But Sunday's victory over Gann (with a 7.119-second pass at 191.59 miles an hour to Gann's 7.248/186.15 on his Suzuki) was a huge victory for her. She had waited almost a full year since winning last spring at Joliet before Don Schumacher signed her to a contract.

"The curse has been broken," Savoie said. "We don't have any excuses anymore not to do well. We have the U.S. Army behind us; we have Don Schumacher Racing, which is an unbelievable program. There are no excuses for us not to do this every single weekend."

Savoie seemed comfortable with her role as the second woman to win a Pro Stock Motorcycle race this season. With Karen Stoffer's victory at Houston, women have won two of the three bike events so far this season.

"May the best woman win," Savoie declared before final eliminations. Then she recorded her 32nd NHRA victory, nearly bettering her own two-year-old track e.t. record.

Whit Bazemore, her Schumacher Racing comrade, wasn't into girlpower, but he did shed his bridesmaid image in the Funny Car class. Bazemore, victim of upset-minded Phil Burkart at Las Vegas and runner-up to hungry veteran John Force at Bristol, earned his first victory of 2004 on this third final-round appearance in four events.

Ron Lewis photo

Bazemore defeated tire-smoking teammate Gary Scelzi in the final round, joining with Savoie to award team owner Don Schumacher a daily double.

It was the second Southern Nationals victory in three years for Bazemore, who lived in Atlanta as a youngster and became fascinated with drag racing at this facility.

"To win here twice is just unbelievable," the Indianapolis-based driver said after his winning 5.025-second run at 299.80 mph in the Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge Stratus. (Scelzi had 10.847/90.59 in the Hemi-powered Oakley Dodge.) "This place is emotional,

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because the points are the same, the money is the same, but there are some places that just mean more than other places. For me this is one of those places, because it's where I first saw drag racing as a young kid. So this is a place where dreams start to foment."

This year the car had been behaving badly, and crew chief Lee Beard and his team had worked to make sure they didn't hamper or beat themselves race after race. Beard, one victory away from his 50th, said he and the crew found the problem that had bugged them since preseason testing. "The wins were eluding us. We put our finger on the problem. To be able to come here and win is going to give our entire team a big boost of confidence. And hopefully we can continue on and have our noses in there for the championship."