FUNNY CAR
"You sit so far back, the window posts sits
so far forward, it makes you feel like you're
sitting in the trunk of a car." --
Scotty Cannon on his first driving experience
with the Dodge Stratus flopper body like his
teammates Whit Bazemore and Gary Scelzi use
"We've made it harder for ourselves, but we
are still certainly capable of winning this
thing." -- Bazemore on
his championship hopes upon suffering a rare
DNQ. He was 14th after the sole qualifying session
in September, and was bumped to 18th and out
of the field after his one chance in October
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"It's not over 'til it's over and we're a never-say-die
team. There's one thing I can guarantee you,
they (Pedregon's team) won't outwork us."
-- Bazemore's crew chief, Lee Beard, on the
points chase for the lead with Tony Pedregon
"This one don't hurt quite as bad. And I've
not qualified before. When you're basically
using the races for testing, you know this can
happen." -- Cannon on
his second-straight DNQ after qualifying for
every one of the 56 events prior to the Memphis
race
"It wasn't easy here, and even though we wish
we'd have done better, I know some teams that
would have swapped places with us in a heartbeat."
-- Number-16 qualifier
Cory Lee after losing to Gary Densham in the
first round of eliminations
"We had a chance to really put some distance
between ourselves and (Whit) Bazemore and we
didn't get it done. You can't say any more than
that. It was very disappointing."
-- T. Pedregon on failing to capitalize on Bazemore's
misfortune when he lost in round one to Dale
Creasy Jr.
"I saw the cone come into my lane when I ran
Jack [Wyatt, who hit the timing cone.] I thought
to myself, 'Should I move over or should I hit
it?' and I figured, 'Oh, just hit it.' It punched
a hole in the body. Then the chutes didn't come
out, so that run was a mess."
-- Eventual race winner
Tim Wilkerson (above) on his first-round win
"We are sticking with our game plan and running
our own race. If Force makes a mistake we are
going to be there to take advantage." --
Terry Haddock before taking out John Force in
round one, then going on to a second-round loss
to Cruz Pedregon
"The clutch worked way too good. It was trying
to run 4.60 and we didn't really want it to.
That's the highest the front end has been up
in awhile. It was pretty exciting." --
Force on the wheelstand at halftrack that forced
him to shut down early
"There's some history with that body, that
a lot of people don't know. This Valvoline car
was actually the Mountain Dew car we exploded
and tossed 30-feet in the air in Chicago two
years ago. We fixed it up, and repainted it
for this special edition deal. We won't be repainting
it any more. The biggest surviving pieces are
the roof and the rear wing. Everything else
is in little bits. The force of the concussion
popped opened my visor a little, and I got some
nice hot oil in the face for a bit. I also got
knocked around in there for a while, as the
car fishtailed on me. I was battling it, trying
to get it stopped, but it was very violent until
it hit the sand. I'm a bit lucky, and very relieved
to be okay. It wasn't a lot of fun. But, the
bottom line is I'm fine." --
Del Worsham explaining what happened after he
suffered an engine explosion just as he crossed
the finish line to beat Tommy Johnson Jr. in
the opening round
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