TOBLER JOINS PEDREGON
Tue, 2007-08-14 10:46
Cruz Pedregon Racing today announced the appointment of veteran fuel tuner, Rahn
Tobler as crew chief of the Advance Auto Parts Funny Car team. Tobler will make
his debut on August 27, 2007, just in time for the prestigious U.S. Nationals.
Tobler comes to
Pedregon Racing with a 30-plus year career in the sport of drag racing including
a three year stint as crew chief for Doug Kalitta’s Top Fuel Dragster. While
with Kalitta’s team, he accumulated 14 event wins, went to the final round 20
times and posted 130 round wins. In 2006, he nearly captured the Top Fuel World
Championship for Kalitta only to be edged by Tony Schumacher’s record-setting
run on the final pass of the season.
“I’m as fired up
as I have ever been about a new crew chief working on my car,” said Pedregon of
his decision to hire Tobler. “We are bringing in a guy who battled for the World
Championship in Top Fuel last year. I’ve wanted this caliber of a crew chief for
some time; unfortunately there are not many available. I believe he is capable
of taking this team where it needs to go. It helps that Dickie [Venables, Tony
Pedregon’s crew chief] and Rahn are best friends and have worked together for
many years. With Dickie and Rahn, we have the chemistry built in, now we just
need to go out and execute the plan that Tony and I have set
forth.”
Tobler is equally
excited to join Pedregon Racing.
“I’m looking
forward to working for Cruz Pedregon Racing and the Advance Auto Parts Funny Car
team,” said Tobler. “I have a lot of respect for what Cruz and Tony have built
in the last 3 or 4 years. It was an important consideration for me to go with a
team that had a future and I think both the Advance Auto Parts and the Q team
have a good future ahead of them. I’ll have a learning curve to climb with Funny
Car, but I’m up for the challenge.”
Pedregon and his
team have made the preparations that will aid in Tobler’s success by
implementing a set-up identical to Tony Pedregon’s Q Horsepower Funny
Car.
“When Rahn
arrives for the U.S. Nationals, this car will already have performance data from
Brainerd and Reading for him to evaluate,” said Pedregon. “We’ll be ready to run
strong and contend for wins for the rest of the year while building a solid base
of data for next year.”
Categories: