Dinner with Racers Jan 4, 2026

Ep.316 – Tony Pedregon

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109:42

Term

drag racing

Drag racing is a sport where two cars race each other in a straight line to see which one can go the fastest over a short distance. It's all about speed and quick acceleration.

Concept

NHRA

NHRA stands for National Hot Rod Association, which is the main organization that oversees drag racing in the U.S. They hold races where cars compete to see who can go the fastest in a straight line.

Term

330 miles an hour

330 miles an hour is a very fast speed that some race cars can reach, especially in drag racing. It shows how powerful and fast these cars can be.

Brand

Ford

Ford is a well-known car company that makes many different types of vehicles, like the Mustang and F-150.

Concept

IndyCar

IndyCar is a type of car racing in the United States, famous for its big race called the Indianapolis 500. The cars are fast and race on different types of tracks.

Concept

Formula 1

Formula 1 is a top-level car racing series where teams compete in fast cars on different tracks. It's known for its advanced technology and exciting races.

Term

clutch pedal

The clutch pedal is what you press to change gears in a car with a manual transmission. It helps disconnect the engine from the wheels so you can shift gears without stalling the car.

Car

Dodge Nitro

The Nitro is a medium-sized SUV that looks tough and has a lot of space inside. It's not the best on gas, but some people like it for its unique design.

Concept

Lion's Dragstrip

Lion's Dragstrip was a popular place in Long Beach where people would go to watch and participate in drag racing, which is a type of racing where cars go as fast as they can in a straight line.

Term

header flames

Header flames are flames that come out of the exhaust pipes of some cars, especially race cars. They happen when fuel that hasn't burned completely catches fire in the exhaust system.

Concept

Gone in 60 Seconds

Gone in 60 Seconds is a famous movie about stealing cars, featuring lots of exciting car chases. It's well-loved by car fans and has become a part of car culture.

Car

Fiat Topolino

The Fiat Topolino is a tiny car that Fiat made a long time ago. It's famous for being one of the smallest cars ever made.

Car

Fiat / 2100 Familiare

Term

air ride

Air ride is a special kind of suspension that uses air instead of metal springs. It helps make the ride smoother and can be adjusted to change how high or low the vehicle sits.

Term

nitro funny car

A nitro funny car is a fast racing car that uses a special fuel called nitromethane. This makes it super powerful and allows it to go really fast in races.

Part

Detroit Diesel 8V92

The Detroit Diesel 8V92 is a type of engine used in big trucks. It's known for being powerful and is designed to work hard for long periods.

Term

semi trucks

Semi trucks are big trucks used to carry heavy loads. They have a front part called the tractor that pulls a large trailer behind it.

Car

Tesla Semi

The Tesla Semi is a big electric truck that can carry heavy loads and is designed to save money on fuel. It's part of Tesla's plan to make transportation cleaner and more efficient.

Term

cam

A cam is a part of the engine that helps control how the engine breathes by opening and closing the valves. Changing the cam can help the engine produce more power.

Part

dragster

A dragster is a car made for racing in a straight line as fast as possible. They are built to be very light and very fast, so they can win races over short distances.

Concept

top fuel class

Top fuel racing is a type of drag racing where cars go really fast, often over 300 miles per hour. They use special engines that make a lot of power to achieve these incredible speeds.

Car

El Camino

The Chevrolet El Camino is a type of vehicle that looks like a car in the front but has a truck bed in the back. It's designed for both carrying cargo and driving like a regular car.

Term

alcohol funny car

An alcohol funny car is a really fast race car that uses a special kind of fuel made from alcohol. They are built to go super fast in short races.

Brand

Pennzoil

Pennzoil is a brand that makes motor oil, which keeps car engines running smoothly. They are popular for their quality and have many different types of oil for various cars.

Brand

Champion

Champion is a brand that makes car parts, especially spark plugs, which help engines start and run smoothly. They are trusted by many in the automotive world.

Term

top fuel car

Top fuel cars are super-fast racing cars used in drag racing. They have very powerful engines that help them go from zero to very high speeds in just a few seconds.

Concept

John Force

John Force is a famous drag racer who has won many championships. He also owns a racing team that competes in Funny Car races.

Term

quarter mile

The quarter mile is a distance of 1,320 feet, often used in racing to see how fast a car can go from a standstill to the finish line. It's a common way to test how powerful a car is.

Car

The Range Rover is a fancy SUV that can drive on tough terrains like mountains and mud, but it also feels very nice inside. People like it because it looks good and can handle different kinds of roads.

