Tony Pedregon and his Q Horsepower team powered into the semifinal round at the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series showcase event, the 53rd annual U. S. Nationals, held this past weekend in Clermont, Ind., just outside Indianapolis. He carried the momentum from an event win at the Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals in Reading, Penn. to the historic Indianapolis drag strip and moved into third place in the Countdown to Four.
“Overall, it was a good finish for us to make it to the semifinals at the U. S. Nationals, ” said Pedregon. “We battled through some tough track conditions today and overcame some adversity during qualifying, but our team showed its resiliency. We moved up into 3rd in the Countdown to the Championship and competed for the Skoal Shootout. We’ll get right back to work getting ready for Memphis. ”
Pedregon took full advantage of Friday evening’s “cool” 92 degree track temperature to put the Q Horsepower Funny Car in the show. He clocked a 4.786 E. T. at 321.04 mph which moved him to the top half of the ladder for Monday’s final elimination rounds.
“We were chasing our tune-up during qualifying, ” said Pedregon. “Dickie [Venables, crew chief] is good at reading the conditions and he was right on for the Q3 session. ”
Pedregon beat Jerry Toliver with a 4.944 in Monday’s first round and Jon Capps with a 5.111 in the second round of final eliminations.
“Sometimes you have to outlast the competition, ” said Pedregon. “This is what we did today with the important round wins. In the semifinal round, we needed to run in the 4.90’s to win the round, but the track, particularly our lane, wasn’t ready for our 4.90 tune-up. ”
With his top-four finish this weekend, Pedregon moves into third place in the NHRA POWERade Countdown to the Championship points.
“The Countdown to the Championship is really heating up, ” said Pedregon. “We are competing against some good cars so we’ll have to be ready every time we pull up to the line. As we’ve done all year, we’ll continue to focus on consistency and be ready to go at Memphis. ”
| 
|