Despite fires, a pork and beans/hot dog diet and no budget…He had fun breaking into Funny Car

Thursday is the beginning of a new era for NHRA POWERade Series regular Whit Bazemore.

The Indianapolis resident, a stalwart in the Funny Car category over the past decade, will be making his debut in Top Fuel when the 2007 begins in Pomona, Calif. at the season-opening CARQUEST Auto Parts Winternationals.

Expectations are high.

Bazemore moves to Top Fuel after a 19-year Funny Car career, where he had scored 19 victories and annually finished in the top 10 in the points standings. He combines his vast knowledge and experience with the high-budget David Powers Motorsports racing team and backing from Matco Tools. Everything is in place to make a solid run at a series title.

But back in 1990, the situation was quite different.

Bazemore, after previously getting a taste of his need for speed by first attending the Frank Hawley Drag Racing School in 1985 and following it up with a stint in the Alcohol Funny Car ranks in 1987 and parts of '88 and '89, decided to follow his dream and entered the nitro Funny Cars wars. But unlike today, there was no million-dollar budget, no accommodations at five-star hotels, and no gourmet-prepared meals at the track. There was just some hungry guys who loved racing their hot rod.

"We enjoyed it, but it was really hard," said Bazemore, whose crew back then featured Chris Forton, Gary Evans and Brian Shipman. "The key is that you have to make sacrifices and have a priority. Once I decided to do it, nothing else mattered. You make the sacrifice and you compromise almost everything else in your life. You work 24/7, and all you have is your race car. And that's what we did.

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 "The guys on my team back then, guys like Chris Forton, who has been with Tim Richards since 1993. He was with me in the beginning, and Gary Evans and Brian Shipman. People like that who are still out here. But they were getting paid just $100 a week or a month, or whatever it was. We were four or five guys in one hotel room, eating at McDonald's, sleeping in the back of the truck half the time...It's crazy stuff, but that's what guys did back then."

The team ran just a couple of races that first season, earning modest success before bumping up their schedule in 1991. And although round wins were rare, Bazemore and his gang certainly felt like they earned their share of pluses.

"We won a couple of first rounds and survived," Bazemore said. "The car made its way and we were able to still eat."

But they also endured some tough times. Bazemore was involved in two disastrous fires, one at the 1990 U.S. Nationals and the second at the Gatornationals in 1991. Both didn't exactly raise the youthful Bazemore's confidence level. But he also knew he still wanted to compete.

"You have to overcome your fears," he said. "I'm not a fearless person. But you have to overcome that, mentally and get your confidence back. But it was hard."

The turning point for Bazemore came later during the 1991 season at the Mid-South Nationals in Memphis, Tenn. It was there where Bazemore qualified for the first time that season with a solid 5.56-second run (the winning time was a 5.30 pass). The run turned his career around, because up until that time, he was still having trouble adjusting to the near 300-mph speeds.

"The fuel car and the acceleration of it in the middle of the track, I had to learn to deal with that," Bazemore said. "That took me several races, 10-15 runs of where I was unable to hold my foot down to the finish line. It was just fast. I had to get used to that.

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"Up until that time, I really had no confidence in myself or the car. But at Memphis I was able to hold my foot down. That proved to be a real turning point for me."

And once over that hurdle, the team enjoyed a solid 1992 season. Bazemore, with a new confidence, earned his first final round at Memphis, losing to Al Hofmann. He also scored his first top-10 finish that year.

"We had (a $55,000 budget) and wound up going to our first final round and we finished ninth (in points) and qualified for the Big Bud Shootout," Bazemore said. "It was a good year. We were really happy."

The next season was more of a struggle and after a third fire forced Bazemore to park the team, he hooked up with Johnny West to complete the season.

"I was very comfortable by the end of the season," Bazemore said. "We didn't win races, but we ran well."

His career zoomed ahead two years later in 1995 when he became just the sixth Funny Car driver to break the 300-mph barrier, which in turn led to Bazemore signing a sponsorship deal with R.J. Reynolds in 1996. The move catapulted Bazemore into his annual visits to the top 10, and put him in the NHRA spotlight.

"That set the tone," Bazemore. "We moved up a level. You’re always trying to go forward and we managed to do that. It gave us the resources to contend for the championship."

Now, he would like to do that in Top Fuel.

"Expectations are really high," Bazemore said. "(The expectations) are to win races and win the championship. We have the team to do it, and I know I'm capable. There are no excuses here."