Cruz Pedregon is thankful for his time machine.

For a few weekends out of the year, Pedregon, the two-time NHRA Funny Car champion from Brownsburg, Ind., can strap into this time machine and forget about the pressures of signing a major sponsor and the challenges that accompany the overwhelming demand.

Pedregon’s time machine is a throwback to a time when Funny Cars actually resembled the machines they claimed to be.

Pedregon isn’t just a Funny Car driver. He’s a Nostalgia Nitro Funny Car driver and he admits, his 1977 Plymouth Arrow is the escape he’s needed for a long time.

Cruz Pedregon is thankful for his time machine.

For a few weekends out of the year, Pedregon, the two-time NHRA Funny Car champion from Brownsburg, Ind., can strap into this time machine and forget about the pressures of signing a major sponsor and the challenges that accompany the overwhelming demand.

Pedregon’s time machine is a throwback to a time when Funny Cars actually resembled the machines they claimed to be.

Pedregon isn’t just a Funny Car driver. He’s a Nostalgia Nitro Funny Car driver and he admits, his 1977 Plymouth Arrow is the escape he’s needed for a long time.

Pedregon’s AA/FC is a tribute to Joe Pisano, a team owner who provided him with an influential starting point in his career. Pisano passed away in 1991, and with the permission of Joe’s brother Frank, Pedregon orchestrated a modern day equivalent tribute of his childhood idol.

The Joe Pisano Tribute entry propels Pedregon back to a day when Funny Car drivers did everything but wash the parts. He was a participant at the California Hot Rod Reunion last month in Bakersfield, Ca, and the experience was enough to remind the second-generation driver what inspired him as a kid to drive one of the plastic fantastics.

This time, Pedregon returned to Bakersfield as a racer and not as Grand Marshal, the role he filled during the Bakersfield March Meet.

“I was out there old schooling it; doing the parachute and doing the clutch,” explained Pedregon. “We scuffed a few pistons and we had to thrash there on race day. I was worn out afterwards but I had a good time.”

Those thrashes paled in comparison to the thrash that he and crew chief Donnie Couch faced finishing the project just to make it to the event.

Couch’s West Coast Funny Car Factory shop completed the project from bare chassis to completed car, amidst criticism from skeptics who doubted the team could pull off the challenge.

Pedregon anticipated making a half-pass shakedown once he arrived in Bakersfield, but he was pressed into action immediately. He believes the first pass on the untested flopper spoke volumes for Couch’s talents.

“We put it in the five second range in our second run,” Pedregon bragged. “I was just going there to make a half pass on the first run. I thought, well maybe I can talk them into letting me make a little squirt. We're setting the toe-in, for crying out loud, in the staging lanes and setting the pre-load. This is my show car for the last five years. They were racing other cars and said, 'we can't do that'.”

Pedregon’s first lap, a 6.11, 218, put him atop the qualifying list in the opening session.

Two runs were enough to convince Pedregon of the differences in driving the cars of today and those of yesteryear.

“Those cars, I tell you what, the guys in the day that drove those cars, the Prudhommes, Bernstein, the Jungle Jim's, Little John Lombardo. I think the cars we drive now are Cadillacs compared to those things. Those things, you gotta do what we call dirt tracking. You gotta get your elbows up. You have to get after it. Those cars have virtually no aero, so they are loose.”

Pedregon debunks the myth that suggests a two-second slower car would be boring.

“People were asking me, 'you must be bored?' and I am like, 'bored nothing,” he said with a smile. “I am in there hanging on for dear life.' These things still run 250 mile an hour. Yeah, it's not at the eighth mile, but you don't have the tire, the wing … the modern day advancements. You have all these things going against you.”

The next year remains a big uncertainty for Pedregon when it comes to the NHRA Full Throttle Series and therefore, he cannot confirm his plans for the nostalgia effort.

“I can't wait to run it again, but with my schedule, who knows,” Pedregon explained. “That car requires a lot of my time and makeshift crew and all that stuff. We'll try to see what the schedule looks like and do it again.”

When he does get the chance, the time machine will catapult Pedregon into time to when drag racing wasn’t all business.

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