Two-time NHRA Funny Car champion Pedregon excited to race vintage car
| Thursday, Oct 15 2009 10:18 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Oct 15 2009 10:18 PM
Hot Rod Reunion
When: Today though Sunday
Where: Auto Club Famoso Raceway
Schedule: Today--Gates open 8 a.m., Top Fuel qualifying 2; Saturday--Gates open 8, Top Fuel qualifying 1 p.m., Top Fuel 1st round 4 p.m. Funny Car qualifying to follow. Sunday--Gates open 8 a.m., Funny Car qualifying 11 a.m. followed by eliminations in all categories throughout the day.
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Alex Horvath / The Californian Cruz Pedregon poses with Donnie Couch, who recreated Joe Pisano's 1977 Funny Car that Cruz will drive this weekend.
The 18th annual edition of the California Hot Rod Reunion kicks off today, but Cruz Pedregon will have to wait another day before he slips behind the wheel of his dream car.
Front-engined Top Fuel dragsters will have a qualifying session at 2 p.m. today, but Pedregon and the rest of the Funny Car drivers must wait until Saturday afternoon for their first trip down the legendary quarter-mile.
By that time Pedregon might be pacing like a caged animal.
The two-time NHRA Funny Car champion (1992, 2008) has a new toy -- a replica of the Joe Pisano 1977 Plymouth Arrow Funny Car -- and can hardly wait to play with it.
"I'm a big fan of vintage Funny Cars, said Pedregon," who earned his competition license at Famoso, a track where he used to used to watch his father (Frank) compete. "I came to this thing about five or six years ago and saw a couple of Funny Cars run and the sound and look ... the hair on my arms was standing up and I had to build one."
The choice of car was easy for Pedregon.
"I love the Plymouth Arrow body style and Joe Pisano was a big mentor of mine and introduced me to Larry Minor and really gave me my start in racing," Pedregon said. "I decided to go with this car (one of many Pisano-owned cars) because I really like the colors.
"It's got '70s written all over it. It's a very vibrant, kick-ass looking car. That's why this car. The Pisano cars were always nice cars and I wanted something that looked nice. But I wanted something I could race and this has it all."
The popularity of vintage Funny Cars has grown tremendously over the past few years and more than two-dozen cars are expected to be battling for a spot in Sunday's eight-car field.
Pedregon said he understands why the cars have become so popular for fans and drivers.
"You can tell what they are," he said of the body styles. "The one thing I deal with every day in my life as a professional drag racer and Funny Car team owner is the cars of today don't look like the cars we drive.
"I think that's the hook, or appeal. These cars look like a Funny Car should, in my opinion."
Then, there is the noise.
"They sound like '70s cars," he said. "They're a little louder than what we race today, a little more of a prominent sound to them idling."
Of course, none of that might matter if they weren't fun to drive.
"Poorly," Pedregon replied when asked how they drove. "You're not going as fast as I go (in a modern car) but these cars are every bit as hard to drive, maybe more so because you do not have the aero-dynamic training wheel -- the luxury of the air holding the car and pushing it down on the ground. You have to drive these cars. They're squirrely.
"If you connect all those dots, you have a guy like me on my off weekend out here enjoying the fruits of our labor."
Fans of vintage Funny Cars can see, and hear, Pedregon's new car up close tonight at the Double Tree hotel.
Pedregon enlisted the help of Danny Pisano, nephew of Joe Pisano, who campaigns the Pisano & Matsubara 1974 Chevrolet Vega-bodied nostalgia nitro Funny Car to join in a "Tribute to Joe Pisano." Both cars will be part of the Cacklefest that officially kicks off the Honorees Ceremony tonight around 7:30 at the hotel.
On Saturday, plans call for both cars to line up together on the starting line for the first session of side-by-side qualifying for Funny Car eliminator.
