Bristol: Whit Bazemore Saturday summary

Bazemore aims for No. 1, settles for No. 5 in Bristol

Defending Bristol Funny Car champion WHIT BAZEMORE, MATCO TOOLS IRON EAGLE DODGE STRATUS R/T, and crew chief Lee Beard had their sights set on the No. 1 spot tonight, after a five-hour rain delay cooled the track conditions. The effort came close, but not close enough. The run looked straight and strong, but the resulting 4.807/317.57 was good for only No. 2 at that point. By the end of the session, Bazemore had fallen to No. 5. In today's first session, before the rain, Bazemore posted a 4.863/314.46 lap.

"It was a good run. We were trying to be No. 1 qualifier and we came up a little short for any number of reasons. That's the way it goes. We're disappointed, but we have a good running car and a great team and what's important is that we've gone down the track twice today and we had a few problems yesterday. We made good progress today, so we feel pretty good about things. We just have to get it all together and tomorrow's a new day. We plan to come out, win one round at a time and hopefully we can repeat here."

Bazemore joined most of the other drivers in praising this track. "It's a very refreshing experience when you come to a track that's run totally professionally, where everyone is friendly and they treat you like a customer. And you know when you bring sponsors here, or friends or family, that they're going to be treated right. It's a model for our sport that needs to be looked at and followed more often, I think."

Rain delay: "It changs things. We;re going to be racing in the afternoon, depending on the weahter. Ideally you want to run in those same conditions so you knkow what you're doing in those conditions because these cars are so sensititve to the weather and atmospehr,. The fact that we made this run tonight and it was kind of overast . We;re in good shape. We';re competitive. We;'ve been very consistent so far this year and we keep doing thaqt we'll have a good day."

-dsr-