Memphis: Cruz Pedregon Friday summary

Cruz Pedregon Starts the Weekend in 11th MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Aug. 20, 2004) -- Advance Auto Parts Monte Carlo Nitro Funny Car driver Cruz Pedregon utilized an excellent first round pass to corner the 11th slot to open this weekend's NHRA ...

Cruz Pedregon Starts the Weekend in 11th

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Aug. 20, 2004) -- Advance Auto Parts Monte Carlo Nitro Funny Car driver Cruz Pedregon utilized an excellent first round pass to corner the 11th slot to open this weekend's NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series event at Memphis Motorsports Park.

Pedregon maneuvered his machine to a 5.020-second elapsed time at 279.56 mph, making the fourth-quickest pass of the first session. In the second session, Pedregon tried to capture the top spot for the night.

"We wanted to be aggressive on that last run," said Pedregon, who smoked the tires at about halftrack in session number two. "We had a 5.02 on our first run, which put us solidly in the field and we felt good about the car because we were fourth. (Crew chief) Wes (Cerny) got after it. I felt that we were on a great run too, but it wasn't meant to be.

"It's pretty dark out there," Pedregon continued. "The car rattled the tires a little bit, which moved me to the right a couple of feet. That left the car a little further away from the center of the track than I wanted. It was enough to get us off center and it eventually smoked the tires.

Pedregon is optimistic about tomorrow.

"If we get cloud cover tomorrow, we feel we can make a couple of great runs," Pedregon said. "We'll have to see what the weather looks like. We feel like we can go out in the heat of the day tomorrow and put up some good numbers."

ADVANCE AUTO PARTS RACING NOTEBOOK:

OFF AGAIN, ON AGAIN: Following Cruz Pedregon's stellar 5.020-second elapsed time in the first session, NHRA temporarily disqualified the Advance Auto Parts Monte Carlo Nitro Funny Car. Pedregon talked about how it turned out.

"We all know that we have to weight the car after the runs," Pedregon said. "Unfortunately, the scale is off the beaten path at this track and we just flat passed it up. I went to NHRA afterwards and I felt that -- and it's been a year since I was here last -- the layout caught us off guard a little bit. We weren't trying to pull a fast one or anything. NHRA looked at it the same way, agreeing that it was off the beaten path a little bit. We definitely will know where the scales are the next time."