Madison: Richie Stevens Jr final summary

STEVENS HAS A TOUGH DAY IN ST. LOUIS

MADISON, Ill. (June 26, 2005) - Richie Stevens Jr. had a tough day today in final eliminations for the NHRA Nationals at Gateway International Raceway. He lost in the first round against Greg Stanfield when Stanfield posted an outstanding .002 reaction time (.000 is perfect) to Stevens' .115.

Driving the Team Mopar/Valspar HEMI-powered Dodge Stratus, Stevens lost that round on Stanfield's holeshot advantage while posting a quicker and faster 6.802-second elapsed time at 203.58 mph to Stanfield's slower but winning 6.812/202.73.

"I was just late at the light," said Stevens. "I hadn't been able to catch a good light all through qualifying and I guess I was just thinking about it here again and I was just late.

"He had a .002 light. It would have been hard to beat him, period. We only ran a hundredth (of a second) quicker. I still would have had to have a .012 light or better. Again, driver error. I screwed up. Second week in a row.

"It's one of those slumps I need to get out of and hopefully it will turn around for us in Denver. We're going to do some testing before Denver and we'll work on a number of things that should help my reaction times."

Stevens hung on to sixth in Pro Stock points.

Next up is the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals in Denver, Colo., July 15-17, 2005.

-dsr-