Sat, 15 Mar 2003, 06:01 PM Funny Car Qualifying Notes, Final Session

By Larry Sullivan

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Notes from final, round 4 qualifying in Funny Car at the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, 34th annual MAC Tools NHRA Gatornationals listing lane, driver name, elapsed time/top speed this round, position in order following run, best prior elapsed time/speed, and position in order prior to run:

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Left Lane: Dale Creasy Jr. Runs 4.958/310.45, Now #12; Best prior run: 5.998/156.90, Was #19
Right Lane: Cruz Pedregon Runs 4.898/315.34, Now #11; Best prior run: 5.484/183.48, Was #18

5:28 PM Current weather conditions: 75 degrees, 60 percent relative humidity, the barometer 29.87 inches, with a track temperature of 100 degrees.

The bump was Jack Wyatt's 5.365 before these two ran. They easily eclipsed that mark, getting in and bumping Wyatt and Ron Capps. That put Terry Haddock on the bubble at 5.257.

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Left Lane: Terry Haddock Runs 13.021/79.32, Now #17; Best prior run: 5.257/265.72, Was #16
Right Lane: Gary Scelzi Runs 4.873/313.69, Now #8; Best prior run: 5.406/191.28, Was #19

Haddock lost traction immediately and Scelzi bumped him, moving way up to the middle of the field. That put Todd paton on the bubble at 5.149.

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Left Lane: Frank Pedregon Runs 4.883/312.17, Now #11; Best prior run: 4.991/302.41, Was #14
Right Lane: Jack Wyatt Runs 10.356/80.26, Now #19; Best prior run: 5.365/251.39, Was #19

Wyatt launched, shook, and shut it off, his weekend over. "Frankie," already in the field, moved several rungs up the ladder on a nice pass.

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Left Lane: Bob Gilbertson Runs 4.890/313.80, Now #10; Best prior run: 4.883/315.01, Was #10
Right Lane: Ron Capps Runs 4.912/314.68, Now #14; Best prior run: 5.316/265.17, Was #18

Nice side-by-side show, Capps getting in, bumping Paton, who is not in the staging lanes for this session. That put Scotty Cannon on the bubble at 5.072, but all the cars left in the lanes are already in the field.

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Left Lane: John Force Runs 4.839/316.90, Now #5; Best prior run: 4.882/306.12, Was #9
Right Lane: Scotty Cannon Runs 17.037/55.25, Now #16; Best prior run: 5.072/300.10, Was #16

Cannon's car turned sideways before it went ten feet, spinning the tires very hard. No tire spin for Force, a nice run, without the usual top-end "strange flames."

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Left Lane: Del Worsham Runs 4.872/313.80, Now #7; Best prior run: 4.856/307.69, Was #6
Right Lane: Gary Densham Runs 4.838/320.85, Now #5; Best prior run: 4.888/317.46, Was #12

Densham bettered his boss by a thousandth to move into the top half of the field. Worsham made a nice run of his own, no improvement, but a competitive effort.

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Left Lane: Whit Bazemore Runs 5.583/175.19, Now #3; Best prior run: 4.835/321.88, Was #3
Right Lane: Tommy Johnson Jr. Runs 4.860/313.47, Now #9; Best prior run: 4.863/316.01, Was #9

Bazemore was a hundredth quicker than TJ at half track, then started hazing the tires and something may have broken.

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Left Lane: Dean Skuza Runs 4.821/313.47, Now #2; Best prior run: 4.821/308.11, Was #2
Right Lane: Tim Wilkerson Runs 4.832/316.45, Now #3; Best prior run: 4.856/293.06, Was #8

Wilkerson's team spent a long time under the body after the burnout, but it didn't look like there was anything wrong. Then the two cars went down the track side by side, a nice show for the crowd. That moved Wilk up to third, setting up a possible semifinals rematch between these two. Skuza ran 4.821 for the second time in the event, both times in the second session of the day.

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Left Lane: Tony Pedregon Runs 4.811/315.67, Now #1; Best prior run: 4.814/317.57, Was #1
Right Lane: Johnny Gray Runs 4.879/306.85, Now #5; Best prior run: 4.836/314.79, Was #5

Tony just keeps laying them down - but he's only completed two runs out of four tries. By contrast, Wilkerson made four strong runs, losing one of them with a fuel infraction, making him the top pick on the form sheets. Good run by Gray - no help, but a competitive run.

That's a wrap for qualifying, everything else today and tomorrow will be eliminations.

Timing data courtesy of CompuLink



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