Tony Pedregon Drives to Second Round

Quaker State Racing Funny Car

Pedregon Racing
NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series
CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals
Route 66 Raceway
Elimination Notes & Quotes

Tony Pedregon Drives to Second Round
Quaker State Racing Edged Out By John Force

JOLIET, Ill. (Oct. 2, 2004) ­ Tony Pedregon and the Quaker State Racing
Monte Carlo Nitro Funny Car lost in a tough second round match up with John
Force during today¹s CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway.

Pedregon, who clicked off a 4.809-second elapsed time at 298.07 mph, fell a
bit shy of Force¹s 4.714-second lap at 330.96 mph. It was a close race
against Pedregon¹s former boss.

³We don¹t have anything to be ashamed of,² Pedregon said. ³We pulled it back
a little bit for that second round because there was a little increase in
temperature. I think its easy to second guess and say we could have given it
some more ­ and maybe it would have taken more ­ but one of the keys for us
is to make sure this car gets down the track.

³We¹re real encouraged that the car ran well in the first round,² Pedregon
continued. ³We had more performance left in it, but because of the changes
we had to play it a little safe. The pair before, we saw Gary Densham smoke
the tires. I think at this stage, we move to the next race. We go to Reading
(Pa.) next and thee should be good conditions. We got a little behind in
qualifying this weekend, but we also made a great recovery. We¹re going to
take what we learned here for the next one.²

Pedregon moved into the second round by defeating Bob Gilbertson in the
opener. The California resident logged a 4.761-second elapsed time at 320.28
mph, his best run of the weekend.

PedregonRacing.com