Pomona2: Tony Pedregon final summary

Pomona, Calif., February 29, 2004 -- Reigning Funny Car champion Tony Pedregon and the Quaker State Racing team completed final eliminations today at Pomona Raceway, for the NHRA Winternationals. After a strong qualifying finish on Saturday, Pedregon smoked the tires during the first round of eliminations and crossed the stripe with an elapsed time of 7.731 second at 108.50 mph to Cory Lee's elapsed time of 4.861 seconds at 297.29 mph.

"The track was great and the temperatures were very good today, said Pedregon. We just missed something today and our Quaker State Chevrolet Camaro shook at the start and smoked the tires. Sure we're disappointed but we'll get it fixed and be ready to go in Phoenix. It's just one race, there's plenty of more racing to go this season.

"As I said yesterday we're still learning a lot but we feel we're gaining and we're excited that the season is underway. We knew it wasn't going to be perfect in the beginning, we knew we would have our share of learning curves. But we feel good about where we're heading and we'll be ready for next week."

Jerry Toliver won the event with an elapsed time of 4.821 seconds at 319.29 mph over Gary Densham who posted an elapsed time of 4.955 seconds at 327.11 mph.

The next event for the Quaker State Racing team will be in Phoenix, Ariz., at Firebird International Raceway on March 5-8.

-pr-