Championship Drag Racing

K&N Filters Winternationals
Pomona
(Feb. 27-29)

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Cruz Pedregon Advance Auto Parts Funny Car

Reports: Sunday Saturday Friday Thursday Pre-race

Pomona, Sunday: The Advance Auto Parts team and former Funny Car champion Cruz Pedregon posted their best run of the weekend during the first round of eliminations against John Force with an elapsed time of 4.901 seconds at 308.57 mph, but it wasn’t quite enough to get past Force who ran an elapsed time of 4.843 seconds at 308.57 mph.

“We knew we had to be on our game today with Force as our first round opponent,” said Pedregon. “During qualifying yesterday we smoked the tires for no reason and we were way to aggressive, we didn’t recover for the second round because we didn’t know we had a problem. We realized last night we had a clutch gremlin. So we applied some information that Tony’s team had found during testing to our car and it worked, we just didn’t have enough muscle. The thing about drag racing is that eight cars advance to the next round and eight cars go home. Unfortunately this week we’re going home. But now we can start preparing for Phoenix and keep plugging away.”

“Our Advance Auto Parts Pontiac Firebird is a great car, and we have a lot of racing left to go this season. Sure, you would like to do well at the first event, not to make any excuses but we’re still going through some major household changes and we’re not going to see the strength of our team until we get both cars running consistent down the racetrack. We know it will happen and we’ll keep working at it. If we have to test more we will."

Jerry Toliver won the event with an elapsed time of 4.821 seconds at 319.29 mph over Gary Densham who posted an elapsed time of 4.955 seconds at 327.11 mph.

Pomona, Saturday: Former Funny Car champion Cruz Pedregon qualified his Advance Auto Parts Chevrolet Camaro 16th for the Winternationals at Pomona Raceway, the first race of the 23-event NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series. His best qualifying effort of 4.954 seconds at 310.41 mph posted during Friday's session secured his spot for tomorrow's final eliminations.

"Our goal coming into this race was to get qualified with our Advance Auto Parts Pontiac Firebird," said Pedregon. "Of course 16th isn't exactly what we had in mind, but I've won from the pole and I've won from the 16th spot so we're optimistic and we're looking forward to the race. Tomorrow is a whole new day, and we're going to have to step it up and get after it to be competitive."

"We are having some issues with our clutch setup," explained Pedregon. "It's throwing us a curve ball but I have faith in Wes (Cerny) and his decisions that he will make to sort it out. The good thing is Tony put up two solid 4.80 runs and we know what they've done over there so we can put it all together for tomorrow."

Pedregon will be making his 217th career start and will face John Force for the 54th time in his career when eliminations begin at 11 a.m. (PST) tomorrow as he aims for his second career Winternationals win.

Pomona, Friday: After battling soggy conditions at Pomona Raceway last weekend, the Advance Auto Parts team with former Funny Car champion Cruz Pedregon behind the wheel, bettered their elapsed time from the first qualifying session with a run of 4.954 seconds at 310.41 mph to position their Pontiac Firebird in the 11th spot.

"Wes (Cerny) said we would run a 4.9 second elapsed time and that's what we did," Pedregon said. "The goal was to get our Advance Auto Parts Pontiac Firebird down the track on all eight cylinders so we could gather as much data as possible and we got it accomplished. The car handled great, it felt just like driving a stock Pontiac Firebird that runs in the 14-15 second range. It was a good run for us and it gives us a lot to work with for tomorrow.

"We're trying hard to make both my car and Tony's car setup the same and run identical times, we were four-hundredths from each other last week and that's where we are after today's session. I'd say we're doing a pretty good job at setting up the cars. It's always good when plans actually go the way you want them too."

"It's nice to be back racing and getting back into the rhythm that we started last week. We're looking forward to having a great day tomorrow."

Pomona, Thursday: The Advance Auto Parts Racing team drove to the top-half of the field after first round of qualifying today for the NHRA Winternationals at Pomona Raceway. Former Funny Car champion Cruz Pedregon ran an elapsed time of 5.058 seconds at 309.34 mph to take the number seven spot in the16 car field.

"We started on a good run and then I had to pedal it and lay off the throttle but then I punched it back in because the goal was to make it down the racetrack so we could get as much data as possible," Cruz said. "Our 5.05 isn't great but it's respectable. We ran 309 mph so it's a good start for us for this weekend.

"It's really good to make a run like we did so Wes (Cerny) can look at the data and fix it up for tomorrow so we can get our Advance Auto Parts Pontiac down the track and put up a good number. We're sitting in the top-half of the field right now so we're feeling good about tomorrow and the rest of the weekend."

Pomona, pre-race: Pre-season testing is over for former Funny Car Champion Cruz Pedregon, as the 2004 NHRA drag racing series begins this weekend at Pomona Raceway in Pomona, Calif. After successful test sessions in Las Vegas and Phoenix, co-crew chiefs Wes Cerny and Tony Shortall, along with the entire Advance Auto Parts racing team, believe this will be a year of good fortunes.

In 2003 the team advanced to two final rounds and chalked up three semifinal finishes. Heading into the 2004 Winternationals the team would like to put a mark in the win column to send a message to its competitors that they will be a force to be reckoned with this season.

"We've been working very hard during the off-season to be prepared mentally and physically for Pomona," said Cruz. "Having Tony as a teammate is going to better our program and we look for positive things to happen in the Pedregon Racing camp this season. We have some new guys on the team and with Wes joining as co-crew chief we feel we're on the right track for success."

Cruz is no stranger to winning. Since beginning his career in 1992, Cruz has managed to put up 22 career victories, placing him third on NHRA's national event victory list among active Funny Car drivers behind teammate Tony Pedregon who has 27. Cruz won the Winternationals in 1995 and earned runner up honors at the NHRA Finals in 1994 and 95'. He would like to add the 2004 Winternationals to his list of victories.

"I've never been so anxious for this season to begin," Cruz said. "We are expecting big things out of our camp and we hope to put our Advance Auto Parts Funny Car in the winner circle and be a fierce competitor for the championship. We know it can be done, now we just need to do it."