Gainesville: Mark Pawuk eliminations summary

Pawuk makes it three-for three.

RICHFIELD, OH 3/19/03 After a very disappointing 2002 season Mark "Cowboy" Pawuk is definitely turning things around for his Summit Racing Pro Stock Pontiac Team. He's qualified for the first three races of the NHRA POWERade season, with his best effort at last weekend's Gatornationals in Florida coming during the event's critically important third qualifying session.

After being bumped from the field following Friday's second session things looked grim for the Summit team, as the weather forecast called for steady rain on Saturday, which was expected to end qualifying with the Cowboy on the outside looking in.

"We were definitely keeping an eye on the sky," Pawuk said following the race. "Bob (Glidden) and Marcus (Bowen) just kept working, and never gave the weather a thought, but I'll admit I was concerned."

That third session began under gray skies, and finished under blue, with the sun adding enough heat to the track surface to make qualifying extremely difficult for the drivers near the end of the line. But, the Summit Pontiac came through with a 6.862-second elapsed time, good enough for the 12th spot on the list. "That wasn't where we wanted to be," Pawuk admitted, "but at least we were in the show, and that's what counts. As I've said before, you can't win if you aren't in!"

Pawuk faced Scott Geoffrion's Ford Probe in the first round, but despite a slightly better Reaction Time trailed at the finish line by .076 second, this despite recording the car's best elapsed time of the weekend at 6.846 seconds.

"We tested for four days at Bradenton prior to the Gators," Pawuk said. "We tried a lot of different things during the test, but the car never responded the way we hoped it would. I think we learned some things, and we're obviously pleased about continuing our qualifying string, but that's not good enough. We need to win rounds, and hopefully, that's going to start at our next outing, the Summitracing.com Nationals in Las Vegas. We're already looking forward to it!"

Next: NHRA Summitracing.com Nationals, Las Vegas, April 4-6

-sr-