Championship Drag Racing

O'Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals
Houston, TX
(March 31-April 2)

EVENT HOME
   Tickets
   Event schedule
   Results
   Team Reports
   Audio Broadcast
   Photo Galleries
   Video highlights
   Entry List
   Driver Appearances

Driver Profile

Cruz Pedregon Snap-on Toyota Solara

Houston, Sunday: Cruz Pedregon and his Advance Auto Parts Race Team qualified 10th for the NHRA Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park this past weekend after getting a handle on tire issues which have plagued many competitors in 2006, falling from the race after a first-round loss to Phil Burkhart Jr. because of a fuel leak.

“I hate to lose a race like that,” said a disappointed Pedregon. “We had a good car, and I think we would have been fine, but with the fuel leak, we’ll never find out. We had the car setup to run 4.77 or a .78 -- it was capable of running those times. Qualifying was good in the sense that we found out we’re a lot closer than we have ever have been with understanding the tire issue. We were really encouraged with Saturday’s runs after making some big changes to the car setup, and by Sunday, we felt even better about our chances after some strong runs the day before.”

The two-time event winner was philosophical about the weekend’s results: “There’s quite a few different ways to lose a race and only one way to win. One of the fuel lines didn’t get tightened. It was an error on our part as a team, and we are all really disappointed. But we win as a team and lose as a team. We’re all human and humans work on cars and also drive them, and sometimes we make mistakes. We’ll fix the problem and not let that happen again. We’ll move on and focus our attention on running well in Las Vegas next weekend.”

E-mail this article   Print this article