NHRA Quotes from Bristol

Compiled by Ian Tocher
5/5/04

John Force finally won at Bristol Dragway, and Tony Schumacher and Greg Anderson continued their dominance May 3, at the rain-delayed O’Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals presented by Quaker State. Here, in their own words, are the thoughts of the winners and the rest of NHRA’s best, taken from NHRA and team press releases.

TOP FUEL

“Qualifying number one is great, but the real prize that everyone wants is up for grabs on Sunday.” -- Tony Schumacher after setting new track records with a 4.523-second run at 327.66 mph in qualifying

“It’s challenging depending on what the weather is like. When it’s cool, the tires will take whatever you want to throw at it. When it starts warming up, it can be a problem.” -- Dick LaHaie, crew chief for Larry Dixon, after Dixon qualified 8th

“We have a unique setup with our experimental Attac chassis and so we tune it differently from what other teams run. Our tune-up is always unique anyway because we baby our parts. It’s no secret that we run this operation on a shoestring, so our tune-up has to take that into consideration—unless it’s Sunday.” -- Howard Weis, crew chief for Scott Weis, before qualifying 10th and making it all the way to the semis

“It carried the front end and it was really hauling down there. It was a lot of fun to drive with the front end up like that.” -- Brandon Bernstein on his first-round win over Bruce Litton

“It may have been exciting for the fans to watch that one but it was frustrating from where I sat.” -- David Baca on losing a smokefest against Scott Weis in round two

“Bernstein made a last second lane change and we were faced with a lane that had too many bald spots at the starting line.” -- Todd Smith, crew chief for Cory McClenathan, after his driver went up in smoke in round two against Bernstein

“I actually felt bad for him, but we’ll certainly take the win light any way we can get it.”
-- Schumacher on Bernstein’s redlight start against him in the semis

“We are normally very good about going down the race track, but we let that one slip away. This team is really good at what they do, though, and we’re going to get a win soon I think.” -- Clay Millican after going up in smoke in the final round against Schumacher

“Like all my victories, this is for all the soldiers fighting for our freedom. What a great day for the Army team. We worked real hard and achieved the desired results.” -- Schumacher after his fourth event win this year