News and Media Releases

Strong Qualifying Run In Mile-High City

12/07/2009

Quaker State Driver’s Day Ends Early with Second Round Elimination Loss.

The NHRA kicked off the second half of the season with the first of three consecutive weekends of racing this past weekend. Traveling to the Rocky Mountains the teams faced one of their most challenges races on the schedule due to the altitude and its effects on the cars.

Tony Pedregon and his Quaker State team arrived at Bandimere Speedway for the 30th annual Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals with hopes of pulling out a strong showing and putting the first-round loss from Norwalk behind them. Pedregon had a solid qualifying performance putting his Quaker State Maxim in the second spot. Unfortunately, the Quaker State driver was paired against points leader Ashley Force Hood in the second round of eliminations taking the loss.

Pairing up against Force Hood in both passes on the first day of qualifying it became obvious the two drivers had strong cars and would be contenders throughout the weekend. With two good looking runs during Friday's qualifying rounds, Pedregon entered Saturday on top of the leader board.
Saturday's rounds resulted with two more strong passes for the two-time champion that put him in the second position going into Sunday's elimination rounds.

In his first elimination round, Pedregon was paired with Mike Neff. The two put on a good looking drag race with Pedregon finishing about 39 feet ahead of Neff. After his first-round win, the Brownsburg, Indiana native was set for a race against Ashley Force Hood in round two.  This race was another good show but this time the Quaker State driver was just a little behind at every increment and had to take the second-round loss ending his day.

Up next for the NHRA Funny Car Series is the NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways in Seattle, Washington on July 17 - 19.