Tony Pedregon Takes Home Second at Bandimere Speedway
Quaker State Racing Nitro Funny Car Pedregon Racing NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series Mopar Mile-High Nationals -- Bandimere Speedway Final Qualifying Notes & Quotes Tony Pedregon Qualifies Second at Bandimere Tough Opponent Awaits in Round Number One MORRISON, Colo. (July 18, 2004) Tony Pedregon wielded his Quaker State Racing Nitro Funny Car to the second-qualifying position for this weekend¹s Mopar Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway. Despite lacking any on-track information about Colorado¹s higher elevation, the reigning NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series Funny Car champion placed his Quaker State Racing Monte Carlo second on the first pass, clicking off a 4.946-second elapsed time at 309.56 mph. The California resident smoked the tires in session number two. ³I think we made the best out of our qualifying today,² Pedregon said. ³We¹re in the number two slot based on one run. Going into the last session, we really didn¹t have anything to lose. We had the conditions, so we were shooting for low elapsed time. We were just a little more aggressive than we thought it (the track) would be. But, when you are already number two, the only thing to set your sights for is number one. ³Tomorrow is real encouraging for us because I think we were able to adapt to the elevation,² Pedregon continued. ³We¹re real happy because this is our first time at getting information from this track. We seemed to have made the right adjustments. Regardless of what conditions we have tomorrow, I¹m real confident about what we have. It¹s real important for us to go into the later rounds this weekend.² Pedregon will face Gary Scelzi in the first round of eliminations tomorrow. ³We have an awful tough team to race in the first round, but I don¹t think that changes our strategy,² Pedregon said. ³If anything, it¹s going to keep us on our toes. We have a tendency to want to be aggressive anyway. We¹re going to be smart, we¹re going to try and read the conditions. Our approach is to always put it on the edge because we know we have the race team and the Quaker State product that¹s not going to fail us.² Quaker State Racing Notebook: TIRE REACTION: Tony Pedregon, driver of the Quaker State Racing Monte Carlo Nitro Funny Car, reacted to Goodyear¹s new tire compound that was introduced for this weekend¹s Mopar Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway. ³A lot of credit should go to Goodyear,² Pedregton said. ³They were able to make the transition. Goodyear gave us a tire and gave us information about what direction we might want to go. It¹s five pounds lighter per tire and it¹s a similar compound to one we have had in the past, but still a slightly different design. As you look at the entire field both Top Fuel and Funny Car it¹s very close and competitive. We have had minimal problems, if any.² REMEMBERING DARRELL: The entire NHRA POWERade Drag Racing community is remembering the life of fallen Top Fuel driver Darrell Russell with a special decal. Russell was tragically killed because of an incident during the NHRA national event at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Ill., two weekends ago.