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SNAKE RACING STRUGGLES
The Don Prudhomme-owned Snake Racing camp struggled
again at Chicago. Larry Dixon registered his
quickest e.t. of the weekend (4.563 seconds
at 325.85 mph) in the first round. However,
because he qualified 13th, a position the two-time
defending NHRA Top Fuel champion is not accustomed
to accepting, he drew hard-to-beat Doug Kalitta
for starters. Kalitta, the eventual winner,
left him behind with a 4.487/331.28.
"Every week we work on our car and try
to make it one of the top cars out here and
we still obviously have some work to do,"Dixon
said. "The two qualifying runs that got
rained out
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hurt
us, because each run we made we went quicker.
Had we got those sessions in, we might have been
in the top four or five cars and had an easier
draw in the first round."
Tommy Johnson Jr., in the blue Skoal-sponsored
Chevy Monte Carlo, missed Funny Car's 4.909-second
bump mark. He was 19th among 23 competitors.
And hard-luck Ron Capps looked like he was
going to get at least his second Funny Car round-win
of the season in the green Skoal Monte Carlo,
and it would have been an upset at that, against
Whit Bazemore. He led at half-track but lost
traction and the match-up. The 14-time winner,
who has triumphed just once since June 2002
(at Phoenix last year), said, "Itís tough
to swallow. Weíre trying harder than any other
crew out there and we donít have the results
to show. Itís really frustrating."
"The car left great,"Capps said.
"I was really surprised that the car pulled
the tires lose. It was almost an eternity before
Bazemore went around me. Itís just a helpless
feeling to be out there smoking the tires at
800 feet and not see a guy like Bazemore next
to you. Theyíre a top-notch crew. I thought
maybe he had problems, and as our luck would
have it lately, he came around me at the end."
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