Carlson runs career-best ET in Chicago, narrowly misses quickest Pro Stock field in history

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
2006 NHRA POWERade DRAG RACING SERIES
Round 10 of 23
CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals
Route 66 Raceway
Joliet, Ill.
Race Date: June 9-11, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Judy Stropus, 203-438-0501; cell 203-243-2438;
jstropus@earthlink.net

ROOKIE CARLSON RUNS CAREER-BEST ELAPSED TIME, NARROWLY MISSES QUICKEST PRO
STOCK FIELD IN HISTORY

JOLIET, Ill. (June 10, 2006) - The good news this weekend for Pro Stock
rookie Shaun Carlson is he ran his quickest elapsed time of his young Pro
Stock racing career, a 6.708-second ET at 204.79 mph. The bad news is he was
up against the quickest field in NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series history,
and lost his final chance to bump himself into the field. (He was just .008
of a second short of qualifying 16th.) Because of rain, NHRA officials were
forced to cancel the final round of qualifying for the CARQUEST Auto Parts
NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway.

The Team Mopar/SRT Dodge Stratus R/T crew made significant changes to the
car before today's first session, which led to the Southern California
native's quick pass. "Bright and early this morning Terry (Adams, assistant
crew chief) changed the four-link suspension, pinion angles, rear shocks and
sway bar, the third-member rear-end and the transmission," he said. "He
wanted to see what it would do with all those changes, because he said if
you don't ever make any changes then you'll never know what is going wrong.
It definitely worked because the car ran awesome. It had power all the way
through the low gears and gave me my quickest run ever."

His Friday qualifying runs produced a 13.786/60.84 when the car veered hard
to the right off the starting line, and a 6.755/205.01.

"I'm close. It's a big jump from a 6.740 (previous best ET, Gainesville,
Fla.) to a 6.708. Now that we made that move, we should be able to do really
well next week. It's too bad that we weren't able to go back out there for
the final session because I really think we would have gotten this Team
Mopar/SRT Dodge Stratus into the show.

"I would have liked to have gotten into this race because Don (Schumacher,
team owner) and Mopar have really stuck with me, and I hope the 6.708 is
starting to show that we are getting it down the track. David Nickens, Terry
(Adams) and Mike (Sullivan, clutch specialist) are making this a better car
to drive every time I climb into it. I really feel like we are getting
close."

Next for Carlson is the K&N Filters Supernationals at Old Bridge Township
Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey, June 15-18.

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