Columbus: Cruz Pedregon final summary

CRUZ PEDREGON AND THE ADVANCE AUTO PARTS RACE TEAM RETAIN TOP-10 POINT STANDINGS EARLY IN SEASON

COLUMBUS, Ohio (May 22, 2006) -- Cruz Pedregon and his Advance Auto Parts Race Team qualified fifth in NHRA POWERade Nitro Funny Car action from the NHRA Nationals at National Trail Raceway in Columbus, Ohio, this past weekend before a tough first-round loss.

Pedregon retained a positive outlook for the upcoming May race in Topeka and is already working on bettering his performance and 9th-place point standing for the next stop on the NHRA tour: "Our weekend went pretty well. Our Advance Auto Parts car was consistent and we qualified for the race well into the top-half of the field, which is important. Although we had a few clean passes in qualifying, the fuel system went lean in the first round of eliminations and burnt a few pistons before half-track causing the car to slow down, which turned into a small fire at three-quarter track. Finally the engine gave up. We were leading the race, at that time, and obviously that cost us the win. We know why it happened and we'll do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen again in Topeka."

Cruz's teammate Tony Pedregon won the event in the Funny Car division, his second consecutive win in 2006: "For my teammate Tony to win, that's important for our team and all of the sponsors we share like Quaker State, Snap-on, Great Stuff, Herzog, Pug, Sioux City, Mr. Gasket, Mountain View Chevrolet and The Palms. Because we also share all of our technical information, I am confident we'll be able to get the Advance Auto Parts car in the winner's circle again soon."

In 2005, Cruz Pedregon and the Advance Auto Parts Race Team finished for the second consecutive year in the top 10 in points, was #1 qualifier twice and recorded a career best ET speed of 4.680 seconds at 330.80mph.

-pr