Whit Bazemore doesn’t even try to mask his feelings. The former nitro racer, sidelined since mid-2007, seeks a ride for 2010 and on Sunday in Pomona, he was job-hunting.

“I’m a little itchy and ready to come back to driving again,” Bazemore said.

Bazemore is so itchy to return that whether he races a Funny Car or Top Fuel dragster is an afterthought. Besides, as Bazemore puts it, “I have unfinished business in both.”

Unfinished for Funny Car would be an NHRA world championship. In Top Fuel, he’d like to get a national event win to go alongside the 20 he earned in the flopper.

Whit Bazemore doesn’t even try to mask his feelings. The former nitro racer, sidelined since mid-2007, seeks a ride for 2010 and on Sunday in Pomona, he was job-hunting.

“I’m a little itchy and ready to come back to driving again,” Bazemore said.

Bazemore is so itchy to return that whether he races a Funny Car or Top Fuel dragster is an afterthought. Besides, as Bazemore puts it, “I have unfinished business in both.”

Unfinished for Funny Car would be an NHRA world championship. In Top Fuel, he’d like to get a national event win to go alongside the 20 he earned in the flopper.

“I didn’t even get a full year in with the Top Fuel car and was just starting to get comfortable,” said Bazemore, of his 2007 dismissal as driver of the Matco Tools dragster. “I love both the dragster and the Funny Car, either one, bring them on.”

Bazemore hasn’t driven a nitro car since nor has he come close to negotiating a return. The economic downturn makes for slim pickings right now.

“My options are very limited right now,” confirmed Bazemore. “There are a lot of drivers, even on the big teams, that have had to bring considerable sponsorships to those teams. That seems to be the way the industry is right now and I’m not in a position to be able to do that right now.”

Bazemore isn’t bothered by that because, in 1999, he too brought sponsorship to the table to race with Chuck Etchells.

“It’s tough right now and I gain encouragement from crew chiefs telling me they wish I could drive their car,” he admitted. “They don’t make the final decisions but it helps my ego. Pomona was the first race that I came back out there and expressed an interest in driving.

“The right people know I want to do it and I am hungry. That’s the first step to coming back.”

Bazemore tried his hand earlier in 2009 as a pit reporter for ESPN2. That exercise let him know where his strengths were.

“It would have been easier for me just to jump back in a Funny Car,” Bazemore said, cracking a smile. “I enjoyed the television and if there was an opportunity there … I’d consider it as well. I had to work a lot harder at the television to figure out than I was at driving a Funny Car. Driving a Funny Car will always be second nature and while they are quick and fast, it would come back quickly.”

Because Bazemore hasn’t raced since 2007, he’s never competed on the 1,000 foot drag strip.

“When we used to test to 1,000 feet, it was such a relaxing day as opposed to making full runs,” Bazemore said. “There were times when we’d test at Indy, run to 1,000 feet and never pull the parachutes. I’m not a fan of the 1,000 feet but the safety and economics of it, I am fully aware of. You need to make drag racing safer at all times but I think there are different ways to get there.”

Bazemore has his opinions on the best way to return to the quarter-mile, the largest being aerodynamics, of which he believes, would slow the cars down and improve tire issues.

The one current safety measure he’s not a fan of are the automated systems that shut the car down and deploy the parachute when the engine explodes the supercharger.

“I really don’t want some device pulling the parachute for me or telling me when to shut off,” Bazemore said. “I think they are making the cars too easy to drive. I think it takes a really good driver [to drive one]. There’s just not enough separation from the really good drivers and the inexperienced ones. I believe the cars should be as tough to drive as they can be and let the cream rise to the top.”

And for Bazemore, he’s ready for the opportunity to rise to the top again.

Advertisement