NHRA

Columbus: Mark Pawuk final summary

Carburetor Woes Slow Pawuk "We Weren't Even Close," Says "The Cowboy" HEBRON, OH 5/21/06 Although National Trail Raceway was the site of one of Mark "Cowboy" Pawuk's greatest triumphs in NHRA competition, the 21-year Pro Stock veteran who won ...

Published: May 22, 2006, 6:35 PM

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Carburetor Woes Slow Pawuk
"We Weren't Even Close," Says "The Cowboy"

HEBRON, OH 5/21/06 Although National Trail Raceway was the site of one of Mark "Cowboy" Pawuk's greatest triumphs in NHRA competition, the 21-year Pro Stock veteran who won here in 2000 would be happy to completely forget this weekend's disappointing outing.

Despite a best elapsed time of 6.761 seconds, Pawuk's borrowed Chevy Cobalt, which sported Ohio CAT and the CAT Rental Stores logos for the weekend, was never close to being competitive.

"The bump spot was 6.722 seconds," he said. "We weren't even close to that.

"The only way to describe it is to say that we made two really terrible runs on Friday, and then discovered that we had a major carburetor problem. An outside firm had worked on the carbs and we'd been assured that they were perfect, but clearly, they weren't any closer to that then were our elapsed times.

"I'm pretty sure that when we started 'leaning' on the engine on Friday evening we hurt something internally, although we won't know that until later in the week.

"The one positive that came out of the weekend is that we entertained a lot of Ohio CAT and CAT Rental Stores employees and customers for the second year in a row, and they all had a great time even though we weren't part of the show on Sunday.

I'd like to once again thank my friend, Ron Krisher, for the loan of his Cobalt, but the more runs I make in this car the more I realize it's not mine, if that makes any sense. Every racer has his or her car set up in a certain way, and that means the driver's compartment as much as it does the engine and chassis. This is very definitely Ron's car, and for that reason we don't want to make a lot of changes.

"The one thing this experience has shown me is that getting our new car completed by Jerry Haas is of paramount importance. Once we get that new GTO I think things will be a little different and, hopefully, better, too.

"I'm really looking forward to next weekend's race in Topeka, where we're going to be running for the Sutherlands Home Improvement Centers and Dutch Boy Paints for the second time. I'm just hoping that the outcome will be more positive than it was this weekend."

-mpr-

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