Englishtown: Tony Pedregon final summary

Englishtown, NJ, June 20, 2004 -- Defending Funny Car champion Tony Pedregon advanced to the quarterfinals today at the NHRA Nationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ.

The Dicke Venables tuned Quaker State Chevrolet came into today's eliminator qualified 2nd with an elapsed time of 4.856 seconds at 305.01 mph. During today's first round of eliminations, Pedregon was unopposed after Terry Haddock was a no show, giving the Quaker State team the first round victory coasting a cross the finish line with an elapsed time of 9.647 seconds at 82.66 mph.

"We had some tire shake early in the run and since I knew we were going to get the win, I didn't want to step on the throttle again," explained Pedregon. "Of course if there had been someone in that other lane I would've tried whatever I could to get back in it and get the win, fortunately I didn't have to do during that run."

During the second round Pedregon faced John Force. The Quaker State Chevrolet was on a great run until about the 660-marker and slowed to an elapsed time of 5.111 seconds at 257.38 mph to Force's elapsed time of 4.931 seconds at 315.12 mph.

"We figured we would have to go quicker that a 4.98 so we picked it up a little bit for that run," explained Dickie Venables, crew chief of the Quaker State Nitro Funny Car. "It was looking pretty good but It got about to the 660-foot marker and spun the tires. We continue to learn more and more at each race and we're going to keep at it and see if we can't get a win in St. Louis next weekend.

Pedregon remains 9th in the NHRA POWERade Funny Car points standings, just 28 points out of 8th place.

The next race for the Quaker State racing team will be the NHRA Nationals at Gateway International Raceway in St. Louis, MO on June 24-27.

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