Bazemore No. 8 in Pomona qualifying, faces Capps in first round

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2005 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 1 of 23
CARQUEST AUTO PARTS WINTERNATIONALS
POMONA (CALIF.) RACEWAY
FEB. 10-13, 2005

BAZEMORE RACES TO NO. 8 IN FINAL QUALIFYING AT POMONA; FACES NEW TEAMMATE
CAPPS IN FIRST ROUND

POMONA, Calif. (Feb. 12, 2004) - Whit Bazemore poured it on the final of
only three qualifying sessions (Friday qualifying was cancelled because of
rain) for the CARQUEST Auto Parts Winternationals today, clocking a
4.785-second lap at 320.97 mph to place himself and the Matco Tools Iron
Eagle Dodge Stratus Funny Car into No. 8 in the field of 16.

With the Don Schumacher Racing brain trust of crew chiefs Ed "Ace"
McCulloch, Dan Olson, Lee Beard and Mike Neff at full throttle at the start
of a new season, this final session delivered positive results for all three
Funny Car teams. 

"It's good," said Bazemore. "We struggled, all three cars struggled in the
second session. So, for the last run to happen the way it did for all of us
was really good. It's a real positive move. You don't want to go into Sunday
not having made a good clean run down the race track. The .78 is a good run
considering where we came from earlier in the weekend (5.055/305.77 and
5.041/312.21 in the first two rounds).

Teammates Gary Scelzi (4.768/328.70) and Ron Capps (4.785/317.72) qualified
sixth and ninth, respectively, in their final attempts.

"It's the first race of the year," added Bazemore, who faces his new
teammate Capps in the first round of eliminations on Sunday. "It's important
to do well tomorrow. It's a shame we have to run our teammate, but Don
Schumacher has a lot of cars, so we were bound to run into him sooner or
later.

"The Matco Tools team is going to go out and do the very best we can. We're
looking forward to a good day. Lee (Beard, crew chief) has a good start, a
good baseline and we'll be all right."

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