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.”