Sun, 25 May 2003, 05:25 PM Funny Car Final, Round 4 Eliminations

By Rick Green

TOPEKA, Kan. - Results of final, round 4 eliminations in Funny Car at the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series, 15th annual O'Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals presented by Castrol GTX:

 Car#-Driver(Opp'nt)-RT-----ET---Speed-----Car#-Driver(Opp'nt)-RT----ET---Speed
    2 Tony Pedregon                           5 Whit Bazemore
E4   ****WINNER****  0.073  4.848 320.66                     0.076  5.126 252.38
 Prior rounds:
E3    (C Pedregon  ) 0.073  4.857 317.94      (G Densham   ) 0.066  4.898 314.39
E2    (G Scelzi    ) 0.056  4.888 317.42      (T Wilkerson ) 0.067  4.872 317.64
E1    (D Creasy Jr ) 0.084  4.845 311.41      (B Gilbertson) 0.071  4.833 321.50
 Qualified:             #1  4.743 316.97                        #3  4.802 326.48

Current weather conditions: 69 degrees, 47 percent relative humidity, the barometer 30.06 inches under cloudy skies.

Tony has 19 - 12 head to head advantage and Pedregon is looking for his third straight win here at Heartland Park Topeka. This will be the sixth time they have raced this year with Tony winning three of them, and this will be the second time they have met in the final with Tony winning their earlier match up.

They leave almost at the exact same time when the light turned green and then Pedregon was out ahead all the way down the 1320. Pedregon had about a car length lead at half track when Bazemore started hazing the tires. That was when Tony sped away for his fifth win of the season and his first one from the number one spot this season. He will now stretch his points lead to 94 points.

Timing data courtesy of CompuLink