Bazemore high on Bandimere (NHRA)

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Round 13 of 23
MOPAR MILE-HIGH NHRA NATIONALS
Bandimere Speedway
Denver, Colorado
Race Date: July 18-20, 2003

DENVER, Colo. (July 14, 2003) - While many Funny Car teams head into the
Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals with trepidation, as the altitude and thin
air can play havoc with the performance of their supercharged
6000-plus-horsepower motors, Whit Bazemore and his Matco Tools Dodge Stratus
team -- which will introduce the Mopar 'Bling Bling' Dodge Stratus.paint
scheme here -- are high on Bandimere Speedway.

"Bandimere is a great track," says the two-time Denver winner, in 1997 and
2000, and runner-up in 1999. "It's a very hard race due to the altitude.
There are great great fans here. It's one of those races that you really
look forward to because of the tremendous facility, the city and the fans.

"In the early days of my career when I had my own team and we were on a very
very tight budget, I dreaded going to Denver because it was so different,"
he adds. "We had to change the car so much that it was kind of a crapshoot
and it's really easy to blow stuff up here. I was always really nervous that
we were going to blow the car up and if we had only one supercharger in the
trailer we were going to be done. It ended up that we never really had big
problems, and a lot of other people had.  As time went on we became more
competitive and we started having good results here."

Bazemore, who is second in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Funny Car point
standings, just 143 points behind Tony Pedregon, remembers his 1997 victory
at Bandimere: "My favorite moment was in 1997 when we beat Chuck Etchells in
a tire-smoking final round. Chuck is someone I consider to be one of the
masters of getting down 'bad' race tracks and we beat him. That was really
rewarding."

Another career highlight came at this track in 2000, when Bazemore recorded
the first four-second Funny Car pass ever made at Bandimere Speedway while
winning his second event at the facility. "That was very cool," he recalls.

The Dodge Stratus body should have an advantage here, adds Bazemore. "It's a
track where aerodynamics plays a more important role than ever because of
the altitude. Our Dodge Stratuses are very aerodynamically efficient so that
will definitely help. If we have a good result here it will be in large part
due to the body and the effort of the Dodge engineers."

Bazemore is in contention for his first NHRA Funny Car driver's championship
this season, having reached the semifinal round in nine of the 12 events so
far and winning two titles after advancing to five finals. As the season is
now in its second-half stretch, his goal to take over the No. 1 spot from
John Force's team driver Pedregon is even stronger. "We're continuously
trying to improve the car and we've got a great team," he says, "so we
expect to win more races and be a little stronger in the championship. We're
still chasing the No. 1 team and John Force's second car. For overall
performance they're the class of the field right now. We're not far behind.
We're trying to get to that level and we know we can. That's what we're
trying to do."


CREW CHIEF LEE BEARD A COLORADO NATIVE

Whit Bazemore's Matco Tools Dodge crew chief Lee Beard arrived in Colorado a
week early to "do some fly-fishing" and visit friends and family in Pueblo,
Colorado, where he was born. Beard graduated from Central High School in
Pueblo, about 100 miles South of Denver. He went on to earn an Industrial
Arts degree from the University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo before
leaving in 1975 to pursue his drag-racing career. Beard, who now lives in
Indianapolis, worked for Kenny Bernstein (Sept. 1997-2000), Bruce Sarver
(1997), Joe Gibbs Racing (1995-1996), Larry Minor Motorsports (1992-1994),
Gary Ormsby (1983-1991), Jim Barnard (1982) and Jerry Ruth Racing
(1976-1981). He joined Don Schumacher Racing in 2001. Beard also drove Top
Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars in the early 1970s.