Las Vegas: Cruz Pedregon final summary

Las Vegas, April 4, 2004 -- Former Funny Car champion Cruz Pedregon came into today's final eliminations at "The Strip" in Las Vegas qualified eighth and drew John Force, who qualified ninth in the first round.

In a close battle, Force crossed the finish line first with an elapsed time of 4.830 seconds at 325.14 mph to Pedregon's elapsed time of 4.898 seconds at 283.31 mph.

"We were on a great run until I started feeling a vibration, said Pedregon. "When I saw Force out in front of me I decided to shut it down and not risk hurting anything. If I hadn't shut it off it probably would've ran a 4.87 or 4.88 so I knew it wasn't going to beat a 4.83. The vibration was from the clutch. It was trying to come a part, sheering the teeth off, causing a massive vibration. But it still put up a good number and it was right up there as one of the quickest runs of the session.

"With having Friday washed out and only getting in two qualifying sessions we are still very pleased with the weekend. We're consistently qualifying in the top-half of the field which is what we want to do at every race. We're going to stay and test tomorrow to get some more laps in with our new Chevy Monte Carlo before we head to Houston in a couple of weeks."

In the final round of eliminations it was Phil Burkart defeating Whit Bazemore with an elapsed time of 5.029 seconds at 264.03 mph to Bazemore's slower elapsed time of 5.452 seconds at 189.50 mph.

The next race for the Advance Auto Parts Racing team is the NHRA Nationals in Houston, Texas on April 15-18.

-pr-