NHRA

Gainesville: Cruz Pedregon Friday summary

Cruz Pedregon Qualifies In Top Half of the Field Gainesville Raceway Presents Challenges During Friday Qualifying GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 18, 2005) -- In an unseasonably cold afternoon, Cruz Pedregon and his Advance Auto Parts Monte Carlo ...

Edited: Mar 21, 2005, 3:43 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Cruz Pedregon Qualifies In Top Half of the Field
Gainesville Raceway Presents Challenges During Friday Qualifying

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 18, 2005) -- In an unseasonably cold afternoon, Cruz Pedregon and his Advance Auto Parts Monte Carlo Nitro Funny Car battled a 60-degree racetrack to qualify seventh after the first day of qualifying for Sunday's running of the Mac Tools NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway.

Following a two and a half hour delay due to a wet track, Pedregon drove to a 5.016-second elapsed time at 222.66 mph. During the first qualifying session of the afternoon, Pedregon's promising run was cut short after his parachute deployed before the finish line.

"I was excited about the first run because we were going to make it in the 4.70's," said Pedregon. "Unfortunately, the parachute came out early and slowed the car down. I may have touched the button in the steering wheel inadvertently, but we still qualified in the top half of the field. It was a difficult day for most cars and only a few ran well. We normally run well here in Gainesville and it's usually a bit warmer.

"The car was really good and my crew chief, Wes (Cerny) and the rest of the team, did a great job putting the car together. Tomorrow, we expect the temperatures to be back up and the track conditions should improve. Still, I don't think the times are going to be very fast unless it warms up a whole lot."

ADVANCE AUTO PARTS NOTEBOOK:

Later in the day, Cruz Pedregon and his Advance Auto Parts Monte Carlo Nitro Funny Car, ran the best 60-foot elapsed time during the second-qualifying session.

"I started the second run very aggressively with a .865-second 60-foot mark. After that, I spun the tires and could not get the car back."

-PedregonRacing.com-

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Atlanta: Race winner interview

Next article Sugarbelt 400 final summary

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

1 h

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

Official race results: NASCAR Cup Homestead season finale

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

2 h

Official race results: NASCAR Cup Homestead season finale

Ryan Blaney wins Homestead NASCAR Cup finale as Kyle Larson claims 2026 title

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

2 h

Ryan Blaney wins Homestead NASCAR Cup finale as Kyle Larson claims 2026 title

Winners and losers from F1's chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

3 h

Winners and losers from F1's chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts