NHRA: Chevy wins Pro Stock at Topeka
5 October 1999
PRO STOCK: MIKE EDWARDS, DEWCO PERFORMANCE CAMARO Z28, defeated Troy Coughlin to win his first Pro Stock title of the year: 6.953/198.35 for Mike, 6.917/199.11 for Troy. As mentioned before, Mike is the master of the reaction time, and he proved it once again by defeating Coughlin on a holeshot advantage (.424 for Edwrads, .479 for Coughin). He did in the first round when he ousted No. 1 qualifier Richie Stevens, and he did it again in the final. He also broke his good engine in the first round and replaced it with one not as powerful for the remainder of the event. Note: This is the fourth title win for the Camaro brand this season. Kurt Johnson won the other three. EDWARDS: "It's great. I knew he had lane choice, our lane (right) was just oiled down in front of us. I knew the lane wasn't good. I knew I had to do all I could do at the starting line. Thank God I came up with a good light, .424. It was just enough, because we made an absolutely horrible run." ON FIRST WIN IN A LONG TIME: "It's a long time coming. We have been running Pro Stock since '86. We won one race every year. We were starting to run out of races (to maintain the record). I was getting a little nervous. This is a big win for (crew chief) Mike Elliott. Mike's dad is real bad with cancer. He's not supposed to live. I want to dedicate this trophy to him. It's a real emotional day for us; for me especially, we've been going through a hard time." ON WINNING FROM 16TH QUALIFYING POSITION: "I told all my guys, my team and my wife it doesn't matter, you have to have some breaks your way. We never get a break. We didn't qualify that good and we should have. We were No. 2 for the first session, No. 6 next session, conditions changed the next day. We missed the clutch setup, we struggled on Saturday and that's where the conditions changed and everybody made their move. We'll just build on that. We made the right adjustments yesterday, we came out and we were really good in the left lane, we beat No. 1 qualifier, made the same adjustments, went to the right lane, then to the left and right again. It worked out for us all day long." POINT STANDINGS: 1. Warren Johnson 1474 2. Kurt Johnson 1259 3. Jeg Coughlin Jr 1165 4. Jim Yates 1056 5. Richie Stevens 910 6. Mark Pawuk 856 7. Mike Edwards 836 PRO STOCK TRUCK: BOB PANELLA, PANELLA MOTORSPORTS CHEVY S-10, won his third race from his third No. 1 qualifying position, defeating defending Winston Champion LARRY KOPP, SPEEDCO TRUCK LUBES CHEVY S-10, in an all-Chevy S-10 final round: 7.597/177.18 for Panella, 7.655/175.18 for Kopp. Panella takes a 46-point lead over Mark Osborne in the Winston Championship. PANELLA: "I have never been in this position before with the championship. Everyone in the shop, Rick Watters and the crew, work so hard to gain an advantage on this pretty awesome field of trucks. That's how we won this race. Luckily the horspower paid off today, maybe we can gain some momentum in the next week. I hope that No. 1 qualifier/win streak keeps up and we can qualify No. 1 a couple more times. It leads to good things. I'm really happy with the whole operation. ON THAT FINAL RUN: "We switched lanes because someone oiled the track down pretty bad in the right lane. I didn't think there was a big difference. I knew I didn't need that disadvantage in our court. For some reason it didn't make that spectacular a run, but probably not as bad a run as Kopp's. The horsepower prevailed. That was the determining factor. It feels pretty good for me and I'm sure Rick and everybody at the shop is proud of that." KOPP: "Before we made our run the alcohol dragster blew up in front of us. We got the lanes switched by Panella because he had lane choice. The lane wasn't as good as it should have been for us. We got it down decent then it started spinning (tires) in fourth and fifth gear. We had almost a five hundredths better light than he did, he just beat me up on the other end. He slowed up seven hundredths on that run and we slowed up on that run, both runs were not as good as they were earlier today." ARE YOU ON A COMEBACK? "I hope we are on a comeback trail here. We did a lot of engine work between Indy and here, we were late geting here, we missed the first two qualifying sessions. To come here late and go to the final, it's pretty awesome. It shows that we are just dedicated to this deal. We are going to do whatever it takes for Chevy and S-10 to win. We're comfortable with what we have now, we will go to Memphis with the combination we had here. We will have four passes down there to get it ironed out a ittle bit more and see what the track wants down there." POINT STANDINGS: 1. Bob Panella Jr. 894 2. Mark Osborne 848 3. Brad Jeter 759 4. Mike Coughlin 695 5. Randy Daniels 610