Bazemore hot for the heat in Seattle

Seattle, prerace: Whit Bazemore loves the heat, he says. Bring it on. And, despite yielding the Funny Car first round of eliminations at the sweltering Mopar Mile-High Nationals last weekend to 13-time champion John Force, the two-time Seattle winner is ready for more. Temperatures at this weekend's Schuck's Auto Supply NHRA Nationals at Pacific Raceways are expected to be in the 90s.

"The hotter the race track, the harder it is to get traction," explains Bazemore, driver of the Matco Tools Iron Eagle Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car. "One of the hottest we've ever had was Denver this past weekend; it makes the window for performance smaller. But, it's the same for everyone. I'm the kind of person (who believes) that the bigger the challenge, the better, so the harder it is, the better, in my opinion.

"Personally, I love the heat. I love racing when it's hot. I feel good in the heat and so I enjoy it. A lot of people don't like it."

Bazemore is confident that the increase in the car's and team's performance in the last six races - despite mixed results, including five top-half qualifiers, a runner-up finish as well as five early-round exits - is a precursor to future success for the Matco Tools team. "We've got a team that has tremendous potential, but so far this year we haven't lived up to it. There have been a lot of changes on the Matco Tools team and it took time to jell and there have been more recent changes," he adds.

"The bottom line is that the chemistry in our team is excellent, the Matco Tools guys are great and we've just lost a lot of races, quite honestly, which we shouldn't have lost. Too many times this year we have been ahead of our opponent on Sunday and we ended up losing the drag race. That's the frustrating thing.

"My priority in Seattle is to go up there and take the hunger that we have for winning and try to turn it into some round wins and get ourselves back on the map."