Stevens has tough day in St. Louis

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2005 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 12 of 23
NHRA NATIONALS
GATEWAY INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
MADISON, ILL.
Race Dates: June 24-26, 2005


MADISON, Ill. (June 26, 2005) - Richie Stevens Jr. had a tough day today in
final eliminations for the NHRA Nationals at Gateway International Raceway.
He lost in the first round against Greg Stanfield when Stanfield posted an
outstanding .002 reaction time (.000 is perfect) to Stevens' .115.

Driving the Team Mopar/Valspar HEMI-powered Dodge Stratus, Stevens lost that
round on Stanfield's holeshot advantage while posting a quicker and faster
6.802-second elapsed time at 203.58 mph to Stanfield's slower but winning
6.812/202.73.

"I was just late at the light," said Stevens. "I hadn't been able to catch a
good light all through qualifying and I guess I was just thinking about it
here again and I was just late.

"He had a .002 light. It would have been hard to beat him, period. We only
ran a hundredth (of a second) quicker. I still would have had to have a .012
light or better. Again, driver error. I screwed up. Second week in a row.

"It's one of those slumps I need to get out of and hopefully it will turn
around for us in Denver. We're going to do some testing before Denver and
we'll work on a number of things that should help my reaction times."

Stevens hung on to sixth in Pro Stock points.

Next up is the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals in Denver, Colo., July 15-17,
2005.

NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series Pro Stock points:

1. Greg Anderson, 941
2. Jason Line, 926
3. Warren Johnson, 913
4. Dave Connolly, 807
5. Kurt Johnson, 763 (winner today)
6. Richie Stevens, 596
7. Jeg Coughlin, 570
8. Greg Stanfield, 563
9. Ron Krisher, 558
10. Jim Yates, 528