Physical fitness is driving force for Fuller, Bazemore

While Rod Fuller and Whit Bazemore are polar opposites in most aspects of their personal lives, they are excelling this year as drivers for David Powers Motorsports in the NHRA Powerade Drag Racing Series.

Fuller starts this weekend in the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at Las Vegas Motor Speedway as the Top Fuel points leader. Bazemore, despite competing in a dragster for the first season, is fourth.

Bazemore, 44, his wife, Michelle, and 2-year-old son, Dashiell, moved last week from Indiana to the pristine wonderland of Eugene, Ore., seeking a better quality of life.

Fuller, a 35-year-old Arkansas native, moved to Las Vegas in 2001 to improve the quality of his bachelor life, which has become as fast as his 330-mph runs down the quarter-mile.

Bazemore is the veteran of the duo, with 20 Funny Car titles — including 2005 at Las Vegas — since turning pro in 1988. Fuller won the second event this year for his fourth title in 51 races over three seasons.

They each weigh 180 pounds, but at 6 feet, Bazemore is eight inches taller.

Other than an affinity for driving the quickest and fastest racing machines on the planet, they are fitness fanatics from diametrically different schools.

Bazemore has logged so many miles on two wheels that he has sponsorship support from ultra-bike maker Seven Cycles. He pedals around 6,000 miles a year.

“It keeps me relaxed,” he said of the regimen, which has lowered his resting heart rate to 42 beats a minute.

“When you feel anxiety or stress like we often do in this sport, the lower heart rate helps you cope with it. You’re less excited, so you can feel the car better; the car seems slower than it would if you were all amped up, excited and intense.”

Fuller’s workout consists of a single bar supporting heavy plates, although he blends in a cardio program. He has an extensive athletic background, having been a McDonald’s All-American soccer player in high school and a power weightlifter. He says he ran a 4.4-second 40-yard dash in his prep days, which is about as quick he completes a quarter-mile now in his dragster.

His best lifts in high school were 435 pounds in the bench press, 575 in squat thrusts and 690 in the dead lift.

“The dragster will really try to push you around, especially in the neck area,” Fuller said of reaching 280 mph in 660 feet from a standing start. “I never have a sore neck.”

Fuller says his bench press has dropped to around 350.

Bazemore’s cycling devotion resulted from rehabilitation needed after he sustained significant leg injuries in a 1996 motorcycle accident that left him hospitalized for two months.

He started mountain biking and shifted to a road bike for convenience on flat land.

“I try to ride around 200 to 300 miles a week, and it will be more now that I’m living in Oregon,” Bazemore said, adding he has often cycled Red Rock Canyon and along Lake Mead.

Training is a lifestyle for both drivers and a good way to prepare for launches off dragstrip starting lines that put nearly six times the force of gravity on a driver — comparable to a space shuttle launch. Top Fuel drivers also are pulled with the same force negatively when parachutes are deployed at the end of a run to rapidly slow the car.

“We sustain a lot of Gs each run, but it doesn’t affect my body because of my strength,” Fuller said. “And in a wreck I believe my conditioning and strength would help me sustain the impact.”