NHRA

Gainesville: Whit Bazemore Saturday summary

BAZEMORE QUALIFIES NO. 2 IN GAINESVILLE, QUESTIONS REV LIMITER RULE GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 18, 2006) - Whit Bazemore and the Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge team debuted the new Charger body this weekend at the NHRA Gatornationals and saw a strong ...

Published: Mar 21, 2006, 7:52 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

BAZEMORE QUALIFIES NO. 2 IN GAINESVILLE, QUESTIONS REV LIMITER RULE

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 18, 2006) - Whit Bazemore and the Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge team debuted the new Charger body this weekend at the NHRA Gatornationals and saw a strong improvement in performance, as Bazemore qualified No. 2, with a 4.769-second pass at 321.88 mph.

The defending Gatornationals event champion clocked that time in the second qualifying session and was headed towards a potentially pole-setting run in the final round until a late-lap encounter with the NHRA-mandated rev limiter. Despite posting a respectable 4.782-second run, his top speed of only 295.85 mph told the disappointing tale.

"The Matco Tools Dodge team has done an outstanding job of addressing some of the issues that we had earlier in the year and as a result of that we're running much better and we're a much better team," said Bazemore.

"Quite honestly, we're very nervous about the rev limiter and the effect that it has on the engine. We saw a Don Schumacher Racing teammate absolutely explode her car at the last race into a big fireball, and in a Funny Car that could be devastating.

"Twice now we've hit the rev limiter. As a driver, you can't drive these cars without knowing what's happening to the engine at the finish line. And when the thing takes out that much power all at once you don't know if it's got a rod out. It feels like it drops three cylinders. That time (last session) it dropped so much timing out of it I had to shut it off. And then it came back on. It's too dangerous right now, and something needs to be done about it."

Bazemore faces Cruz Pedregon in first round of eliminations on Sunday, as he aims for a repeat win at Gainesville Raceway.

-dsr

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Gainesville: Tommy Johnson Jr Saturday summary

Next article Gainesville: Melanie Troxel Saturday summary

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

NASCAR explains why they penalized Zane Smith after latest clash with Carson Hocevar

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

2 h

NASCAR explains why they penalized Zane Smith after latest clash with Carson Hocevar

Porsche boss Laudenbach says he is "not happy" with how things were handled by IMSA in 2026

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 2 h

Porsche boss Laudenbach says he is "not happy" with how things were handled by IMSA in 2026

Five things to watch out for at the F1 United States GP

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

3 h

Five things to watch out for at the F1 United States GP

KTM sees MotoGP 2027 as a fresh start: “We never had the chance to build a new bike”

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP 4 h

KTM sees MotoGP 2027 as a fresh start: “We never had the chance to build a new bike”

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts