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NHRA: Pedregon Takes Funny Car Lead With E-Town Win
Written by: Rob Geiger - Go2Geiger.com
go2geiger.com   http://www.go2geiger.com
06/15/2009
Englishtown, NJ
 
Tony Pedregon, Jeg Coughlin Jr., and Craig Treble all used holeshots to claim big wins Sunday at the 40th annual United Association NHRA SuperNationals in Englishtown, N.J., while Larry Dixon got a red-light gift to earn the hardware in Top Fuel.

Pedregon's second Funny Car win in the last seven days, both over Ashley Force Hood, helped him wrestle the Full Throttle point lead away from Ron Capps, who had led the rankings all season. Force Hood, who fell to 1-4 with a trophy on the line this year, did move up to second, while Capps dropped to third.
This was Pedregon's second Funny Car win in the last seven days, both over Ashley Force Hood. (Go2Geiger.com) ยป More Photos

Driving a special-edition Nitrofish Chevrolet Impala, Pedregon's hot rod wasn't as quick as Force Hood's Castrol GTX Ford Mustang, but her awful.125-second reaction time against Pedregon's .068-second start allowed the two-time world champion to steal the win with a 4.246 at 260.56 mph to her 4.219 at 272.72 mph.

"I never thought I’d be afraid of a girl," Pedregon said, "but Ashley is more than just a pretty girl. I’ve said before that she gets a lot of media just because she’s a female, but she deserves it. We spent a little bit of time together last week and it reminded me of the relationship I have with the Force family. We’re competitive but they’re not the enemy.

"Fear of losing was in the back of my head. I knew we had a good racecar and before the final, Dickie (Venebles, crew chief) was making a lot of adjustments to the car. I had a feeling it would be a close race. I heard her for a while. You don’t know how relieved I was to see that win light."

A perfect 3-0 in Top Fuel final rounds this season, Dixon and his Al-Anabi mates appear to be hitting their stride with two wins in the last 14 days. Dixon didn't have much work to do in the final against current point leader Antron Brown after Brown double-stepped the throttle and turned on the red light by -.062 seconds, and that was probably a good thing as for the first time all day he had trouble getting down the racetrack. Nevertheless, his off-pace 4.553 with no speed recorded was enough to take the win.

"There’s no such thing as a bad win," Dixon said. "I really don’t know what happened with Antron but stuff happens. I thought I hit the tree good but I already heard him leave, so at that point you’re trying to look at the tree as you drive by and see if he went red, but it went by too fast. Then, I looked down at the scoreboard and saw our win light on, and it was a relief that I wasn’t dead late.

"I was going to run it out just to see what it would do, and then it got out there probably 300 feet and pulled the tires loose. We were fortunate with what happened, but at the same time, you don’t know what his car would have done."

For his efforts, Brown remains in first place in
the points with Dixon moving up to third.

The incredible season of Pro Stock leader Coughlin continued with his NHRA-leading fifth victory of the year that helped him push his lead in the rankings to triple digits.

For the second week in a row, Coughlin had to figure out a way to beat the quicker racecar of Mike Edwards and his .025 to .038-second edge at the tree proved to be just enough to give him the holeshot win, 6.598 at 209.49 mph in his JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt to Edwards' quicker but losing 6.587 at 209.82 mph in his Young Life/ART Pontiac GXP.

"This is pretty amazing," Coughlin said. "We knew I probably needed to get a hundredth or two (of a second) to even up the race and I was able to just get enough of a head start to hold him off. What a team we have here. This is so much fun it's hard to describe."

Earlier in the day, Coughlin beat Jason Line, Ron Krisher, and Allen Johnson, all of whom struggled to keep their racecars straight at the launch. As usual, Coughlin jumped on his opponent's miscues and turned on the win light each round.

"Every round is such a battle," said Coughlin, who has now won three times this year when starting from the No. 8 qualifying position. "You know Jason has a great horse. Ron was the No. 1 qualifier so they're running good over there. Allen has been right in the thick of it all year, and Mike has the best racecar at the moment. Nothing comes easy."

Running on the smallest budget of any full-time rider in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class, Treble earned enough money with his second win of the season to keep his ragtag team on the road for at least a few more races.

Showing off his skills, the veteran rider jumped off the line with an impressive .007-second light on his Honda of Kingston Suzuki to gain a large headstart on hometown favorite Eddie Krawiec, who was a tad late with a .061-second launch. Treble then managed to stay just ahead of Krawiec's rumbling Screamin' Eagle Harley-Davidson V-Rod and win with a 6.955 at 193.10 mph to Krawiec's 6.906 at 193.29 mph.

"I flat-out didn't have a 6.90 in my bike," Treble said. "Of course, I don’t feel bad about the final because Eddie whipped my butt the last time we raced. I owed him. I was doing okay on the starting line, but I just let it fly in the final and went .007.

"I’m looking forward to the west coast swing now. I’ve got a major engine overhaul coming up after Norwalk, and I can afford it now."

This was Krawiec's fourth final in a row and he'll easily maintain his No. 1 ranking.
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