Brainerd: Scotty Cannon Saturday summary

Cannon qualifies no. 12 in Brainerd

BRAINERD, Minn. (Aug. 16, 2003) - Except for the two rounds of qualifying that were held in extreme heat and slippery conditions, Oakley Funny Car driver Scotty Cannon continued to improve, establishing his quickest and fastest run of the weekend in the final round of qualifying, a 5.091-second elapsed time at 299.80 mph, placing him 12th in the field.

"We changed the fuel system around, and we changed the clutch system around. We had two different clutches in the car this weekend," said Cannon, who has qualified for every race this year. "Actually, what we've done is put the clutch in my car basically like the way Gary's (Scelzi) running in his car. Me and Zippy (Mike Neff, Scelzi's crew chief) are working closer together with me and Todd (Blakeley) to try to make the cars where we've got some reference points and some interchangeable data, even though my motor combination is a lot different."

"We were looking for it to run a 5.02 or 5.03 and there were a couple of .90-somethings out there. We can look in the clutch area, for once, and if we just sped the clutch up a little bit, and when I say sped up, give it a little more clutch earlier, it could run a 5.02, .03 or .04 very easy. Going into tomorrow it makes me feel good knowing that I have a plan rather than grasping at straws trying to figure out if it is going down or not. Nothing means its going to go down, but I think we're headed in the right direction."

Cannon will face Tim Wilkerson in the first round of final eliminations tomorrow and has the possibility to meet his Oakley teammate Gary Scelzi in the semifinal round.