Racing,² Bazemore said. ³We¹re not quite there yet. But, we¹re awfully close. Considering the fact that we¹ve yet to win this year, we¹re second in the points. Things are really looking good for our Matco Tools Dodge. The performance is there and usually very consistent. That¹s what it takes to win rounds and win races. Along as we keep winning rounds, the race victories will come. ³The Dodge Stratus body is really good,² Bazemore added. ³It¹s a result of all the hard work the Mopar engineers put together on the body. We¹ve been developing it further to (crew chief) Lee Beard¹s taste. He¹s a crew chief that pays close attention to the aerodynamics, which is more important now with the 90-percent nitro rules. The guys made great calls in the heat of the day through the second round and semifinals. We had to back the power down and that¹s what really helps in the heat. The good downforce allows us not to have to back the car down as much.² Bazemore advanced to the finals with a first round victory over Tim Wilkerson, second round triumph over Tommy Johnson, Jr., and a semifinal win over Tony Pedregon. In the semifinals, Bazemore¹s 4.944-second lap at 309.06 mph lap just outran Pedregon¹s 4.978-second lap at 306.33 mph. Gary Scelzi, driver of the Oakley Dodge Stratus R/T, fell to Dean Skuza in the first round of eliminations today. The California resident went up in smoke about halftrack as Skuza cruised to a 4.952-second elapsed time at 302.48 mph. ³I think the right lane was better early,² said Scelzi, who ran the right lane during his run. ³Everybody was concerned about smoking the tires early. Mike Neff (crew chief) was very conservative and we pulled it back we shouldn¹t have done it. ³Eveything on the computer looked real good,² Scelzi continued. ³The next thing we know, Œboom.¹ No warning, no shake, no nothing, it just drove them right off. Normally the left lane is the weaker of the two. Fortunately we had lane choice. This is one time I¹m speechless on what went wrong.² Stanfield Drives to Second RoundŠ Greg Stanfield advanced to the second round before losing to Mike Edwards on a holeshot. Edwards, who ran a slower 6.948 at 199.73 mph, used a better (.015-.035) reaction time to beat Stanfield¹s 6.940-second lap at 199.76 mph. ³We made a lot of improvements this weekend,² Stanfield said. ³We just need to work on our race day set ups now. The track warmed up pretty good and we took quite a bit out but I think we needed to take out more (clutch). It was 12 thousandths of a second at the light. We¹ll just have to regroup and go to Atlanta.² The Bossier City, La., resident advanced to the second round when he defeated a red-lighting Mark Whisnant in round one.