Sun, Feb 28, 12:58 PM CHANDLER - Sunday Preview

CHANDLER, Ariz. - Good morning from a sunny and warm Firebird Raceway. We begin the final day of the Checker Schuck's Kragen Nationals at 11:00 AM with round one of the pro category eliminations.

Robert Patrick's Winston No Bull Challenge luck continues, he was the lucky Pro Stock driver selected for the challenge this morning, making him a perfect two for two so far in 1999. He'll have a tough assignment in round one, facing number one qualifier and 1998 champion Warren Johnson. The other No Bull Challenge winner was Funny Car, the driver selected is Gary Densham, driver of the NEC Firebird.

There was a lot of speculation and worry going on in the pro pits last night, many teams were burning the midnight oil preparing for todays eliminations. The track is tricky, but fast, so it's anybodies race here at Firebird today.

The top teams can't afford to be conservative and the lower budget teams have nothing to lose, so the racing should be fast and exciting today.

Several drivers have had additional challenges this weekend, suffering from a flu malady of some kind. Whit Bazemore, Rickie Stevens, and John Force have all not felt particularly well this weekend. John Force commented yesterday that he'd been to a local medical center for a shot and "tons of pills and stuff", and is feeling better.

John added that the Castrol team had torn apart the clutch in his racecar after he complained the pedal didn't feel right, but it turned ou t the problem was John's health and not anything to do with the Castrol Mustang.

Scotty Cannon was philosophical about yesterdays failure to qualify. Scotty took some solace in the fact he did run quick enough to get into the program only to have Tony Pedregon take out the timing lights in the second session on Friday . Scotty's commented with a grin "It'd be easy to start a conspiracy theory since Force's teammate Tony Pedregon took out the timing lights...."

So sit back and relax, we are about ready to get underway.



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