Car

Toyota Land Cruiser

The Land Cruiser is a big, tough SUV that can go anywhere, even on rough roads. It's known for lasting a long time and being very dependable, which is why many people trust it for long trips.

Car

MG Midgets

The MG Midget is a tiny sports car that's really fun to drive. It's light and quick, making it a favorite for people who love classic cars.

LIVE

So, head of R&D for John Force Racing.

Definitely not a CDL driver.

And a fan of Cheese on Tacos.

Ooh, Tony, no nickname,

if you could describe this lunch we just had in one word,

what would it be? Pleasant.

Pleasant. Oh, yeah, yeah.

What a pleasant answer. Yeah.

And now for Dinner with Racers presented by

Continental Tire with your hosts,

Ryan Eversley and Shawn Heckman.

Please hold your radio sound.

I've been driving on very angry

with the sound of a driver

on the radio during a race.

What do you think I should go to?

Welcome to Dinner with Racers.

Hey, I'm Shawn Heckman. I'm Ryan Eversley.

We are sitting in a Johnny Rockets

in the middle of Hollywood, California.

That's right. Don't ask why.

And right outside is a Stranger Things

World Premiere Season 5 thing, which is pretty exciting.

Yeah. But you know what else is exciting?

This is Year 10 of Dinner with Racers.

That's right. There's only five seasons of Stranger Things.

We are better than Stranger Things.

That's correct. Much more successful financially

and prolifically.

But you know who's also

very, very successful?

Tony Pedragon. Tony Pedragon.

Now, I would say Tony Pedragon

is a household name if you're in the drag racing world.

But if not, he is a long-time

NHRA figure. He's a two-time funny car

champion, including driving

for John Force and then his own team

and also racing for his brother.

Also, one of the things that was really great

about Tony is that he does the on-air commentary

for Fox with their NHRA coverage.

So not only does he understand

storytelling and how to speak,

but he's also lived the life of a badass drag

racer and he could have been better to sit down with.

Exactly. And on a very personal level

for Ryan, whenever we have folks that have gone from racing

to media, we always

know they're going to be good episodes because they know how to tell

stories and Tony absolutely fits that. He understands

how to tell a story with his family, himself,

some of the backgrounds behind the sport. I mean, it's actually

I was excited to meet him, but walking away

I was more excited than ever because

he's just a very well-rounded guy and his ability

to educate us on the sport, but also

just be a funny guy and somebody

who really understands what we were looking for.

And in a very short amount of time, we got to understand

who Tony is and what he's all about. And I think

a big part of that was one of the things you're going to learn about, which is

one of the wildest fathers

in motorsports we've had yet on the show.

I loved him because he absolutely sh**

on PR people. And he was

told by his boss in front of everyone that he was quitting.

And by the way, he wasn't even sure if he was.

Right.

We ate at Charlie Brown's Pancake and Steakhouse

in Speedway, Indiana. We were there for the

IMSA weekend because both of us were racing there that weekend.

And we ate in the Robin Miller room where

we've done a lot of episodes and a lot of TV

stuff that we've created for DWR

there. So it felt like a homecoming.

It absolutely did. And thanks

to Charlie Brown's because they've always been so accommodating.

Indianapolis is like the Indianapolis

of places to go when you want to be accommodated.

In motorsports. In motorsports.

But you know, speaking of accommodating

you know, we have a sponsor, right?

God Nettle Tire. Hashtag Ryan.

Dinner with Conti.

That's right. Continental is always judging us by

how much sort of social

media and clickable link

success we provide by doing this. So

it really matters if you go on our website or go on our

Instagram and look for clickable links to tell

Continental that we were there

by going to dinnerwithracers.com

and finding the links to

check out Continental's website. That tells Continental

that you're a big fan of what we do and you're curious

on their tires. Because of that, that goes a long way

going on our Instagram. There's some links that do

the exact same thing. Or simply posting

with hashtag dinnerwithconti

when you buy something, when you're curious, when you just notice

something that makes you think of us or makes you think of Continental Tire.

Use that hashtag

dinnerwithconti on Instagram. It goes a very

very long way to tell Conti that what we do

is very impactful for our fans.

We also have a Patreon account now. You can go to

patreon.com forward slash

DWR show where we're doing a lot of behind

the scenes content as well as race

reports, race previews

and just a little bit more of kind of what makes

the show go on and what we get up

to when we're on the road together. And honestly

I think it's been some of the most fun things we've done this year

kind of really getting to retell some of the stories

that have made this show go on for 10 years.

