Fri, 20 Dec 2002, 08:55 PM It’s Official!!

By Bob Frey

INDIANAPOLIS --

Schumacher and Scelzi

There has been such a lack of news so far this off-season that I just couldn’t wait to give you something that’s official and that should be pretty exciting. I can now tell you that the Don Schumacher Racing team cars will, indeed, run the Dodge Stratus R/T bodies on their funny cars next year. While the official (from Schumacher Racing) announcement will be released any day now, I can say for a fact that Gary Scelzi and Whit Bazemore will open the season with the Dodge bodies and that Scotty Cannon should join them shortly thereafter. There just aren’t enough of the bodies available yet to put all three of the drivers in them by Pomona, but it won’t be too many races into the season before we see all three in the new cars. After seeing the cars in the wind tunnel and after measuring the results of the drag and the down force that the bodies produce, both Lee Beard and Mike Neff were thrilled with the numbers that they saw and they expect big things from the cars in 2003. This is a multi-year partnership between Schumacher Racing and DaimlerChrysler and, if the cars perform as well on the track as they did in the tunnel, it could be a very exciting year in the Funny Car class. Look for Whit and Gary to unveil their cars at the Phoenix test session. Also, look for DaimlerChrysler to lend additional engineering support to the team during the season, a fact that is good for Schumacher Racing and very good for drag racing as a whole. Stay tuned; things may be just beginning to get exciting…..Also, look for another Division 1 car to be added to the alcohol funny car ranks next year and expect it to be a contender for the title right away….and I’m not talking about Todd Veney this time!