TPed Quiets Naysayers With First Title As A Car Owner; Coughlin Gets By Anderson

POMONA, Calif. — His mantra was Si, se puede — Yes, I can.
Many National Hot Rod Ass’n observers said Tony Pedregon couldn’t — couldn’t make it on his own when he left the shelter of well-funded, well-equipped, well-versed John Force Racing where he had been groomed for greatness for eight years.
Pedregon left with the newly minted 2003 Funny Car trophy, and Sunday at the Automobile Club of Southern California Finals, he earned the 2007 version via the new Countdown to the Championship format. Robert Hight, a shop hand and later clutch technician for five championship years on John Force’s car when Pedregon was elevating his status in drag racing at JFR, won the Funny Car race and finished as series runner-up for the second-straight season.

MAKING A STATEMENT: Tony Pedregon celebrates his second Funny Car title Sunday in Pomona. Pedregon took the title by 19 points over second-place Robert Hight. (Angela Barraza Photo)

Pedregon and Hight shared the spotlight at the Auto Club Raceway at Pomona with Top Fuel’s history-making Tony Schumacher and Pro Stock Motorcycle’s Matt Smith, both of whom had to win their respective final rounds to capture their championships, and Pro Stock winner and titlist Jeg Coughlin.
But for the emotional Pedregon, winning as a team owner for the first time had special meaning.
“When I left John Force Racing, I don’t know that there were too many people who thought we could do this. To tell you the truth, there were a couple of times I woke up and I wasn’t sure,” he said. “I took some criticism when I left Force Racing. I believed that there was a way to do it. I wanted to do it my way. How do you argue with the way that John does things and the success that he’s had and all the races that he’s won? But there was something inside of me that told me there’s another way to do it.
“A lot of people thought I was nuts. I never questioned it. I was a little scared — it costs a lot of money to race one of these cars. And you’ve got to have the right people to do it,” Pedregon said, citing crew chief Dickie Venables and assistant Kurt Elliott. “I always knew we’d have to outwork, outhustle, and sometimes I would have to outdrive the competition. However we did it, it’s not luck. We still did it better than any other team out there, and I have a great team to thank for that. For me to be able to pull this off…I hope that this makes a statement that anything in this sport — anything in this business — is achievable.”
Pedregon, the No. 16 qualifier who never has won a round from that starting position, lost his opening match against top qualifier Jeff Arend. He had to wait until he saw that Hight’s winning elapsed time in the semifinals was strong but not enough to back up or set a national record to gain 20 points and seize the lead.
Hight, in the Auto Club of Southern California Ford Mustang, easily won the all-JFR final round over fill-in teammate Phil Burkart, Jr. but came just 19 points short of the championship.
Still, the Castrol/Auto Club team fared well at this race track where Force set out in February to win a 15th series crown and 2006 runner-up Hight tried to earn his first one. And it was like a salve to the literal and figurative wounds the organization has endured this season.
Force, still broken hearted over the death of protégé Eric Medlen in March and nursing broken bones from a serious accident in September, watched by the starter’s box, leaning on a walker. For the 4.731 seconds that Hight took to earn his third victory in six final rounds this season and set low e.t. of the meet, Force could forget the disasters that included fiery crashes for son-in-law Hight at Topeka and daughter Ashley Force at Seattle.
Hight’s 326.71-mph pass ran away from Burkart’s 8.314/104.31 in Force’s Castrol GTX Mustang.
“We needed to win,” Hight said. “Had we won the championship, that wouldn’t have made it a great year. Winning this race didn’t make it a great year. We lost our teammate. There’s not much that would have made this a good year — nothing — because we’ll never have Eric back.”
Schumacher became the first to win four consecutive Top Fuel championships, breaking his tie with Joe Amato, with whom he shares the mark for most overall class titles with five.

TONY ON TOP: Tony Schumacher took his fourth-straight Top Fuel title Sunday in Pomona. (Ted Rossino Photo)

He did it on father/team owner Don Schumacher’s birthday, beating Bob Vandergriff in the final round with a 4.486-second, 328.30-mph blast in the U.S. Army Dragster.
Schumacher won the title by 19 points, although he came into the race last among the four contenders, 67 points off leader Hot Rod Fuller’s pace in the Caterpillar Dragster.
Fuller lost in the opening round and fretted until the final showdown between Schumacher and Vandergriff to see if he had anything left of his advantage. Schumacher eliminated No. 3 driver Brandon Bernstein in the semifinal. No. 2 Larry Dixon bowed out in the quarterfinals with a loss to J.R. Todd.
Vandergriff ran a 4.681/317.19 in the UPS Dragster but remained winless in 12 career final rounds for a dubious NHRA record.
“My guys are good at crunch time when we absolutely have to do it,” said Schumacher, who tied Larry Dixon for second place on the class’s career-victories list with 41. “It was a stunning day.
“This Countdown has allowed us to test, and we spent a lot of time preparing for that run,” he said, emphasizing the final two words and adding, “to make sure that the stuff that goes on those particular runs is perfect. Alan [crew chief Johnson] can give a tune-up into a car that’s perfect. The eight guys who build it are flawless. They give me a car that’s so perfect that I don’t want to be the weak link.”
He wasn’t, and neither was Pro Stock’s Coughlin, who broke the Summit Racing Equipment/KB Racing team’s four-year grip on the championship in his Jegs.com Chevy Cobalt early on the day and went on to beat remarkable rookie Justin Humphreys in the final round.
Coughlin, who added this series championship to the two he earned in 2000 and 2002 and his 1992 Super Gas crown as a sportsman racer, entered the race 34 points behind leader Greg Anderson. But Anderson lost to Humphreys on a holeshot in the opening round and finished in second place, 44 points behind Coughlin.
“I love Pomona,” said Coughlin, who took almost a year off after winning here in November 2005. “I didn’t run Pro Stock last year, but I did a lot of high-dollar bracket races wih big dollars on the line, and they’re pressure-packed. It helped me a lot.”
He set low e.t. with his 6.638-second, 207.98-mph final-round effort against Humphreys’s 6.662/207.27.
Joe Hornick, who helped Anderson win championships, prepares Coughlin’s GM engines at Victor Cagnazzi Racing, along with Steve Johns. Todd Bevis builds the chassis. And Roy Simmons has consulting help from Jeg Coughlin, Sr.

YELLOW DAY: Jeg Coughlin earned the Pro Stock title after Greg Anderson fell out in the first round. (Angela Barraza Photo)

“This championship certainly is for the entire team, and that goes 25 or 30 people deep,” Couhlin said. “I love ’em all.”
Matt Smith, son of seven-time IHRA champion Rickie Smith, ended the reign of three-time Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Andrew Hines by a mere six points. With the title on the line against closest rival Chip Ellis, Smith recorded a 6.944-second e.t. at 191.08 mph on his Torco Race Fuels Buell to Ellis’ 6.957/192.17 on the Drag Specialties S&S Buell.
“It was all or nothing there. It was a wild day,” Smith said. “We had the best bike. I think we [would’ve] won under the old points system, too.”
Seeded second behind Hines, Smith said, “We figured if we can win the race, we can get second place. I thought that was the best we were going to be able to do.”
That explains why he and his dad cried at the top end of the track before the trophy presentation.
“I had to turn away and wipe the tears from my eyes,” he said. “We felt like we had such a good bike all year, and we had times we just couldn’t punch it through when we probably should’ve won some races. But we never gave up.”