Including if you listen to this episode

we do have a couple of fan questions and those all

come through members of our dinner club

which is on patreon.com forward

slash DWR show.

Now, Shane Van Gosbergen drove us

to this lunch that we had

with Tony and I think he did a great job.

You know Ryan and Sean, it's

pretty comforting to know these road trips have the

protection of the WeatherTech floor liners

trademark. Correct

Shane, I agree.

But once again, none of this would be possible without the great folks

at Continental Tire and for you

guys supporting us the way you do.

Take it away

Tony Pedragon

flaming Frank's kit.

Meow.

Alright, we're going to start in

five, four, three,

two.

Hey, how are you?

What's going on? That's right.

Good. How's it going? I'm Ryan.

Nice to meet you. Hey, Sean. Nice to finally meet you.

Pull up a chair.

Yeah.

So admittedly this show

is heavily based on sports car racing because that's our background.

But we've tried very hard

to bridge the gap to most forms of racing

that we can relate to and

I'd say drag racing is probably our least skilled background

in terms of like just history

and understanding, but we're fans of it.

And we've done Garlets and Prudome

and a few others.

And so it's interesting

in the last couple of days that we've been researching you to get ready for this

is that we're both now kind of like

we should be watching this.

There's rivalries, there's beef.

There's like calling out the tech department

and it's a lot of interesting stuff,

but also just the performance side of it

is so badass, you know what I mean?

So I was just saying to Sean before he got here,

I'm like, I got to go to some of these this year.

I got to go watch this person.

You'll be officially invited.

I'm sure we'll stay connected on some level.

And I think any form

of sports,

I like football, I pay attention to NBA

mostly when the playoffs come around

because I don't really, you know, the flopping

and other new stuff.

What they consider fouls is like

when the playoffs roll around

but, you know, I really like boxing.

So, you know, what I explain to people

for the sport of NHRA, for drag racing

is, you know, you try to explain to them,

yeah, these drivers, you know, they accelerate

to 330 miles an hour.

It's a number. It's impressive.

Wow, are you sure about that?

But it's like anything else.

Once you get them there, ringside,

when you see a guy, you see the sweat flyoff

but for our sport, it's a small earthquake.

It's just...

The one guest, if I had to pick

one guy to get to a drag race,

it would be Neil Tyson to grass.

Oh, interesting.

That would be because just the physics, I think, blow people away

more than anything about the sport of drag racing.

Well, even the biology of your eyes vibrating.

What's funny, I was just thinking about this

is that in sports car racing,

my rule is always tell them what they want to hear fans

because they'll be like, how fast do you go?

Well, Lime Rock Connecticut, which is a little tiny bull ring,

we maybe go 120 miles an hour.

People have done that on their street car

on the highway in high school because they're trying to go fast.

But the corner speed average

were pretty good.

More people think.

So literally I just go 240 miles an hour.

Just tell them what they want to hear.

Oh, man, I flipped through fences before and they leave happy.

But you guys don't have to do that in drag racing

because you're literally going 300 miles an hour.

Yeah, with like a million horsepower.

So you don't have to...

You guys got a lot on your side in terms of how to catch attention.

Yeah.

It is what it is.

And I think the stigma for

drag racers are, look,

you're just racing a straight line.

Years and years ago when I drove for John Force

in the late 90s, we were involved with Ford.

So they would invite us along with

all the NASCAR drivers.

You had Rusty and Jared and it was a big Ford event.

It was like a couple of days before

the race took place there up in Detroit.

So we're kind of like fish out of water

and they had us all on stage

and, you know, of course, they're going to take their shots.

So I just drive in a straight line.

I had to defend it.

I said, look, guys, I've driven one of your cars before

and they're already turning left.

I did turn left and right in my rental car.

But, you know, I think

every form of motorsports,

every form of racing,

it deserves the respect

that people should give it.

The way I look at it is racing,

whether you're starting in carts or you're at the highest level

in F1 and IndyCar,

there's the element of risk

that's always involved,

and people forget about that until something happens.

So, you know, I respect any fellow racer,

but I do realize that,

you know, all the years that I spent racing,

you know, there was

a different skill set that was required

for that sport.

Yeah, part of its nerve and metal,

but, you know, in our sport, in the sport of drag racing,

all those little things that a driver does,

if you miss, hey, there's no second chance,

and it gets exposed.

I mean, if you stay on the clutch pedal,

you've just added an additional, you know,

10 degrees in the clutch,

it's going to work differently.

When you want to get fancy, you're feeling good,

you do a long burnout, you back up,

you know, at 10 pounds per gallon,

you've just burned off another 5 pounds,

you've changed the ballast of the car,

so just all those little things,

as an analyst now, I try to point those out,

try not to assume that the viewer knows what's going on.

Yeah, because those burnouts can burn that much fuel.

Yeah, yeah.

That's not something I've never thought about that.

Oh yeah, the weight distribution on the rear

would make a difference.

Just from a burnout, that's just a little tiny bit too long,

or too short.

Yeah, and that's why there's a dust-up occasionally,

you know, it's like this guy's staged and he held me up,

you're allowed 7 seconds once you pre-stage,

so 7 seconds before your opponent is timed out,

and some guys don't want to go there,

you know, they call it etiquette,

and some guys, it's like, screw the etiquette,

you know, it's like, there's some money on the line,

I want to get there before you,

so they're going to make them wait.

And 4 or 5 seconds in a car

seems like a long time when you're focused

and you're not trying to blink,

or you're trying not to blink,

but more importantly, you know, you're burning

more fuel than you want to,

and then there's, you know, temperature in the engine,

you know, could potentially make a little more power,

so there's a lot of little things that,

you know, play into that short amount of time.

So, because we don't have

probably the most diverse background

with drag racing,

and especially with you and your family,

we'd like to probably just do a bit more

of a traditional interview to start.

So, grew up in California.

Born and raised in SoCal.

I read about your dad a little bit,

I don't know anything about your grandfather, though.

Was he in the car or stuff?

No, no, my grandfather was,

he was a sheriff of Bernalillo County.

I was at Place of New Mexico.

Yeah, yeah, so we grew up,

it's funny, because, you know,

I don't know if I'm ready for that,

because, you know, my boys are 17 and 19,

and I'm just now starting to tell them, you know, things.

Look, and I tell them,

hey, this is no reflection on me.

Maybe when I was younger, but not.

It's a different time.

Yeah, so, you know, we,

yeah, born and raised in Southern California,

but, you know, we lived in Texas,

we did some time in New Mexico,

and you know, some other places,

and I tell my kids, it's like, you know,

dad, why so many places?

It's like, eh, I think your grandfather was on the run.

You know, it's like, was he a

was he a traveling salesman?

Yeah, he sold things.

Got to shoot out with some cops, okay?

Oh, okay, wow, okay.

That's our second shootout story this year.

So, grandpa, Patrick, what was his name?

Uh, Manuel.

Okay, so Manuel,

Pedro gone, he lived on the edge.

No, no, it was my dad.

Oh, your dad?

Oh, Flamin' Frank.

No, no, no, my grandfather was on the up and up.

Yeah, which is why your dad was a pro.

Well, we ran to New Mexico to, you know,

to kind of hang out with him for a little while.

Manuel Patrickon was a sheriff.

Yeah, he was buttoned up,

and then some of that turned Flamin' Frank

into a little bit of a hellion.

Well, yeah, I mean, the real story goes that,

you know, my grandfather left, you know,

so my dad was raised by his mom,

you know, my grandmother.

So they grew up in Texas, you know, in El Paso.

Okay.

And, you know, my dad used to tell us,

it's like the original, you know, like,

like lowriders, you know, cholos.

Yeah.

You know, that all started in, you know, in El Paso.

Not that he was.

Yeah.

You know, my dad was, you know, he was...

No, but El Paso in like the 50s had to be another world.

It was, yeah, yeah, so,

but, you know, but we were exposed to drag racing

by, not by my grandfather, but by my dad.

Got it.

Well, did you, you were born and towards,

did you grow up in Soquel?

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, born and raised.

So the drag racing scene in the 60s and 70s had to be a thing.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like my memories of drag racing are pretty vague,

you know, because I was born in 65 and he raced in the late,

he raced in the mid 60s, but what I remember

was probably 68, 69.

And the only thing I remember,

the smell of nitro, the smell of burned rubber,

and I just remember I was probably hanging out

at the back of our station wagon,

but at Lion's Dragstrip in Long Beach.

But I just remember when it was popping and just seeing,

you know, the header flames,

because back then they didn't burn near as much fuel.

So they would burn the fuel and you could see

that header flame come out.

Now they just run so much volume through the car,

you see raw fuel spilling out and they do that

to keep the engine cool so it doesn't scuff piston.

So, but I remember that.

I just remember looking out and thinking,

and how do you, it's like, man,

that is the coolest thing ever.

