NHRA

Joliet II: Whit Bazemore final summary

MECHANICAL GLITCH PUTS BAZEMORE OUT IN FIRST ROUND IN CHICAGO JOLIET, Ill. (Oct. 2, 2005) - Whit Bazemore looked like he was en route to a strong performance at this weekend's Ameriquest Mortgage Nationals at Route 66 Raceway after posting for ...

Published: Oct 3, 2005, 4:17 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

MECHANICAL GLITCH PUTS BAZEMORE OUT IN FIRST ROUND IN CHICAGO

JOLIET, Ill. (Oct. 2, 2005) - Whit Bazemore looked like he was en route to a strong performance at this weekend's Ameriquest Mortgage Nationals at Route 66 Raceway after posting for good runs to qualify seventh.

But a mechanical problem in his first-round match-up against title contender Eric Medlen put the driver of the Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge Stratus R/T Funny Car on the sidelines for the rest of the event.

Bazemore launched .025 of a second ahead of the John Force Racing driver and was in front at half-track when the problem occurred, resulting in a small fire which caused him to slow to a 4.962/261.32 pass while Medlen crossed the finish line first with a 4.811/323.81.

"It broke an exhaust rocker arm," he explained. "Drove it a while, because we were ahead and what happens then is it just gives the motor way too much boost, makes it very, very lean and cylinder pressure goes sky high, and it didn't like that.

"So, it blew up and we didn't win the race.

"Cars are always replaceable. You always hurt stuff; it's irrelevant. We don't care about hurting the car, it's about winning the round and continuing to improve our team - we've come a long way - and try to make our team as perfect as we can.

"The hardest thing for us to take is not winning the rounds."

Next up is the re-scheduled O'Reilly NHRA Fall Nationals in Dallas, Texas, Oct. 7-9, 2005.

-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 HMCS: Mosport season finale race notes

Next article FF: CD: Ventura Focus results 2005-10-01

Top Comments

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

View More & Comment

Latest news

What's behind Oscar Piastri's split with Mark Webber – and what it means for his F1 career

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

13 min

What's behind Oscar Piastri's split with Mark Webber – and what it means for his F1 career

Shane van Gisbergen gets new crew chief for 2027 NASCAR Cup season

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

20 min

Shane van Gisbergen gets new crew chief for 2027 NASCAR Cup season

Conquest Racing locks in 2027 IMSA GTD lineup with Manny Franco full-time return

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 40 min

Conquest Racing locks in 2027 IMSA GTD lineup with Manny Franco full-time return

How Cadillac triumphed in the WEC Monza 6 Hours without the fastest car

WEC

Monza

How Cadillac triumphed in the WEC Monza 6 Hours without the fastest car

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