DRO: Talk about your record-setting day. How did it progress?

Stott: The first attempt we made today was a 6.02, and on that pass the car launched pretty hard to the left, got out of the groove, and shook the tires kinda' hard. I was late on my second gear change because of it, but throughout that entire run, I knew that it was here; I knew that it was gonna' happen today, as long as nothing stupid went wrong.

We saw what we had to do to make the car work. We had to make the car go straight first, and then we had to step a little bit of power into it. That run told us that the car, and the track, and the day would hold the power required to do it. So we made the chassis adjustments to keep the car straight, put a little bit of power add in key places, and went up there. I dropped the clutch -- [crew chief] Jimmy (Rector) had strongly suggested that the gear changes be dead on, of course, and that the staging should be as shallow as we could get it - and that was what was in my mind. I kind of had a bad light because I was concentrating on making my second-gear change, 'cause I knew it was gonna' be coming in a hurry.

The car left, and as I hit second gear the car shuddered a little bit, and from that point, it shuddered and then just stuck the front end back in the air and at point I knew it was done. I knew it was over. As soon as it survived that second gear hit, I knew it was mine.

The car was darting around, moving around on the top end, and I was actually saying, 'Come on finish line, 'cause I'm wanting to get out of the throttle, but I can't do it until I cross.' Then I'm coasting to the end and [crew member] Ted (Chavarria) comes over the radio and goes, '5.98! Baddest man in the world!' and I just kind of went to pieces.

DRO: How did you feel when the car rolled to a stop at the end of the track?

Stott: What I did was, I just sat there. Normally, as I'm stopping I'm unbuttoning my belts and preparing to get out of the car, but honest to God, I felt that I had -- we had -- accomplished a tremendous feat. So I sat in the car a minute or so and I just relaxed and I said my thanks and my prayers for allowing me to be the one to do it, and just absorbed it for a minute. Then I slowly got out of the car and it really was quiet there for me; it felt very fitting.

Here it is: the time slip for the world's quickest quarter-mile pass by a car with doors attached.

And then Randy -- Lord, I can't think of his last name, but he works here at the racetrack -- he came down and brought the ticket to me and with that it certainly was official. Then we went across the scales and we were about 40 pounds over what they said we had to be here, and then the tech guys came by our pit and verified that we were legal in everything. The only thing on this car that is not IHRA Pro Mod legal, or NHRA Pro Mod legal, is the weight. We had the legal overdrive, we had the legal gears, we had the legal clutch, we had legal cubic inches, and all of that has been documented. If this is not a genuine, documented first-in-the-fives, there'll never be one!

DRO: So you've done it now in these conditions; are we going to see a five this year from you in all-legal trim?

Stott: No, no, no. It won't happen with the weight. It'll be a couple of years before you see it at legal weight. We feel that in these conditions, in this weather, on this racetrack, if we put the weight back in the car, which would be about 155 pounds to make it 2,700 pounds, we feel like it would run about a 6.10. That in itself would make it the fastest Pro Modified-legal car -- I think it's at 6.11 right now -- but it'll be a couple of years before we see a five at an IHRA or NHRA national event.

DRO: Anything else you want to mention about your accomplishment here today?

Stott: Just that I could not do this, I did not do this by myself. It took Jimmy Rector; it took Ted Chavarria; it took Ron Word; it took my family's involvement, my wife Joyce, my children, Abby and Donovan; it was not me. I'm just the fortunate one that gets the glory or gets to sit behind the wheel. That is my strongest statement, is that we did it as a team. And Radiac Abrasives, they are the ones that paved the way for me to do this seven years ago when they took the belief in me as a sponsor. In my opinion, things of this magnitude require tremendous support and help. I'm supposed to be in Las Vegas this weekend for the yearly Radiac Abrasives sales meeting. I was supposed to be describing the race program for 2003, so instead I sent a videotape of myself and as I stated in that, all the people who work for Radiac, all of their representatives, all the people that build the grinding wheels, the whole nine yards; I don't want not a single one of those people to stand behind me. I want them all to stand beside me and we'll cross the finish line at the same time. It's a team effort; it is Team Radiac, it's not Mitch Stott Racing.