So those are my memories of,

and, you know, being on the run.

Back then we thought, we're on the road.

We're catching fish and we're going to eat it right here

and we're on the spot.

But, you know, when I got a little bit older,

I realized it's like, yeah, we're on the run.

Yeah.

So, so what was dad's business?

We grew up around trucks.

Yeah.

Trucks, heavy equipment and, you know,

a real neat story.

And I share this.

I just told Alexis to Julia because I saw one of her posts

and it was, it had gone in 60 seconds.

And when we were kids, we still have our,

you know, our property there in Southern California

that we grew up on.

And my dad was friends with Toby Halecki.

Well, Toby Halecki was the original producer

that made Gone in 60 Seconds.

Oh, cool.

You know, Gone in 60 Seconds, that was a cult classic.

And, you know, you had all the original, the crashes,

and Eleanor, you know, when Parnelli was in it,

because, you know, they're in Southern California.

And our truck, one of our trucks,

it was Trans-All Trucking, was the name of my dad's company.

And that truck was in the movie.

So when he stole the big rig, that was our truck.

And I remember going to our shop and they put it up on Jack's

and Cruz was probably, you know, 12 years old

or my older brother.

And he did all the shifting for the audio

for that scene.

But the cool part of the story was,

Toby and his group, there were no actors in that movie.

All of those guys that starred and played roles in that movie,

they were all Car thieves.

That's no way.

It's just, you know, nothing to be real proud.

Look, it is what it is, right?

So we're kids.

They used to come over.

It's also 60 years ago.

I think we're safe.

Yeah, let's clarify that.

But, you know, they used to come over to my dad's shop

and we'd, especially when the movie came out,

we thought, we'd look at him and think,

these guys are cool.

They're stealing cars.

So there's a coolness factor to some of that.

So are they stealing cars?

There's like a chop shop thing going on?

Yeah, back then.

Yeah, that part of town in Gardena, that whole area,

even Escott, you know, I think they closed it

because originally they wanted to build and develop that land, right?

The land became more valuable than the racetrack.

Yeah.

But buried underneath all of those buildings were junkyards.

Oh, wow.

You know, so you can imagine the scrap metal, the tires.

Yeah, all this stuff.

Forget about, you know, the EPA.

Yeah, forget about what was evaporating.

Yeah.

But I think one of the first buildings they put on the corner,

it wasn't on Escott, on the corner near that property,

once they built it, and it was probably, you know, 20 stories,

it settled.

Yeah.

And it started breaking windows out.

And so they kind of abandoned the building.

But that whole area was junkyard.

So you could imagine what was going on.

You know, it borders LA, East LA, Englewood, Compton.

So yeah, it might have been not Carjack City,

but yeah, they were stealing cars and burying.

The things were showing up there.

Picking parts off of them.

I got you.

Okay.

So Flamin' Frank spent some time out there

and eventually had to run.

Well, that was when he was younger.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we were, you know, of course, when we were young,

I remember a little bit of it, but yeah, we got older.

And, you know, that's when he started his business.

You know, we grew up around trucks and heavy equipment.

I remember, I think I was 12 or 13 years old.

He was taking a grader, you know, a road grader to an auction.

And he asked me, he said, do you want to paint it?

And, you know, we used to go,

we didn't have an average upbringing after school.

No parks, no baseball, no little league.

It's like, all right, you're going to the shop.

But that's all, when that's all you know,

it's such a normal, we expect,

we thought everybody did that same thing.

But I remember painting that grader.

He gave me a, it was a spray pot and it was this caterpillar yellow.

And I painted the whole thing.

I missed a lot of spots.

But when I got home that night in my nose,

my eyelashes were sticking together.

I had all this caterpillar orange paint on me.

And I remember I had to like get tight soap just to wash it off.

So that's, you know, that was, that was the way we were raised.

How did your mom and dad meet?

My mom's side of the family's from San Antonio, Texas.

My dad's from El Paso.

So, you know, they probably, probably some time around there.

But I do know that, you know, my mom, when my dad was racing,

you know, she just tells us the coolest stories.

Like, you know, he had an open trailer.

He would carry his, it was a top fuel car.

So it was a front engine dragster with that Fiat Topolino coupe

that he chopped and built.

And back then, you know, they weren't, they weren't sanctioned races.

They would go from, they would race on a Friday night.

Saturday, they'd go here.

There was a track promoter that's going to pay him to go there.

So she told us, you know, when she,

they had a station wagon, an open trailer.

And she said, you know, he had to be here.

