Gray struggles in Friday Texas qualifying

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2004 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 20 of 23
O'REILLY NHRA FALL NATIONALS
TEXAS MOTORPLEX
DALLAS, TEXAS
RACE DATES: Sept. 24-26, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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

JOHNNY GRAY AND THE WONDER WAGON STRUGGLE IN FRIDAY TEXAS QUALIFYING

ENNIS, Texas (Sept. 24, 2004) - Johnny Gray and Don Schumacher's Wonder
Wagon Dodge Funny Car struggled through two rounds of qualifying today for
the O'Reilly NHRA Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex, ending up 18th and
out of the field with a 5.834/165.50.

In today's first session the Wonder Wagon lost a cylinder, causing Gray to
move left toward the centerline and out of the groove, and in this evening's
round he failed to start the lap.

"They started to start the car and they pulled one set of wires and it
didn't start," he said of the second run. "So they pulled the other set and
it started . The car ran there a few seconds and one of the coils started
smoking real bad. It wasn't going to run real good on one mag anyway and you
didn't want to stand the chance of something going amiss in the electronics
and blowing the body off of it, so we just shut it off.

"We'll be fine tomorrow. We're not concerned. We'll go out and stick
ourselves right in the top half of the field tomorrow and be ready for
Sunday."

Two more qualifying sessions are set for Saturday.

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