Oakley's Cannon out in first round in Atlanta

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Round 7 of 23
SUMMIT RACING EQUIPMENT NHRA SOUTHERN NATIONALS
Atlanta Dragway
Commerce, Ga.
Sunday, May 4, 2003
CANNON SMOKES TIRES IN FIRST ROUND; IS DEFEATED BY RON CAPPS

COMMERCE, Ga. (May 4, 2003) -- After posting a No. 10 qualifying position
after three sessions, his second-best starting spot in seven events this
year, Scotty Cannon arrived at the line for the first round of eliminations
to race against No. 7 qualifier Ron Capps as the seventh pair. With a crowd
of local friends and customers from his Cannon's Restaurant cheering him on,
the popular racer was ready.

Cannon launched just a tick later than Capps (.113 reaction time for Cannon;
.080 for Capps) and was ahead at the 60-foot mark, until his Oakley Elite
Special Forces Funny Car smoked the tires just past that point. He coasted
to an 11.749-second elapsed time at 82.63 mph, while Capps took the win
light with a 4.898/314.46.

The new team, led by new crew chief Phil Shuler, continues to make as many
runs as possible to collect data in search of a happy combination. To that
end, they will test here at Atlanta Dragway on Monday.

"We're just dumb in the clutch department, it looks like," said Cannon, of
nearby Lyman, S.C. "We've got to get the clutch to where it's a little bit
more forgiving. Other than that, I don't know; it just smoked the tires; it
was real aggressive. It needs to be more forgiving. That's what I told my
crew chief.

"We're going to test some clutch stuff tomorrow. We have to. We have to get
it down the track. The only way we're going to get better is to test," he
added.

"I said when we got here we had no runs to look at; we don't have the car we
ran last year. We've got data from runs that I had with old crew chiefs and
from runs that I ran three years ago. That doesn't apply anymore. Because
everything we're running is different, the car's different, the tires we run
are different, the clutch is different. So if you try to put it like
everything was set up back then, it just won't work.

Cannon is 14th in the POWERade Funny Car point standings, with 241 points.