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Joliet II: Whit Bazemore Saturday summary

Bazemore takes second straight No. 1 in Joliet qualifying JOLIET, Ill. (Sept. 27, 2003) - Whit Bazemore is flying high. Not only is he the Funny Car points leader after winning the Memphis race last weekend, he aced out the 12-time Funny Car ...

Edited: Sep 30, 2003, 12:55 AM

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Bazemore takes second straight No. 1 in Joliet qualifying

JOLIET, Ill. (Sept. 27, 2003) - Whit Bazemore is flying high. Not only is he the Funny Car points leader after winning the Memphis race last weekend, he aced out the 12-time Funny Car champion John Force for the second straight week to be the No. 1 qualifier. Bazemore, driving the Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge Stratus, claimed his third pole of the year, the 24th of his career.

Just as he did last week in Memphis, Bazemore earned the top spot by virtue of speed, as he and Force recorded identical elapsed times once again. Bazemore's 4.725-second pass at a speed of 324.20 mph bested Force's 4.725 at 323.81.

"We beat Force again on speed," said Bazemore, winner here in June. "We're obviously very pleased that the Matco Tools Dodge ran as well as it did. Historically we've done well at this track (three previous event wins, in '98, '01 and '03) and it looks like we're in a position to continue that success. We're just focused right now on the first round tomorrow. We've got a tough first round. We have Cory Lee, a young rookie driver who did well last week. We just have to make sure we don't get upset in the first round. We're going to go out and try to win this race.

"We're just trying to be a machine and march towards the finish line," he added.

In today's first round, after qualifying was washed out Friday night, Bazemore ran a 4.820/324.20.

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