NHRA

Gainesville: Cruz Pedregon Saturday summary

Cruz Pedregon -- Saturday Qualifying Results Gainesville, Fla., March 20, 2004 -- Former Funny Car champion Cruz Pedregon qualified the Advance Auto Parts Pontiac Firebird in the top half of the field for the NHRA Gatornationals at ...

Published: Mar 22, 2004, 6:06 AM

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Cruz Pedregon -- Saturday Qualifying Results

Gainesville, Fla., March 20, 2004 -- Former Funny Car champion Cruz Pedregon qualified the Advance Auto Parts Pontiac Firebird in the top half of the field for the NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway. Pedregon ran an elapsed time of 5.012 seconds at 294.21 mph in the final session to earn the 8th quickest time of the weekend.

"We were a little weak during that last qualifying session, said Pedregon. "But we were able to put three of four runs together and Wes (Cerny) was glad to get some data on the track so he could see what the car was doing to adjust accordingly. We would've liked to have run better but we qualified eighth. We started the season qualifying 16th at Pomona and 9th in Phoenix so we're improving every race.

"We felt that our best run was the second session on Friday and if we can put that run together with the last part of our qualifying pass of the last session we should be able to run a mid-4.90. But we'll adjust to the conditions that are handed to us tomorrow and be ready when we roll up to the starting line for first round of eliminations."

Pedregon will face Phil Burkart for the fourth time in competition when eliminations begin at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow. Pedregon has a 2-1 advantage over Burkart.

Pedregon will be making his 198th career start and will look to score his 23rd career win.

Tim Wilkerson earned the top qualifier award with a pass of 4.906 seconds at 300.00 mph.

Television coverage of final eliminations can be seen on March 22nd from 11:30 p.m. -- 1:30 a.m. on ESPN2.

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