Commerce: Cruz Pedregon final summary

Atlanta, GA -- Cruz Pedregon, the 1992 NHRA Funny Car World Champion and the Advance Auto Parts Funny Car team had high hopes heading into the 27th annual Southern Nationals in Atlanta, April 26-29, the 6th stop on the 2007 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series. This event also marked NHRA's 600th Top Fuel race.

The Advance Auto Parts team's hopes remained high throughout the qualifying sessions. However, the track known as "Hotlanta" lived up to its name. With track temperature soaring to 122 degrees, Pedregon went into the fourth and final qualifying round just outside the top 16 qualifiers.

"We had a good pass Friday afternoon (4.809 @ 316.02 mph). The conditions were good (86 degree track temperature) so I really hoped it would hold up," stated Pedregon. "In NHRA drag racing, the margin for error is very tight. We missed making the field by less than four one thousandths of a second- that's how close the racing is in the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series."

Going into Saturday's qualifying sessions, the track conditions weren't ideal, but crew chief, Wayne Dupuy was confident. "We learned from Friday's runs," said the veteran crew chief, Dupuy. "We came back on Saturday ready to put the Advanced Auto Parts Chevrolet in the show, but the changes we made were still too much for this slippery track."

"We are confident we are heading in the right direction," said Pedregon. "We'll take what we learned this weekend and apply it to our next event in St. Louis."

Pedregon remains in the top ten in POWERade Championship Points.

NEXT RACE: NHRA Midwest Nationals, Gateway International Raceway, May 4-6, 2007

-credit: pr