 |
This spot for your company |
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Go here for full size Gallery
Pro Results Funny Car.........
Weather can certainly change the face of a weekend, especially
for Drag Racing, where you can't even run a slow car down the track
with a sprinkle on the surface. Sometimes the weather can be used
to a race's advantage as well. While the fans did not get to see all
the qualifying they had hoped to, what they saw from both Nitro classes
in qualifying and elimination's quality wise, more than made up for
the quantity end of the equation. The tone was set Friday night when
"Team Schumacher's" Gary Scelzi & Whit Bazemore ran
side by side 4.70's (4.76 and 4.73 respectively) and Scelzi being
the first ever to run 300 mph. with his 330.15 mph blast. The fire
works did not end there though, as the final pairing saw the newest
rivalry in the class; "rookie Eric Medlen and the guy who left
Team Force (giving Eric the opportunity"), Tony Pedregon squared
off in the final pairing. The race was anti climatic as Eric smoked
em, but Tony in the new Monte Carlo body, shot off like a rocket to
a
Top Fuel....... It was a tough act to follow
the Funny Cars, but Top Fuel at least matched the quality of runs
their nitro counterparts laid down. And they only got two session
to run their best numbers. By missing their Friday night and Saturday
evening sessions who knows what would have been.....and that was the
talk of the Internet message boards as even some prominent media types
were wondering out loud. By the end of qualifying, the bump spot was
a solid 4.69 and #1 was held down by David Grubnic who turned in the
only '40 of qualifying, a great 4.471 @ 331mph. In elimination's,
only one winning run in round one was slower than 4.57, and there
was even a 4.54 losing run (David Baca). Round two did not reach its
potential, as a number of teams either smoked the tires, red lit,
or wheel stood away their chances. The semis saw Scott Weis, in his
best performances (et wise) of his career, take on Doug Kalitta and
#'s 1 and 2 in the points, Tony Schumacher and Brandon Bernstein face
off. The Weis/Kalitta race proved to be THE match-up, when
Scott had a .088 advantage at the tree, but was caught around 1200
feet down track as Kalitta blasted to a 4.465/332 to Weis' solid 4.566/327
effort. The other race saw Schumacher pedal the car a couple times
in a losing effort as Bernstein ripped off a Kalitta equaling 4.462/332.
Brandon had lane choice by 3/1000ths of a second, but based on some
of the side by sides, it likely did not matter much. Both
Pro Stock Bike...... is actually as exciting as it
has ever been in 2004, and it is due to a couple reasons. Number one,
parity; ya, that word is out Pro Stock....It is getting harder and harder to get excited
about Pro Stock as the season goes on. Sorry for that statement, but
parity is what makes a class exciting. It certainly is not a slam
on Greg Anderson/Jason Line and the Vegas Construction team, it is
a credit to them, but when you have a team that has two very good
drivers and they have a few hundredth on everyone else, you know Click here for the full size gallery.
|
May 23, 2004
(pictures courtesy Guy Van Syckle
and are copyright SpeedZone Magazine.com). 
new et
and mph record run, an awesome 4.716/331.28 blast that left the fans
with their jaws around their ankles. Unfortunately the TF session
was washed out Friday evening but the fans still got their money's
worth. Saturday got shortened to one session for each fuel class as
well due to the weather, but it was enough to give Funny Car its quickest
bump spot of the year, a 4.909 held down by Jerry Toliver, and a 23
car field that saw the slowest car go a respectable 5.15 that would
of qualified that car( Cory Lee was the #23 qualifier) at four of
the previous seven events in 2004. In elimination's, the three Force
team cars were all on the same side of the ladder and two (Medlen
and Densham) faced each other in round two. They ran side by side
4.70's in rd. two, and Medlen came out on top of that battle. Force's
match-up in round two saw him get the win over Tony Pedregon, when
Tony took out the centre line cones from the 1000 foot mark through
the finish line. On the other side of the ladder, Whit Bazemore continued
his hot streak of late and took out Tim Wilkerson with a 4.76 in round
two. His semi final opponent was Tony Bartone, while Medlen and Force
were set to battle on the other side. The side by side battles sucked,
but one car in each race laid down what would make one of the most
anticipated final rounds of the year. Force tied a personal best 4.721
to defeat the "Kid", and Whit Bazemore crushed the et and
mph record books with a 4.713 @ 333.25 victory over Bartone.
Would the final reach its potential? Unfortunately, it did not, when
Whit blazed the tires and Force went on to a very strong 4.75 victory,
his second of the year and 111th of his career. The points changed
at the top with Whit Bazemore taking over the point lead and John
Force moving up to 2nd place. 32 points behind Bazemore, is season
long point leader Del Worsham, who was a first round casualty.
cars
in the final left with a hundredth of each other, so it should have
been a great race, unfortunately for the "Bud car", they
forgot to tell the front end of that car, as it came off the ground
and continued to lift until Brandon had to abort his potential liftoff,
giving Kalitta the win. He would have been tough to top anyway, as
Doug ripped off a world best 4.420 that was 1/1000ths too quick to
count his his earlier 4.465 as a back up. He left without the record
but got the win, his first of the 2004 season. The top three remained
unchanged in the standings with Schumacher, Bernstein and D. Kalitta
still in the same positions. David Grubnic moved into fourth, and
Scott Weis moved into the top 10 with his semi final finish
there
again, but the class is pretty wide open, with four different winners
in four races. The champ from 2003 is in 7th place and the top seven
are separated by 5 rounds of racing. This weekend, it was controversy
ridden Shawn Gann in the winners circle as he got the win before he
left the starting line when Andrew Hines shot himself in the foot
with an unnecessary red light. Andrew had over a tenth on Gann the
entire weekend and could have just been better than a .1 light to
almost assure victory. His red was not even close (-.035). Shawn Gann
is probably not complaining though. The big biggest question in the
class is probably when are they going to add weight on the Harley's
as I'm sure the Japanese Bike representatives are starting to put
pressure on NHRA to even out the rules. The battle between the two
girls in PSB is great for the class as well. If only Pro Stock was
as exciting.
what
the results are going to be. And the results for the year and this
past weekend bears that statement out. Eight races this year, Greg
has been to 7 finals and won six of them, Jason after a slow start
to the season has been to three of the last four final rounds, and
got his first win of the year on Sunday against his team mate Anderson.
They qualified #1 and #2 and had close to 3/100ths on the next closest
competitor during qualifying and elimination's (Kenny Koretsky surprisingly
enough in qualifying and David Connolly in elims). With the win by
the Vegas construction "team II" car (a car any other team
would give up their first born to have), Jason Line moves into 3rd
place in the standings and is only one round plus four qualifying
points back of Kurt Johnson. How quickly will the team run away with
the title, will it be by or before Indy. I say a resounding yes!!
