Phoenix: Dave Connolly preview

Dave Connolly, SKULL GEAR Team Ready for Better Start at Phoenix Race

PHOENIX, Feb. 20,  2006 -- Terry Adams wants to prove a point during this
weekend's Checkers  Schuck's Kragen Nationals.

"I want people to know we aren't as dumb  as we looked at Pomona (Calif.,
Feb. 12, in the NHRA season-opening  Winternationals)," said Adams, adding a
chuckle to go along with his dry sense  of humor.

There's no question Adams, crew chief of the SKULL GEAR Chevrolet Cobalt Pro Stock team, takes his drag racing very seriously, the same as driver Dave Connolly and rest of the team. They believe they are capable of contending for the 2006 POWERade Series championship and they intend to show it at Firebird Raceway.

"We need to get the car off the  starting line better," Adams said, "so we
are going to test at Speed World,  outside Phoenix, on Wednesday.  We will make
runs in first and second  gear and work on the problem until it gets better."

"The car wasn't  cooperating with us," added Connolly, who qualified 15th
and had a first-round  finish.  "We should get that sorted out and make more
consistent  runs."

Connolly, a five-time national event winner who placed third (2004) and fifth (2005) in his first two full NHRA seasons in Pro Stock, said the team, " just had an off weekend at Pomona and we will get things turned around and get after it."

Pre-season testing in Las Vegas didn't prepare the team for the Pomona race track.

"We never seemed to get a hold of the track during the first 300 feet," said Connolly. "We know we have enough power in our Chevy Cobalt to be a top-four racecar, but at Pomona we barely made the field. What we really learned was that when we tested in Las Vegas, the track was so good that basically any car would have worked there. It was awesome. On a slick track our car has a very small window to work from, and that's what we'll be concentrating on during testing."

The goal is to go elimination rounds on Sunday on a margin race track.

"We are a good team that should win rounds at every race," said Connolly.

They would all have something to smile about if they put four rounds wins together on Sunday.

-jls-