Madison: Whit Bazemore final summary

Bazemore ousted in first round by Worsham at Gateway

MADISON, Ill. (June 27, 2004) - Whit Bazemore was on a winning run in today's first round of Funny Car eliminations against Del Worsham until just short of 1000 feet, when Bazemore's Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge Stratus shut off, and Worsham drove around for the win in the second straight match-up for the duo.

Bazemore nailed the Christmas Tree with an excellent .054 reaction time to Worsham's .097 and was heading on a straight line to the finish stripe until he lost a cylinder and coasted to a 5.383-second elapsed time at 202.94 mph versus Worsham's less-than-perfect yet winning 5.118/302.69 pass.

"It's racing," said No. 4 qualifier Bazemore, who dropped to third in the point standings. "To win a race you have to have all the cards go your way. They didn't go our way today. I don't know what happened to Worsham; he only ran a 5.11. If they had had a bigger problem we may have snuck on by.

"We had a mechanical. Something broke on the motor at about 800 feet and it just quit. That was all that happened."

"It was running along there pretty good, good enough to win the race," said crew chief Lee Beard. "We had a cylinder not running properly. Because of that it caused a blower belt to break which shuts the engine off. It was a pretty tough day for the Matco Tools team.

"When you look at the guys around us in the points, John Force obviously had a very lucky first round win (which took him eventually to the final round); he went a 5.45, and Del Worsham capitalized off our breakage to go on and win that round. It's a little frustrating. It's a long season, we'll come back and get the job done."