NHRA: Pedregon & Mcclenathan Look to Double-up Again at Atlanta
9 May 1999
COMMERCE, Ga.-- Cruz Pedregon and Cory McClenathan, teammates on the Joe Gibbs Racing team, will try to repeat as champions at the 19th annual NHRA Advance Auto Parts Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway on May 13-16. At last year's race, Pedregon drove his Interstate Batteries Pontiac Firebird past John Force in the final round of eliminations while McClenathan took the honors by defeating Pat Dakin. It was the only time last season that the two shared in a winner's circle celebration."The most awesome thing is to double-up with your teammate," said McClenathan. "When I saw Cruz win in front of me last year, the first thing I thought was, 'now I have got to win!"
Under the direction of crew chief Mike Green and team advisor Jim Brissette, McClenathan is coming off an exciting win at the rain-delayed Pennzoil Nationals in Richmond, Va., on May 3, where he knocked off Larry Dixon in the finals for his first victory of the year. The sum total of his effort at Virginia Motorsports Park was a shot in the arm for the MBNA/Pontiac Top Fuel program and moves the team into fourth place in the Winston standings, just 76 points and less than four rounds of competition out of first place.
"It's one of those deals when you know you're racing a good car, Larry's a good driver, and with Armstrong (Dale) tuning it, you never know what's going to happen," said McClenathan. "We would have liked to have run faster and quicker at Richmond than what we did. But in the finals, the MBNA/Pontiac locked up immediately off the pad, it didn't smoke the tires and when I got to half track I thought we actually had a chance to win the race if we didn't spin the tires--and we didn't. We ran 310 mph and that was pretty good in the left hand lane.
"I feel good about coming to a race where we've won before. Anytime you come into a race where you have good records, you've won lot of rounds and you've won the race, you're going to feel more comfortable."
In addition to his win last year at the Southern Nationals, McClenathan won at Atlanta Dragway in 1995. The 36-year-old California native has 23 career victories in 35 final round appearances and is third on the NHRA's all-time list for career wins by a Top Fuel driver behind Joe Amato (46) and Don Garlits (35).
Cruz Pedregon got his second national event win in 1998 at the Southern Nationals in a season that eventually saw the 35-year-old Camarillo, Calif., resident winning four races and the $100,000 Winston Invitational at Rockingham. He grabbed the No. 1 qualifying position 12 times and finished the season third in the Funny Car points standings.
Even though he's yet to win a national event in 1999, Pedregon's Wes Cerny-tuned Firebird was runner-up at Phoenix, has advanced to no less than the semi-final round at the last three races in-a-row, and has jumped to third place in the Winston points standings.
"We've had a little bit of a slow start this season, but this Firebird is running pretty good right now," Pedregon said. "It doesn't matter where you start winning races, whether it's at the beginning, the middle or the end of the year, the pendelum is on the verge of swinging our way. The car's consistent, it's getting down the racetrack and Wes (Cerny) is doing what he has to do to keep us in the championship hunt.
"We're going to Atlanta, we'll put everything back together and be ready to go. I feel like I'm out of my slump and I'm feeling good about our chances. We still qualified No. 2 at Richmond, and it was the third time in a row that we've advanced to the semi-finals. If this were NASCAR, that would be another top-five finish and a pretty good indication of our team's ability. We had another top-four finish, we're solidly in the No. 3 position in points and I'm confident that the best is yet to come for this team."
Another Funny Car competitor who made a run at the winner's circle last year at Atlanta Dragway was Tim Wilkerson. The JCIT Pontiac Firebird driver qualified third and advanced to the semi-final round before losing to John Force. It was the first of nine consecutive races that the Springfield, Ill., native qualified in the top-four spots.
"If we can get in the show early, then that will give us an opportunity to get aggressive," said Wilkerson. "You see Force and Coil do that all the time. They get in the show and then they go out there and break everybody's backs. We'll figure out how to get this JCIT Pontiac Firebird consistent under full power and see if we can't put together a decent race day setup.
"Terry's (Manzer) on the verge of making this racecar a contender. He's made some big strides this year and it won't be long before this car comes around. The clutch still has us somewhat baffled. We need to see if we can't make those clutch discs do the same thing two times in a row, but Terry and John Stewart will make it right. We were strong last year at Atlanta and I expect we'll be good there again this year."
Del Worsham is ninth in the Winston points standings heading into the Advanced Auto Parts Southern Nationals. At the age of 21, Worsham registered his first career Funny Car victory at this event in 1991 at the age of 21 en route to a sixth place finish in the championship race and NHRA Rookie of the Year honors. He was runner-up the next year at the 1992 Southern Nationals.
"The Checker Schuck's Kragen Firebird is running well enough to win," Worsham said. "We're running better than we ever have in my career, so much better than last year it's not even funny. It just must not be our time yet. I keep thinking we're ready to win, especially to win some more rounds than we have, but for two races now it hasn't happened. I wouldn't even call it bad luck because I don't really believe in that. I think were still learning how to go this fast and do it with regularity. If making progress, going faster and getting more consistent are the ingredients for a winner, then we're a winning team waiting for a chance at the Victory Circle photo session."
In Pro Stock
Outlaw Fuel Additives Pontiac driver Bruce Allen advanced to the final round of eliminations last year before losing to Mark Osborne. The 12-time national event winner has struggled this year, but is confident that the toughest stretch of the season is behind him.
"We lost our good motor a couple of weeks ago in Dallas, and going into Richmond we were a little behind the eight ball to begin with," Allen said. "It's difficult to go to a race when you know you can't compete with your best guns, and out here these days you really need them. You know that you have to do everything perfect and have others miss on their runs if you're going to get in.
"We'll be in good shape in Atlanta, and I'm confident that we'll be able to run good there. I feel pretty good that we have a car that we can work with. It's going to take us a little while to get this new Firebird to where we know what it will do. Unfortunately, we aren't familiar enough with it to know what changes to make. When you're not the fastest car, you have to make those good runs in the best sessions to have any chance of getting in. We were able to do that last year at Atlanta Dragway and hopefully we can do it again."
Two-time Winston champion (1996-97) Jim Yates has also experienced the thrill of victory at the Southern Nationals. In 1997 he defeated Kurt Johnson to take the win reversing the results in 1996 when Johnson took Yates out in the final round. This year Yates is fourth in the Winston points standings and looking for his first win of the season. At Richmond he joined the Speed Pro 200 MPH Club on a qualifying lap with a top speed of 200.11 mph.
"I was happy with my reaction time because that's something we've been working on for the last couple of races," Yates said. "But we have to keep working on that, get the performance of the Splitfire/Peak Pontiac Firebird to come around and qualify in the top-half of the field. If we can get that to happen then we'll be in good shape, but it all has to work together.
"Two races back-to-back like we've just had really pushes the equipment hard. So we'll go home, give everything a good going over and get the motors ready to go again. The clutches are all fresh since Richmond was the first race with them. But we may go out and let them out one or two times - just a quick test session before Atlanta. Other than that we're ready to go--we'd be racing tomorrow if we could. We've now run 200 mph and this DRCE engine has a lot of power up high. We're getting closer and closer to the right tune up for it and it's just a matter of putting it all together."
The 19th annual NHRA Advanced Auto Parts Southern Nationals on May 13-16 is the seventh race on the 22-event Winston championship tour. Same-day television coverage of final eliminations can be seen on Fox Sports on Sunday, May 16, beginning at 5 p.m. Eastern. Qualifying highlights can be seen on Speedvision on May 15 and May 16 (times to be announced).
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