Bazemore No. 2 in Vegas Fri. qualifying

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
The ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals
Round 22 of 23
The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Las Vegas, Nev.
Race Dates: Oct. 24-26, 2003

LAS VEGAS (Oct. 24, 2003) - Whit Bazemore drove his Matco Tools Iron Eagle
Dodge Stratus into No. 2 position in tonight's qualifying session in a
side-by-side pass against his rival for the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Funny Car champion Tony Pedregon. Bazemore pulled out a 4.847-second pass at
310.05 mph to Pedregon's No. 1 run of 4.753/322.88.

"We're happy," said Bazemore, who posted a 5.007/292.01 in today's first
session at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. "We made a good run and
we're No. 2. We're in good shape for tomorrow. Tomorrow is important to
establish a good race-day baseline. The track was pretty different today in
each of the two sessions."

While tonight's qualifying was under cooler conditions, tomorrow's two
rounds will be in the heat of the day, similar to today's first session. "It
was hot earlier today (in the first session) and the track was difficult to
go down," added Bazemore. "So we'll probably have more of that tomorrow,
which kind of makes tonight irrelevant other than we're qualified solidly.
That's all that matters."