Tony Pedregon, 2003 Funny Car Champion, got mad Monday afternoon. Then he tried to get even.

He had just gotten his head handed to him by Ashley Force Hood in the same semifinal round of the U.S. Nationals his brother, Cruz, had been replaced in the Countdown to 1 by Robert Hight. Tony knew he was beaten fair and square. What he was angry about was how Robert Hight, running against his boss, John Force, had won the most important round of a very tough season.

So Tony decided to get even. He stood up in front of the ESPN2 cameras and called out John Force. He accused Force of cheating and taking a dive, of manipulation, all the while forgetting that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Former Funny Car Driver Says Pedregon Criticizes Force For Same Practice That Made Him The 2003 Champion …

Tony Pedregon, 2003 Funny Car Champion, got mad Monday afternoon. Then he tried to get even.

He had just gotten his head handed to him by Ashley Force Hood in the same semifinal round of the U.S. Nationals his brother, Cruz, had been replaced in the Countdown to 1 by Robert Hight. Tony knew he was beaten fair and square. What he was angry about was how Robert Hight, running against his boss, John Force, had won the most important round of a very tough season.

So Tony decided to get even. He stood up in front of the ESPN2 cameras and called out John Force. He accused Force of cheating and taking a dive, of manipulation, all the while forgetting that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Former Funny Car driver Whit Bazemore, who has lived the life of a Funny Car driver deep in the heat of a championship run, thought it was interesting, watching Pedregon toss Force under the same bus where he himself use to reside. Where's the credibility of a man who claims to be a man of the people, but only when it suits his agenda? It's like a preacher on a pulpit saying, do as I say, not as I do.

If Tony Pedregon won't tell the whole story, a story of how he benefited from the same actions he now decries, then Bazemore contends Pedregon is a hypocrite.

“Tony said more than once on the ESPN broadcast that 'I was there for eight years and I know how it's played. I know what goes on over there,” recalled Bazemore, in a phone call from his Oregon home, offering up his experience. “And, he is exactly right. He knows because he was the beneficiary of that in 2003. He beat us to the World Championship by, I think, four rounds and I know for a fact they handed quite a few rounds that year.

“What I think Tony should do, he came across on television as a man of the people, a man of morals, and he said he has morals and if he really feels the way he said he feels then I think he should donate that trophy that he won in 2003 to charity and let's raise some money. He should give it away, because basically what he is saying is it's meaningless.

“I think he should apologize to Don Schumacher, Lee Beard and the Matco Tools team for 2003, because you can't have it both ways. If you are going to dive and then benefit from others diving and then you move away from a team and then you are a victim of diving and you have a problem with it, I don't think that is very good either. So, you certainly can't have it both ways.”

Bazemore believes the 2003 season wasn’t the only time that Pedregon, along with Force, partook in race manipulations. He cites a 1997 example where he alleges a thrown race cost him a championship runner-up and rewarded Pedregon the same position.

A top-end exchange with one of Force’s sponsors is what Bazemore said taught him early on that drag racing, as a sacred institution of honor, was quickly degenerating to business and not true competition.

Bazemore was sponsored by Winston, the series sponsor at the time, and part of his sponsorship requirements dictated that he had to be at the finish line to congratulate the series champion. He was in the shutdown at the 1997 NHRA World Finals in Pomona, Ca., admittedly trying to put on his best congratulatory face.

“I'm standing down there with John Howell, the big wig at Castrol at the time, and we're standing down there at the shutoff area along the wall and I just said, 'well John what's this going to be man?' and he looked at me real seriously and said, 'Whit, just remember one thing, it's only business,” Bazemore said. “I'm like 'yea, I totally get it. I understand.' I mean, we all knew what the result was going to be, me, Winston, everybody. I understand.' But that doesn't make it right. It doesn't make it right. It's been going on a long time. So what happened at Indy last week between Robert Hight and Force certainly wasn't a surprise.”

Bazemore, who was a fierce competitor of both Force and Pedregon, "with a tremendous mutual respect for all sides, believes wholeheartedly that the former took a dive.

“Absolutely,” Bazemore said bluntly. “In Funny Car racing today you have a small handful of guys that are really good. John, of course, is one of those guys. I'm talking about pure drivers that can get a car down any racetrack, anytime, day or night, any conditions, can get the race car down the racetrack in one piece and turn the win light on. There are a couple guys that can do that. Force is one of them.

“He did the driving job of the race in the first round. How do you go from being the very best driver at the race to in the semifinals he did the worst job of anyone driving, probably in a couple years. It was pathetically bad.

“You have to be not looking at the tree. And, let me tell you, John Force does not make those kinds of mistakes. And, then to drive the car totally out of the groove before the 300 foot cone, it just doesn't happen. I know the guy, I raced against him forever, he's one of the very best at what he does and he showed that in the first round. To me, it's completely 100 percent obvious. Anyone that says, 'these cars go out of the groove and it's easy to be late', well it is easy to be late and it is easy to drive out of the groove, but not if your John Force trying to win the U.S. Nationals and you’re in the semifinals. A guy like that does not make those kinds of mistakes, not ever. Not if he is trying to win the U.S. Nationals.”

Despite a controversial decision by team owner Don Schumacher during the 2003 NHRA national event in Seattle, Wash., to put Bazemore in the better of the two lanes when Gary Scelzi had the lane choice, he contends that he never took a dive nor was he asked to take one. Bazemore ranked the higher of the two in the championship standings.

“That was the only time we were given something,” said Bazemore, confirming that it was Schumacher’s decision to put him in the good lane. “Here's the difference, Scelzi told me, and I remember it like it was yesterday, he said, 'Bazemore, if you smoke the tires, I'm coming after you'. That's the difference. Gary Scelzi was never going to lose a race on purpose, never, as a driver. And, neither was I. That's really the biggest difference.

There was no guarantee they were not going to outrun us. They easily could have.  And Don really regretted doing that later. He never interfered after that, and the proof is in our races with Capps in 2005 at Indy and 2006 in Seattle. Both times, I think our wins; especially the Indy win in 2005 because it was in the first round, really hurt his bid to win the championship. But we all raced fairly.”

Business be damned, Bazemore believes drag racing’s credibility took a shot last Monday. And, the inability for Force to admit the obvious, just heaped unprofessionalism on the pile of honor.

“People argue that it's business and it's what you have to do to make the successful, but it really isn't,” Bazemore explained. “You would think a sponsor would want their teams to win on merit,. You'd want your racers to be successful because they're good, not because they had something handed to them.

Most importantly, Bazemore feels NHRA needs to enforce the rules and not offer special consideration to anyone. “There must be strong and consistent enforcement of the rules,” says Bazemore. “For too long things have been arbitrary, different rules for different people.”
Bazemore contends that Force has “every right to push the rules to his advantage, if he thinks he can get away with it.”

“He knows he [Force] can get away with it because NHRA has chosen to look the other way and, unfortunately, the risk is losing credibility with fans and sponsors.”

“NHRA should not have rules they choose not to enforce,” said Bazemore. “That semifinal run at the US Nationals between John Force and Robert Hight, which was arbitrated by drag racing’s sanctioning body, underestimates the intelligence of most fans and competitors. If they could admit that team orders are a part of racing it would not be quite as bad. It is the lie which gives the sport a black eye.”

At end the day, says Bazemore, the integrity of the sport he loves and cherishes is threatened.

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