Cruz Pedregon is hoping his small Snap-on Tools Toyota team can take down the powerhouses in Funny Car in the NHRA Full Throttle Series' Countdown to the Championship.
While Don Schumacher Racing and John Force Racing get a lot of notoriety in the class, Pedregon believes he has the speed to take them down. He proved that Friday at Texas Motorplex, grabbing the provisional No. 1 for the AAA Texas NHRA Nationals.
Pedregon needs the bonus points for being No. 1 in qualifying and through each round of qualifying to get himself back in the Funny Car title chase. After one race of the six-race Countdown to the Championship, Pedregon is fourth, 96 behind JFR's Mike Neff. Plus, he has DSR's Matt Hagan and Jack Beckman in front of him, and Hagan is coming off a victory in Charlotte last week.
"I know Hagan had a stellar weekend last week, but I'll put our car against any out there," Pedregon said. "We don't have the depth, but we don't worry about that. We worry about what we do have. You can't buy experience, and we have a lot of that. And they can't out-work us.
"It takes one good car to mow through the field, and hopefully it's ours."
Other No. 1s after two rounds of qualifying are Del Worsham in Top Fuel, Jason Line in Pro Stock and Andrew Hines in Pro Stock Motorcycle.
Pedregon went 1,000 feet in 4.086 seconds at 307.86 mph to easily out-distance the field. Johnny Gray was second with a pass of 4.141 seconds at 303.78 mph, while Jon Capps was a surprising third with a run of 4.152 seconds at 296.44 mph.
"It felt good, it was smooth, didn't shake or wobble one bit," Pedregon said. "We were watching the track temperature, and it was dropping slightly, so we were going on the aggressive side. There are times when we go up there that the car will just run on its own. But we were pressing a little bit just because it was cooling down. We thought, 'We've got to climb back in this championship. We've going to need every point we can get.'"
Pedregon figures to keep this No. 1 qualifier, as temperatures are expected to soar well into the 90s for the final two rounds of qualifying Saturday.
Still, Pedregon wants to continue making good passes.
"It's important for us to go down the track every run, even if it's a little slow," Pedregon said. "We're going to stick our chests back in and button our shirt all the way to the top button. We do want to race smart, and we didn't race very smart the last couple races. We're going to make sure we do that this weekend."
If so, Pedregon could secure his first victory of 2011 after two final-round appearances and four No. 1 qualifiers. And that could get him back in the championship hunt.
"Oh, yeah, we can get on a roll," Pedregon said. "This year has been one of those years where it seems like we don't have our best stuff. When we get beat on race day, it seems like there's some little issue or something happens. We haven't had our best stuff. Hopefully, we can put it together. I sure hope so.
"We've established that we've got a fast car. Now, we just need to be fast when it counts and be fast for hopefully four runs. That's our goal."
Like Pedregon, Worsham is counting points in Top Fuel. He led the Top Fuel standings since the second race of the season but stumbled in the first round last week to give up the top spot. He slipped to third, 38 behind leader Antron Brown in the tight Top Fuel class.
Friday at Texas Motorplex, Worsham sped to the provisional No. 1 – and some bonus points – with a pass of 3.869 seconds at 318.54 mph.
"To lead a session like that, it comes with three bonus points," Worsham said. "And at this point, it comes with the No. 1 qualifier. Depending on the weather tomorrow, that could possibly stand for the No. 1 spot, which comes with a couple extra points also.
"We had a pretty disappointing first round in Charlotte, so this is kind of a little bit of a rebound. Everybody on the team did a great job to rebound like that and come back and pull it together. I can't say enough about them."
Tony Schumacher (3.880 at 315.27 mph) was second, with Brandon Bernstein (3.882 at 312.35) third.
Line shook off a red light in the finals in Charlotte to take the provisional No. 1 in Pro Stock. If it holds, it would be the fourth in a row for the Summit Racing Equipment Pontiac driver.
Line set track records in elapsed time (6.553 seconds) and mph (211.20) in Friday's two rounds. KB Racing teammate Greg Anderson (6.559 seconds at 210.67 mph) was No. 2.
"We got all the points, so that's a really good thing," Line said. "That's all you can ask for, I guess. All three of our cars are good right now, and Greg's and mine are better than good. It feels good. It gives you a little latitude to do things that maybe you normally wouldn't do. We learned a couple things on that run. Hopefully, it'll pay off for us tomorrow."
Mike Edwards was third with a pass of 6.568 seconds at 211.03 mph.
Hines continued the surge of the Screamin' Eagle/Vance & Hines Harley Davidson by taking the provisional No. 1 in Pro Stock Motorcycle. Teammate Eddie Krawiec qualified No. 1 and won the Charlotte race last week to grab the PSM points lead after race No. 1 of the Countdown.
This time, Hines was atop the chart after a track-record ET of 6.859 seconds at 194.74 mph.
"Our Eagles are soaring right now," Hines said. "They're soaring high. We're out here to prove a point. Eddie and I had a chip on our shoulder the last few races. We're tired of people saying stuff here and there. We're gunning for the top 1 and 2 spots."
Krawiec was No. 2 after a pass of 6.867 at 195.79 mph, with Matt Smith third at 6.872 at 194.35 mph.
