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Houston Chevrolet Monday Notes & Quotes
CHEVROLET NOTES AND QUOTES MATCO TOOLS SUPERNATIONALS NHRA WINSTON DRAG RACING SERIES HOUSTON RACEWAY PARK MONDAY, NOV. 2, 1998 FUNNY CAR -- CAMARO Z28 RON CAPPS, COPENHAGEN CAMARO Z28, was eliminated by WHIT BAZEMORE, TEAM WINSTON CAMARO Z28, ...
Edited: May 8, 2001, 12:19 PM
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CHEVROLET NOTES AND QUOTES MATCO TOOLS SUPERNATIONALS NHRA WINSTON DRAG RACING SERIES HOUSTON RACEWAY PARK MONDAY, NOV. 2, 1998
FUNNY CAR -- CAMARO Z28
RON CAPPS, COPENHAGEN CAMARO Z28, was eliminated by WHIT BAZEMORE, TEAM WINSTON CAMARO Z28, in the semifinal, as Capps performed a spectacular series of wheelstands, to match the one from yesterday.
CAPPS: "We will have to go back to the shop, put the Camaro on the scales and figure out why we are so far off. We know the motor is making more power, but it still shouldn't have been that violent."
"We figured when we went up there we would have to run a mid 4.80 because Whit's got a tough Camaro over there. And when I hit the throttle the Cope Camaro instantly went up in the sky. I said oh, no, not again. It was up pretty high where I couldn't see anything but sky. At that time I couldn't see or hear if Whit smoked the tires or not. When I came down again I hit the throttle again. Then it came back up a second time. I was going to try to ride it out. Anyway, it went right back up. I thought oh, oh, now I did it. I didn't know where it was going. I could tell it was going off to the right. Then I could hear Whit's car going down the track, and I knew there was no way I could catch him, so when it finally came down close to the centerline I coasted through."
WHY NO WHEELIE BARS? "None of the Funny Cars use the wheelie bar as a device. If it's going to go up that hard it will hit the wheelie bar and it will break it. The way we look at it, it's extra weight to the back, so we would have to add weight to the front. We haven't run a wheelie bar all year long, so it's not a new concept to not run it. Obviously we have to figure out why it's doing what it's doing."
WHAT WILL YOU LEARN FROM PUTTING THE CAMARO ON THE SCALES? "We will learn how much the front weighs compared to the rear and we will go back to the records and see what the distribution was before. This is the car we put together for Memphis. It'll go back to the shop, go on the scales and we'll take it back to ground zero, no pun intended."
DID IT FEEL LIKE IT WENT AS HIGH AS IT DID IN MEMPHIS? "I can't tell because I lost sight of the horizon. I saw everything disappear when I looked out the windshield. I know when I looked out the side window and I couldn't see anything that it was up pretty high."
YOU HURT YOUR BACK IN MEMPHIS. HOW DO YOU FEEL AFTER THIS ONE? "That hurt a lot . I was hurting this morning from the (wheelstand) I did yesterday. The one in Memphis tore my back up pretty good. I made some progress with the doctor I was seeing. That was before Dallas. I've been on the road since then I haven't had anybody to look at it."
FORCE ONLY NEEDS TO QUALIFY AT THE FINAL RACE IN POMONA TO CLINCH: "The cool part is that he didn't clinch it here. He's not the champion yet. It's prety good that we took him all the way to the last race of the season. He has been so dominant for the last few yeras. It's like fighting Oscar de la Hoya and you are an upcoming fighter and you get a chance to fight, not only do you go a few rounds and survive by not getting kocked out, you actually take him to the limit in 12 rounds. We should have won this championship. This team is very capable. I'm very much looking forward to next year. We had a championship season; unfortunately, he had a better season. If you had asked me a couple of years ago about having a season like this one, I would have laughed. It shows you he's a champ. We won five races (more than any Funny Car driver), went to the final seven times and we didn't win the championship. It tells you what kind of contender he is.
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