He raced here on Friday.

He had to be here on Saturday.

And he said, his instructions to her,

don't drive over 20 miles an hour.

So he was actually on the trailer working on the car

while she was driving it.

So, you know, so, so she was there, you know,

and, hey, the racing upbringing is definitely different than,

you know, the sporting.

Was this fun for him?

Or was he like hand to mouth living off of prize money?

What, what was his role?

No, no, he loved it.

So it sounds like the diesel business or something like

basically trucks and tractors and everything was kind of like

the family business.

That kind of came after, that kind of came after,

you know, what he did to make a living.

I don't really know, you know, Dale Armstrong,

who was, you know, very renowned tuner,

you know, he tuned for Kenny Bernstein,

you know, he's in the Drag Racing Hall of Fame.

You know, he used to tell before he passed away,

anytime we'd see him at the races,

I mean, he said, you know, your dad and I went,

you know, it was back in Chino in Southern California.

He said, yeah, we pulled up to this gate and, you know,

your dad stopped at the store and got this ground beef

and, you know, rolled it into balls.

He said, yeah, I didn't know what he was doing.

And I guess he went up to the fence and he started throwing them.

Well, this business had, I think it was cattle.

They might have been rustling cattle,

but there was dogs there.

So he said he figured it out.

My dad would throw the meatballs and the dogs would chase him

and then he said, all right, let's go.

Let's go in the gate.

So, but I think it had something to do with cattle.

And again, Chino, where we grew up,

there was a lot of farming.

Hey, whose idea was this?

I'm a big fan of that.

This is what we live for.

Everybody has a story, right?

But we were young.

Look, you know, I was, I can, I don't remember any of that.

My mom has an article, you know, an old photo album, right?

Remember the old photo albums where you peel the page?

There's an article, an old black and white newspaper

in the house that we lived in in Chino.

When we lived there, they found dynamite on the roof.

What?

So if anyone were to ask me, it's like, well, what,

how did he get there?

What was my dad involved with?

I couldn't tell you.

And I was so young and, you know, and we just,

we tended to our business and, you know,

my mom and sisters lived in Palm Springs

and I was 16 when my dad died, you know.

So, and then we had, you know, we had a trucking business.

So it was trucking.

We bought and sold trucks and heavy equipment.

And, you know, at 16 until the time we started racing,

you know, it's just a matter of trying to survive

and, you know, get a paycheck

and keep, you know, keep what your dad left for you.

Yeah.

So you grew up seeing the racetrack at what point,

I don't know whether it was you or Cruz,

at what point do you start looking at drag racing

as either a hobby or a career move?

Well, we were obsessed with it.

Probably as obsessed as a young kid, 9, 10, 12,

11, 12 years old.

We, my oldest brother, Frank, Frankie.

Did he go like Frank Junior?

What was his?

Frank Junior. Yeah.

Yeah, we call him Frankie, but he was Junior.

But, you know, when you grow up around trucks

and you drive in forklifts and you're operating equipment,

you know, at, you know, 9, 10 years old,

you know, my dad would trust us.

And, you know, we would move stuff around the yard.

But frankly, I had a car when he was 12.

So, you know, it was just a little station wagon.

I remember we all got together, we painted it.

But my dad, he supported us going to the races.

You know, we were just down the street

from gasoline alley in Torrance.

So, he would take us when he could to the races.

It's like, dad, there's a race at Irwindale this weekend.

There's a race in Orange County.

He could, if he could take us, he would take us.

But he had a lot of friends.

The guy named Frank Rupert was Dale Armstrong.

It was Billy Williams.

So, he had a lot of, he knew a lot of people

that he used to race with in gasoline alley.

So, he would call them up and say,

hey, can you take these guys to the race?

So, we would just hop in the back of their dually.

And we would ride on the freeway.

And once we got to the track, we were good.

But I do remember when, I think Frankie was 12.

That means that Cruz was 11.

You know, I was probably nine and a half.

He was driving us to the races.

You know?

I remember getting pulled over with him when he was 14.

We went to the grocery store in Torrance.

And we got pulled over.

Frankie was driving.

You know, I was just in the passenger.

We didn't know any better.

We just thought this was, and I remember thinking back,

I remember when the officer walked up,

I don't know if he made a legal turn,

but he said, you know, driver's license, your registration.

And he says, I don't have a driver's license.

And I'm just, you know, kind of getting scared.

Yeah, right.

And he said, when he asked him, he said, how old are you?

Well, he asked whose car it was.

He says, it's my car.

