Topeka: A consistent Bazemore slots 8th

Whit Bazemore recorded one of his most consistent qualifying efforts of the season at the Advance Auto Parts NHRA Nationals. After making two solid runs on Friday, Bazemore came back on Saturday with two equally strong passes. He capped this impressive performance with the second-quickest elapsed time of the fourth and final qualifying session, powering down the Heartland Park Topeka quarter-mile in 4.979 seconds, with a top speed of 294.10 mph. This slotted the Kendall Motor Oil/Matco Tools Camaro Z28 8th for Sunday's final eliminations and set the stage for a first-round match up with No. 9 qualifier Jim Epler.

"We're definitely going in the right direction with the Kendall/Matco Camaro. The last run was really good early on, but we totally smoked the tires at around 900 feet, which cost us a lot of e.t., so to run a 4.97 under those circumstances is really good.

"We had said earlier that we would trade a little performance for some consistency, and it seems that's exactly what we've done. I know Terry (crew chief Manzer) is pretty pleased, because the car is responding properly to his tune-up changes, which is always a good thing. When you're able to make changes and have the car react the way you want it to, it means a lot. For that reason, we're confident for tomorrow and the rest of the year."