A pair of past Funny Car champions exchanged words Sunday in the shutdown area of Maple Grove Raceway following the second round of the Mopar Express Lane NHRA Nationals, the first race in the seven-event Countdown to the Championship.

Ironically, it was the second time in as many races the seasoned drivers had met in the second round, and also the second time something outside of the routine pre-stage, stage, and green light scenario transpired.

At the Dodge/SRT U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Todd told CompetitionPlus.com that he had bent the clutch pedal, forcing him to blip the throttle twice to get his DHL Toyota to jump into the staging beams. The maneuver worked in that Todd was able to stage the car and race. It, however, didn't help him to win the race.

Fast forward to a week later, Todd and Pedregon were staging for their quarterfinal match in Reading, and as Pedregon began to creep into the staging beam, he kept rolling forward and knocked off the pre-stage bulb and effectively deep-staging. The tactic isn't illegal and is often used to gain a better reaction time. It can also throw off the driver in the other lane. Todd went on to secure the round win in Reading, just like Pedregon did in Indianapolis.

Nothing was said between the two following the race in Indianapolis, but such was not the case in Reading.

Interviewed following a verbal exchange in Reading, Todd told FoxSports' Joe Castello, "Cruz is one of the great legends of our sport. So when we go out there and beat him with our Mac Tools car, it's a big deal. But ... yeah I guess he wasn't happy after Indy. He thought I was messing with him. I'm not dumb enough to go out there and whack the throttle and mess with him.

"His brother texted me and told me about it. He tried pulling some games up there, and I didn't like it, and let him know about it. Of course, he chirped back afterward. So I guess I should have kept my mouth shut."

Days after the verbal exchange, Todd's opinion hadn't changed.

"Honestly, I don't even want to acknowledge it," Todd said, citing he believed Pedregon was playing games, "Obviously." Todd wouldn't go as far as to say the deep-stage was payback from Indy.

"I heard that he thought I was messing with him at Indy, which I clearly wasn't," Todd said. "I mean, I would never try to do something like that to mess with somebody, but I mean, he's known to do some starting line things. I mean, it's not illegal, so it is what it is."

Pedregon said there wouldn't have been words exchanged if he hadn't been forced to defend himself.

"I didn't get out of the car to say anything," Pedregon said. "I was heading back. I was taking the HANS [device] off and he was mouthing off at me. I was minding my own business. He forced me to defend myself. I had no gripe with him. He made those ... hit the throttle blips. Who gives a s***? That happened. We won the round. We moved on."

Pedregon believes the situation could have been handled better, possibly an off-camera conversation, and it didn't have to blow up into a major situation.

"I felt like I was back in high school, and I'm not proud of it, but when somebody pushes you to the point where you feel like you have to defend yourself, well, I mean, it was really over a bunch of nothing, but you got a guy that for some reason has got it stuck in his head that if you don't stage exactly the way you normally stage."

'Do not dare double bulb me, or you're going to hear it."

"My only comment to him that he didn't like was, 'Hey, J.R., why do you use this platform now, where we have all the cameras, you got everybody looking at both of us? You know how to get ahold of me, if you took issue with anything I told my brother,' which by the way, should have been off the record, which I got to have a conversation with Tony about. But the fact of the matter is what I said publicly to him was nothing but I took the high road."