He says, how old are you?

He said, I'm 14.

You know?

And then he said, step out of the car.

That's when I got, you know.

Yeah, right, right, right, right.

But I just remember, you know, they called my dad.

They went to the house.

I remember Frankie saying, do you want to follow us?

And the officer said, no.

No, no, no.

You're done.

I don't want to follow you home.

So, but yeah, we just, you know, we grew up around knowing that my dad raced.

So we used to look at all the publications and it's like, wow,

dad is in the company.

He's on this page with, you know, James Warren.

There's Don Garlitz.

There's Don Perdome.

Yeah.

So a lot of the stories were good.

They were cool when he was racing.

And, you know, some of them were, it's like, yeah,

he remembers his friend John Mulligan who was racing and, you know,

got in a wreck and, you know, was barrel rolling and tumbling and, you know,

some pretty graphic stuff.

Yeah.

But, you know, those are the things that, you know, he would share with us.

And, and I think looking back, there was kind of a, you know, method to his madness.

It's like, I think he could see the writing on the wall.

He knows the picture.

Yeah.

But we were obsessed.

But I would say that, you know, the first one to really, because there was three of

us, right?

I'm the youngest cruiser in the middle and my oldest brother, Frank.

Cruz was the one that, that stepped out and rebelled because I think when he was 13,

I showed up, you know, at, we just call it the yard.

I showed up at our, at our shop and we had a bunch of old trailers in the back.

And when I got out of school, my stepmother, you know, took me off,

dropped me off and my dad wasn't there.

And so Cruz said, he goes, Hey, come here.

I want to show you something.

And we just walked in the back.

You know, I knew exactly, we used to play back there.

And so he opened this door and he had like a piece of paneling and there was some stuff

that he had something covered.

And when he started to uncover it, the first thing that I saw was this wide slick.

And I saw a pipe.

So he had a go cart.

He said, look what I bought.

He said, I saved up, you know, it was probably four or 500 bucks, but he bought a go cart.

And I was just, I was standing there thinking that is the coolest thing and dad's going

to kill you.

That's what I remember thinking.

It's like, how are you going to pull this off?

And he said, I haven't told him yet, but you know, like I've run it after he leaves.

We used to drive it around in our yard.

So yeah, so that's, you know, when I look back and think what triggered me or what triggered

us, it was Cruz that, you know, kind of stepped out and risked it all.

But you know, things changed.

When my dad died, I was 16, you know, I was, I think I was a senior.

And yeah, I think everything changed.

Most people don't realize that Cruz would have probably been racing.

I think he would have supported that.

But, but me, no, I loved architecture because I was taking a class long before computers,

you know, we were doing all the mechanical drawings.

So I look back and think, you know, there's probably a good chance I wouldn't have been

racing, you know, if my dad would have stayed alive.

So he died in a plane crash and he left us, you know, a business that we owe taxes on.

And, you know, at that age, you know, we, we knew enough, but we didn't really know how

to run a business.

So, you know, a lot happened at an early age for us.

Now you say you would have been racing if your dad was around, like he would have stopped

you from it or?

I think I would have pursued other things.

You know, I would have stayed in, you know, stayed in high school.

But, you know, I think, I think he, I think he had different plans.

I think he would have pushed me a different direction to do different things.

But, you know, when he died, you know, our focus was just, you know, it's like, what do we do?

We, you know, we've got to run the business.

We brought in a good friend of his that was one of his business partners that owned dealerships

in L.A. because we wanted to keep, you know, the building.

We wanted to keep the property.

We, you know, we wanted to try to build on it.

And, you know, the racing thing kind of came along because a friend or a good friend of ours,

it was named Joe Paisano.

And Cruz was very close to him because, you know, he had, he had a hauler and we worked

on trucks.

So he had wanted to put air ride on his trailer and, you know, he'd bring it over.

So that was our connection to racing.

You know, we stayed close to Joe after, after hours, you know, we'd go to his shop and if

we could clean anything up.

And I think that was kind of Cruz's in.

He became close with Joe.

Cruz drove trucks at an early age.

He was started going to the races with Paisano because Paisano ran a nitro funny car.

And, you know, a Joe took a liking to Cruz.

You know, he knew that we worked hard.

So he, with the help of Joe Paisano, that got Cruz's foot in the door to drive an alcohol dragster.

And another funny story that guy named Charlie Marquez was from Compton, right?

Just on the other side of Gardena.

So Cruz, I went with him once or twice to work on the car, but he used to, he used to tell

me he'd, he'd go to the shop, you know, Charlie Marquez, his house is in Compton.

