Forgive Cruz Pedregon if he might feel a bit confused as he begins his quest for a third NHRA Funny Car championship, including a second in three years.
 
The veteran team owner-driver has the same Toyota Solara with which he qualified for all 24 races last year. It has a bold new look with primary sponsorship from Snap-on Tools: bright red -- "toolbox red," Pedregon calls it -- with a honeycomb design on the rocker panels and a fat, black racing stripe. ("You definitely won't mistake it for any other car," he said.) Yet the car's appearance is comfortably familiar -- "Cruz red," kind of retro, just perfect for this sentimental, history-living drag-racing fan. From a performance standpoint, he said, "our car hasn't changed a lot."
 
Much of the crew is new -- but then, again, it is experienced, with three loyalists from Pedregon's 2008 championship season.

Forgive Cruz Pedregon if he might feel a bit confused as he begins his quest for a third NHRA Funny Car championship, including a second in three years.
 
The veteran team owner-driver has the same Toyota Solara with which he qualified for all 24 races last year. It has a bold new look with primary sponsorship from Snap-on Tools: bright red -- "toolbox red," Pedregon calls it -- with a honeycomb design on the rocker panels and a fat, black racing stripe. ("You definitely won't mistake it for any other car," he said.) Yet the car's appearance is comfortably familiar -- "Cruz red," kind of retro, just perfect for this sentimental, history-living drag-racing fan. From a performance standpoint, he said, "our car hasn't changed a lot."
 
Much of the crew is new -- but then, again, it is experienced, with three loyalists from Pedregon's 2008 championship season.
 
"I'm bringing in a new crew chief, but we're experienced," the boss said. "We have three guys from our championship team still on board, and I'm proud of that. We have a database we've built for three or four years. It's our Bible. We're going to go with that."
 
Danny DeGennaro, who worked with Jimmy Walsh on Kenny Bernstein's Monster Energy/Lucas Oil Funny Car that Tommy Johnson Jr. drove, is the new crew chief. Brian MacDermott will assist DeGennaro. MacDermott most recently was the fuel specialist on Jack Beckman's Funny Car team at Don Schumacher Racing. Pedregon said he remembered MacDermott from his days racing with Al Hofmann.
 
As if all that didn't sound contradictory enough -- new car, kind of / new team but not new, really -- the matter of testing surely does. It helped, and it didn't.
 
Saying "testing" should be renamed "practice," Pedregon said, "It's as much about getting your personnel up to speed as it is getting the car down the track."
 
In his visit last week to Firebird Raceway in Chandler, Ariz., for the NAPA Auto Parts National Time Trials, he made seven runs that provided valuable information, he said. But on the other hand, Pedregon said testing "wasn't anything spectacular" and that even with his seven runs that yielded successively more information, he'll pull into Pomona still feeling "a little bit behind."
 
He said, "I want to be as prepared for Pomona as I can. Last year we didn't test. We're doing all we can as a team. We can't fall behind. These cars are so temperamental and so unpredictable. You've got to get your baseline down. A Funny Car has so much power and a narrow window of going fast. It's a hard thing to maintain."
 
One constant is his 18-year association with Snap-on Tools.
 
"It's our 18th year with Snap-on, the longest sponsorship Snap-on has had with any athlete or organization. I'm grateful."
 
Alicia Smales, vice-president of marketing for Snap-on Tools, was equally excited whn she made the announcement earlier this month.
 
"We are excited to continue our partnership with Cruz Pedregon," she, said. "Cruz has been an outstanding ambassador for Snap-on for the past 18 years. Whenever Cruz appears at a Snap-on function with our franchisees and customers, the feedback is phenomenal. While expanding our relationship with Cruz, we will also continue our sponsorship of Cruz's brother Tony and his Funny Car team. We are excited to help both Cruz and Tony race for the Funny Car championship this year.
 
"One of the characteristics that makes Cruz standout as a spokesperson for Snap-on is that he runs his own business, just like our franchisees and many of our customers," Smales said. "His everyday experiences on and off the track resonate with our customers in many ways. What is even more appealing about Cruz is that although he is a nationally recognized athlete, he is a very friendly and approachable guy who gets along with everyone. We could not ask for a better representative of Snap-on."
 
Running one's own business is a constant series of evaluations. And Pedregon had to walk no farther than his shop floor to discover a big change that he thought he needed to make since the end of last season.
 
He surveyed his Brownsburg, Ind., shop one day and told himself, "Man, this looks like a car lot of midgets and sprint cars."
 
Driving for him were some of the blue-chip short-track drivers: Sammy Swindell, Josh Wise, and Jerry Coons Jr. "But there was no car for me to drive," Pedegon said. His team was working with Toyota in developing its engine program.
 
"We're not doing the Toyota engine program anymore. And I just don't have time," he said. "I'm going to ratchet that down. We're downsizing."
 
He jettisoned a couple of the dirt cars but is going to hold back one for his own pleasure, to run in the January's annual Chili Bowl and such special adventures as the June "Prelude to The Dream" NASCAR-laden charity race at Ohio's Eldora Speedway.
 
Pedregon didn't blame his disappointing 2009 season on his dirt-car interests. Instead, he  pointed the finger at his Funny Car. "The CAR was going in too many directions. We were all over the place. We weren't consistently good." By November, he said, "we were in a rut.
 
"During the off-season, I looked at things and things were brought to my attention. That's what the off-season's for. Now we've got to go out and run better."
 
Pedregon indicated he thinks he can do that. (He said Toyota's massive recall of production autos doesn't affect his operation in terms of factory support. "It's unfortunate what they're going through, but I'm sure they'll get that all squared away," he said.)
 
"We're looking forward to being consistent," Pedregon said. "We had consistency in '08 that we didn't have in '09. We're not worried about speed. Speed will come.
 
"I'm not making any predictions," he said. "I know what it takes."
 
That's the part that's not confusing, simply daunting.

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