Toyota Sonoma NHRA Preview

BEST OF SEVEN? – Two Toyota teams will enter this weekend’s action having combined to win the last six Top Fuel events at the Sonoma Nationals. Antron Brown has three wins at the northern California track, having won the Wally in 2009, 2011 and 2012. He currently sits second in the Top Fuel points. Alan Johnson Racing also has three victories in their last six races in Sonoma with Shawn Langdon looking to break the tie this weekend. Langdon won in wine country in 2013 and currently stands as the track record-holder with a 3.743-second pass in 2013.

The best of seven battle has all the elements of a classic as both Brown (2012) and Langdon (2013) have won Top Fuel world championships and each has won this season with Brown winning at Charlotte, Atlanta and Englishtown; and Langdon having been victorious at Pomona. In addition, the two drivers have run the two quickest passes in NHRA history. Brown holds the all-time NHRA record with a 3.701, but Langdon has run the quickest pass in history with a 3.700, but was unable to back it up for a new record.

TONY PEDREGON OVERCOMING THE ODDS – After advancing to the semi-finals twice in the last four races, Tony Pedregon’s small one-car team has closed to within 130 points of 11th-place Courtney Force and 153 points of 10th-place Robert Hight for the final spot in the Countdown to the Championship playoffs. This past weekend, he defeated John Force Racing’s Hight and Don Schumacher Racing’s Tommy Johnson, drivers from two of the largest teams in the sport. Making Pedregon’s showing even more impressive is that while the larger teams reportedly have staffs of 100 or more, Tony Pedregon Racing has just a handful of full-time employees and no major sponsor.

Tony Pedregon: “Denver was another good showing for us to get to the semi-finals and we’re not backing into it, we’re earning it. I think we do a great job with as little as we currently have to work with. Give a team like ours a little funding and we could be dangerous. The Toyota support with the aerodynamics, as well as the engineering feedback in reading the track conditions and telling us how much wing we need to put in it has really helped. It’s really a good team effort with a pretty modest crew. My father told me as a kid ‘surround yourself with good people’ and I’ve managed to do that.”