Hard-luck loss, Stevens Jr. loses on a holeshot in Houston

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2006 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 4 of 23
O'REILLY NHRA SPRING NATIONALS
Houston Raceway
Race Date: March 31-April 2, 2006


BAYTOWN, Texas (April 2, 2006) - Richie Stevens Jr. had one of the
fastest Pro Stock cars in the first round of eliminations today at the
O'Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals, but lost on a heart-breaking holeshot
advantage to Erica Enders.

The New Orleans native drove the Team Mopar/Valspar Dodge
Stratus R/T to a quicker 6.703-second elapsed time at 205.60 mph, but it was
Enders first at the finish line with a slower but winning 6.713/206.07.
Enders' outstanding reaction time of .020 of a second (.000 is perfect)
awarded her the win by .022 of a second over Stevens, who launched with a
solid reaction time of .052.

Stevens' ET was the second-quickest of the round, but was not enough to
advance him in the notoriously competitive Pro Stock field. "It's tough when
it seems like everyone goes up there and runs one of their best runs of the
weekend against you," said Stevens. "I guess I bring out the best in
everyone, but that's not a good thing out here.

"We qualified out in left field (No. 14), and that put us behind the 8-ball
going into today. Bob (Glidden, crew chief) completely changed the Team
Mopar/Valspar Dodge around for today. He changed the clutch over and went to
a set-up from last year. I just didn't hit the light like I needed to, and
she nailed hers.

"I didn't want to red-light; I wanted to give myself a chance, and give the
guys a chance. My guys really worked hard this weekend and they gave me a
great car today. Bob did his job, the crew did their job, and we just fell
short. We are all in this together, so when we lose, we lose together.

"We'll just have to block out what happened today and go to Vegas. The car
ran great today and went straight down the track; now we just have to do
that four times in qualifying; then that will give us a better chance on
race day."

He won't have to wait long. The NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series heads
straight to Las Vegas for the NHRA Summitracing.com Nationals at 'The Strip'
at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, April 6-9.