"I hope you have a lot of batteries," Medlen said, nodding to a tape recorder, "because I'm wound up! I don't know what to think. I've got a lot to learn, and I'm going to make mistakes. I might make one tomorrow - I hope not. I'm just happy that Castrol took a chance on a young hick like me."

Force told him after the session, "You're making me look good. You just saved my life." Shot back Medlen, "You just made mine."

Someone asked Medlen, whose crew-chief dad John guided Tony Pedregon to the Funny Car championship in that very car last year, "Can you fill Tony's shoes?" Eric Medlen never hesitated: "Yep." Force cringed. Continued Medlen, "Tony wears size 7 and I wear size 8. Nah -- I'm not going to fill anybody's shoes." A relieved and amused Force asked, "Isn't he cute?"

Then, within a few hours, the newest John Force Racing protÈgÈ sounded as though he were tutoring the 12-time champion: "Boss, I'm worried about you. You aren't qualified yet."

Sure enough, Force was outside the class' 16-car field, along with Tony Bartone, who was eager to start his first full season in Jim Dunn's car and carried the event-sponsor's banner. Cory McClenathan and John Smith hadn't cracked the Top Fuel lineup. And Kurt Johnson and Jeg Coughlin Jr., the runner-up and No. 3 finisher from last year, were off the Pro Stock grid.

Everyone will have three more shots at qualifying this weekend. The revised schedule called for one professional qualifying session Friday and two turns Saturday before final eliminations Sunday.

"It feels like an extension of 2003," Graham Light, NHRA's senior vice-president of racing operations, said, alluding to last year's weather jinx that affected 17 of the 23 events. He said he didn't think it would be fair to set the Winternationals fields using the results from just one run or by seeding based on the 2003 final standings.

The seeding process would have allowed Force to compete but would have bumped Medlen and provisional No. 2 driver Cory Lee from the Funny Car list. It would have been ugly news, as well, for Top Fuel competitors David Grubnic, Clay Millican (photo), and Brandon Bernstein, all top-half-of-the-ladder qualifiers.

"If it were later in the season and circumstances were different," Light said, "we could go on one qualifying session. But it's the first of the season, and everybody's starting off from square one. I want to kick it off in fairness to the teams and give them as many qualifying attempts and runs down this track before we go into eliminations."

Schumacher, who's seeking his fifth consecutive top-qualifier slot, said he, too, preferred to get in another qualifying round, although he led with a 4.514-second pass at 326.32 mph. "Early on, you really don't want to lose out on runs. You want to get as much data as you can," the U.S. Army Dragster driver said.

Whit Bazemore, the 2003 series runner-up who couldn't coax his Matco Tools Dodge Stratus Funny Car any higher than 12th Thursday, said, "It's really good for our team that we're going to have three runs next week, because we're not quite where we want to be yet with this tune-up and this engine combination. It will all work out for the best."