Bazemore falls back to second in points with first-round loss in Joliet

DON SCHUMACHER RACING
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
Round 20 of 23
CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals
Route 66 Raceway
Joliet, Ill.
Race Dates: Sept. 26-28, 2003

JOLIET, Ill. (Sept. 28, 2003) - It's to no one's surprise that the last six
races of this 2003 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Funny Car season are proving to
be an exciting competition between two pro racers going for the crown. Whit
Bazemore earned the points lead in that category for the first time in his
career last week in Memphis and this weekend it's Tony Pedregon back up
front. Expect a continuation of this see-saw season as the series winds
down, with four events left.

No. 1 qualifier Bazemore, driving the Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge Stratus,
knew he had a tough opponent in the first round in Cory Lee here at Route 66
Raceway in final eliminations. He even said so after becoming low qualifier
last night. What he wasn't ready for was a first-round loss to the No. 16
qualifier. Bazemore launched at the lights a tad quicker than Lee (.092 to
.093 reaction time), then got out of the groove and moved to the centerline.
The car shut off at the top end and Bazemore coasted across the finish line
with a 5.172-second elapsed time at 235.67 mph to Lee's winning
4.960/304.12.

"It's just a frustrating loss for the Matco Tools Dodge team," said
Bazemore. "It's just part of racing. It shook itself out of the groove a
little bit and I just couldn't get it back. It wouldn't come back. The track
was so good, for a moment I thought maybe it won't matter because we would
probably have good traction out there. It went down that way for a while and
then around half track it just blew the tires off.

"We had a parts failure that Lee (Beard, crew chief) thinks if that hadn't
happened we may still have been able to win. But the car shut itself off and
I'm not so sure (we could have won) because we were awfully close to the
center line. It's entirely possible that we were going to tag a cone or
something. We were probably a little bit out of control there. Anyway, it's
what happens. We'll regroup and go to Reading next week and try to have a
better weekend there."

After arriving at the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals this weekend in the
points lead by seven points, Bazemore leaves with a 69-point deficit to Tony
Pedregon, who won the event.

"Things change so quickly in this sport. We went from wishing the season was
over yesterday to wishing today we had 10 or 20 more races to go," said a
disappointed Bazemore.

FUNNY CAR POINT STANDINGS

1. Tony Pedregon        1483 (winner today)
2. Whit Bazemore        1414
3. John Force               1260
4. Gary Densham         1135
5. Del Worsham              1094
6. Ron Capps                        999
7. Tommy Johnson Jr     931
8. Gary Scelzi                  924

14. Scotty Cannon           664