NHRA Quotes and Photos from Phoenix

Compiled by Ian Tocher
Photos by Jeff Burk
3/1/05

The NHRA’s best were in Phoenix Feb. 25-27, where Tony Schumacher, John Force, and Allen Johnson all won their first races of the year. Through quotes taken from NHRA and team press releases the racers told the whole story of the 21st annual Checker Schuck’s Kragen Nationals at Firebird International Raceway.

TOP FUEL

"To have the first 4.49 and the first 330 in my career on the same run in just the second race of the season is real good." -- Doug Herbert on becoming just the 14th driver in NHRA history to record a pass in the 4.40s during his second qualifying pass

"Of course, now we have to carry over that momentum to raceday. We had a similar qualifying performance in Pomona two weeks ago and look what happened (second-round loss). Focus is a must." -- Tony Schumacher after earning his second-straight pole at Firebird Int’l Raceway with a track record 4.474-seconds pass

“You can never take anyone lightly out here, so I’ll just try to do my job and hopefully we can get the win.” -- Doug Kalitta on qualifying second and facing Andrew Cowin in the opening round of eliminations

"Now it's just a matter of stepping on the gas and getting it done. I'm always excited for Sundays." -- Herbert after winding up third in qualifying

“Well, we just need to go from A to B. In the last two qualifying runs, we had trouble doing that, so we’re a little concerned.” -- Scott Kalitta after qualifying fourth

"We needed to learn to have more confidence in our equipment. We don't have many runs on this combination. The things we did last year don't work with this setup. These cars run on horsepower. We won a lot of races with the clutch. We can't do that anymore. The sanctioning body wants cookie-cutter race cars and right now, Alan Johnson has the sharpest cookie cutter.” -- Dick LaHaie, crew chief for Larry Dixon, after qualifying seventh

“We've got a car that's capable of doing good numbers." -- Cory McClenathan after qualifying ninth for raceday

“We obviously wanted to qualify higher than 10th. I will go out on a limb and say that we would have, but we had a brake failure after the burnout. We did not want to risk backing the car up and making the run with bad brakes, so I just drove it on through after the burnout.” -- David Grubnic on missing his final qualifying opportunity