Bazemore No. 11 in Houston, faces Worsham again in first round

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2004 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
ROUND 5 of 23
O'REILLY NHRA SPRING NATIONALS
HOUSTON RACEWAY PARK
RACE DATES: APRIL 16-18, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Judy Stropus, 203-438-0501; cell 203-243-2438

BAZEMORE NO. 11 IN HOUSTON QUALIFYING; MEETS POINTS LEADER AGAIN IN FIRST
ROUND

HOUSTON, Texas (April 17, 2004) - For the second straight race, Whit
Bazemore will meet the points leader in the first round of Funny Car
eliminations for the O'Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals after qualifying in the
lower half of the field. Bazemore, who qualified No. 11 in his Matco Tools
Iron Eagle Dodge Stratus today at the newly-resurfaced Houston Raceway Park,
defeated Del Worsham in the first round at the last event at The Strip at
Las Vegas Motor Speedway from the No. 10 spot.

Bazemore posted his best pass of the weekend (4.927/297.68) in the second
round last night under cooler conditions on an unseasoned track surface,
which followed a 7.915/98.97 lap in the first round. Today's two attempts
did not improve his position (4.962/286.56 and 4.949/300.13) but the final
run did deliver crew chief Lee Beard and the Matco Tools team a good
baseline of how to attack this race track.

The weather so far this weekend has been warm, not stifling, with a cool
breeze today providing comfortable conditions.

"On a day like today a couple of years ago - a good day here in Houston with
some partly cloudy skies - we would have easily seen a lot of Funny Cars run
low .80s," said Bazemore, referring to the results on a "green" track
surface, which included only one pass in the low .80s, by polesitter Gary
Densham, a 4.846. "I think things may change for tomorrow, hopefully for the
better.

"Lee was very happy with our last run and thinks it's the one that we can
build off of the easiest," said the two-time U.S. Nationals champion. "I
think he's right. We went down the track, we went 250 mph at half-track,
which is pretty good, and the team is working hard to overcome the
challenges that the track preparation is creating for us and everyone else.

"We ran within a couple of hundredths of low E.T. (4.874) in the last
session," he added. "We're not unhappy with that.

"We were in a bind last night. When you have track preparation similar to
what we have here, the night run is going to be the only one that really
counts. There are no excuses. We had to qualify last night so we couldn't be
as aggressive as we normally would have been, and the fact that we
overpowered the track in the first run also meant we were near the front (of
the field to qualify for the night session), so we didn't have the benefit
of watching other cars show us what the track could handle."

As it was for Bazemore in Las Vegas, facing points leader Del Worsham in the
first round of eliminations for the second consecutive race is a welcome
challenge. In Vegas, defeating Worsham helped Bazemore vault into fourth in
the standings after he reached the final round, where he lost to Phil
Burkart because of a mechanical problem.

"We have good first-round draw again," he smiled. "We're feeling aggressive
and we're going to go out and try to do our best to win a drag race
tomorrow."


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