Indy NHRA Chevy 2nd Round Notes
7 September 1999
FUNNY CAR -- CAMARO Z28 -- FIRST ROUND, ELIMINATIONS RON CAPPS, COPENHAGEN CAMARO Z28, winner of yesterday's Big Bud Shootout, was defeated in the first round by Bob Gilbertson, 5.332/278.98 for Capps (.591 R/T) to Gilbertson's 5.261/285.83 (.539 R/T). CAPPS: "Obviously we had a lot of problems with oil fires and kicking the rods out and Roland (Leong), Todd (Okuhara) and Dale (Armstrong)have really thought a lot last night and this morining about just calming the Camaro down. Not that we took Bob Gilbertson lightly, we had to back it down to find out what our problem has been to get down the track. To be honest with you, as bad as it sounds, we wanted to make sure we didn't have another fire more than trying to run a 4.90. We were hoping to get a little luck. I stepped on the pedal and it just didn't go anywhere. The good thing is it didn't kick the rod out and went to the finish line. The motor looks good, but we lost and didn't run well. We still have a good '99 Camaro body on the car that's not burned up and we'll take it to Reading. We will test here tomorrow and make half-track runs and slowly step the thing back up until we can get the Camaro back running good without hurting itself." DO YOU HAVE ANOTHER BODY COMING? "I believe there is a body on its way. Thank goodness Chevrolet is on the ball with our bodies and wind tunnel program. If we didn't have support from Chevrolet we would be in a heap of trouble. If they keep feeding us bodies we will try to keep putting them in the winner's circle." WHIT BAZEMORE, KENDALL OIL/SUPERWINCH CAMARO Z28, ended his final-round streak today, when he was defeated by Scotty Cannon's Corvette in the second round. Whit was ahead at the starting lights with a .514 reaction time to Cannon's .523, but it the Camaro soon developed a problem, slowing Whit to a 5.142/259.96 run versus annon's winning 5.015/301.40. BAZEMORE: "The first round against Gary Densham was nearly perfect and low e.t. of the first round (4.969/304.46). It did drop a cylinder at the finish line, which really didn't matter. The Kendall Camro was just on a string. In the second round the Camaro left and was on a hell of a run, when it just went out of the groove on the left side of the track. No matter how much I fought it, it wouldn't come back until it was too late. By then it had started to spin the tires, which caused it to drop a couple cylinders, shoot the head gasket out and finally kick the blower belt off. You can't be out of the groove and near the wall at 400 feet and expect to win. Usually we're pretty good at being able to keep it in there, but today, for some unknown reason, I couldn't. You're not going to win every race, even when you think you should." ON THE POINTS SITUATION: "It's bothersome not to be able to take advantgae of our main competitors' struggles (points leader John Force exited in Round 1, and teammate and No. 2 points man Tony Pedregon fell in Round 2). The guy in second is still there, but he didn't gain any points on us, although we were unable to narrow the gap either. Our goal remains to chase him down for second." PRO STOCK -- CAMARO Z28 -- FIRST ROUND, ELIMINATIONS KURT JOHNSON, ACDELCO CAMARO Z28, was defeated by his dad Warren in the first round, 7.048/195.99 for Kurt, 6.939/198.26 for Warren. KURT: "When I raced Dad, I ran three hundredths (of a second) quicker in the first 60 feet than I did all weekend. I saw the drivers who ran ahead of me in the right lane have problems with their cars moving toward the guardrail. My car shook and went to the right, too. It might have run a 6.97 on a perfect pass, but it wasn't going to run 6.93 like Dad did. He made an excellent run. I guess you're going to have weekends like this, but I wish it hadn't happened at the biggest race of the year. A race like this just makes you tougher. We'll go home, take everything apart, and look at our notes. Then we'll see what we've got for Maple Grove." # # #