THEY SAID IT

NHRA Quotes from Gainesville

Compiled by Ian Tocher
3/23/04

Round three of the 2004 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series was held Mar. 18-21, at Gainesville Raceway. Here, in their own words, are the thoughts of competitors at the recently completed 35th annual Mac Tools Gatornationals.

"Our intent is always to be number one; so, we are disappointed." -- Whit Bazemore on being nipped by Tim Wilkerson in the final pass on Saturday for the top qualifying spot

"We thump our chest pretty hard about being the only single-car team out here, so that's good for us to do that." -- Tim Wilkerson on becoming the first number-one qualifier with Chevy's new Monte Carlo flopper body

"It's nice to get into the top half of the field." -- Tommy Johnson Jr. after qualifying 7th

"It's unfortunate that we have to race someone that tough early in the day." -- Ron Capps on his first-round meeting with John Force

"It's easy to throw your hands up in the air and shrug your shoulders and say what are we going to do? But, that's what makes champions, champions. And then when you win it really pays off because you've been through a lot of adversity." -- Capps again, after falling to Force

"It was running fine and then it just smoked the tires, almost like it hit oil. It didn't hit oil, but it's very confusing and very discouraging to have something like that happen." -- Gary Scelzi on smoking the tires against Tony Bartone in round one

"This track needs to be ground to knock the roughness off of it. It's smooth, which is a great start. You can't just run on a green racetrack like this without grinding it. Hopefully we'll complain enough to get them to grind this thing for next year." -- Scelzi again, on the recently resurfaced Gainesville strip

"That's how the sport is. It's a brutal game. Budgets sometimes don't matter. That's the beauty of our sport. When you go to the starting line underdog or favorite, you only have one car and one motor, and you've prepared your stuff to the best of your ability and you go race." -- Bazemore on losing to Cory Lee's much lesser-funded team in the first round

"It was nice to get our first round win of the season." -- Cruz Pedregon on getting past Phil Burkart in round one