The dragster was in the garage.

And I think one night they were working and Cruz heard, you know, some gunshots or what

sounded like gunshots.

And he looked at Charlie.

He says, you know, Charlie was African American.

He looked at Charlie.

He said, he goes, Hey, while he's working on the car, he said, is that, is that gunfire?

He goes, nah, man, that's some fireworks or something.

Yeah.

So, but, you know, more importantly, it wasn't a good car.

It wasn't competitive.

They, you know, they didn't qualify at most of the race they went to, but that's the end.

You know, that was the end for Cruz.

And, you know, as a younger brother, I kind of followed, I followed his lead.

So when he started doing it, go to the races, help him work on the car.

We had a truck that it was a working truck that would haul in dumps and bottom dumps.

And they would have drag diesel truck races at Orange County.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, right.

Yeah.

So, you know, here again, Cruz said, Hey, we've got this Peter built we built.

And it's got an eight V 92, which is a Detroit, you know, diesel.

Most of the guys that were racing trucks, they had the, you know, comments like a 350 put bigger

injectors just like you could now, but bigger injectors and it'll turn a diesel into, you

know, quite the animal.

So, so we were doing the same thing.

Cruz would go and race, but when my dad was alive, we cruise, we had a 53 Kenworth.

I didn't go that night.

But Cruz went to Orange County.

He entered a truck race with that 53 Kenworth.

It was a three axle to be clear.

We're talking about semi trucks, semi trucks.

Yeah.

It was a working awesome.

It was a working truck.

And I just remember he got home late and, and my dad was there and he had this big trophy

that was as tall as me.

Yeah.

And he had a check.

He had a check in his hand for like, it was like $1,500.

Dude, that's awesome.

That, that actually, you know, I think my dad kind of changed the way he was approaching

racing with Cruz anyway.

You know, that didn't change anything with me, but my older brothers, you know, they

were, you know, they were older than I was.

So they were more involved with him at work.

And, you know, my routine was just go to school and come back.

But, but I, you know, again, I look back and I'd say, yeah, Cruz, my older brother opened

the door, you know, for racing, he kind of scratched the surface with my dad.

And, you know, here we are.

Yeah.

Kind of to close out the chapter on Frank.

He has a really funny nickname and I've read the reason why, but I want to hear your side

of it.

Well, World's Fastest Mexican, Flaming Mexican, Flaming, Flaming Mexican, you know,

That's not what I read.

Well, okay, which, which,

The tires being on fire.

Yeah.

Well, okay.

World's Fastest Coupe.

Okay.

Look, there was, there was, he had on the back of his car and Cruz and I did this restoration,

a recreation.

Yeah.

It's a recreation of the car.

And on the back of it, it says, Adios Gringo.

Yeah.

You know, it's,

God bless him.

It's funny because, you know, even now it's like, there's a brand of boots and, and Western

wear.

It's called, you know, it's called Gringo.

Okay.

So, you know, it depends on who you ask.

It depends on who wants to be sensitive, you know, about, about World's Fastest Mexican.

But, you know, you, you're rewind, you know, to the, to the 1970s.

Yeah.

Right.

So World's Fastest Coupe was, it was the type of car that he built.

So it was essentially, it was a front engine dragster that my dad built.

He built a chassis.

Yeah.

He was a good fabricator.

He understood engines.

He understood things that even I don't, I tuned my car, but I don't really know about, I know

what camshafts do, but my dad dabbled in certain things that that name came about because

he built a coupe.

It was a 38 Fiat Topolino and it was a lot of guys, a very popular car when it comes

to racing, especially drag racing.

It's just, it's got a cool look.

But what my dad did that made it even cooler was he would chop the, he chopped the top.

Yeah.

But he kind of gave it a little bit of a rake that looked like the Batmobile.

It does.

Yeah.

And he put the engine in a certain place.

But I think whether it was an accident or not, the, the location of the engine in relation

to where the exhaust headers came out, we're pretty close to the rear tire.

So when he made runs, the tires, the fender well would, it would actually catch on fire.

I finally saw a video of this.

Right.

Only two videos that I know of that exist, one of them is black and white.

And so growing up, we heard, you know, which, which is the legend of that car.

Yeah.

And we would ask our dad, you know, I remember when I was 12 years old, 13, we would ask

him, it's like, dad, how did those tires, how'd you, how'd you, because we were hanging

around racers.

Right.

And one of this, this guy named Bushmaster, George Schreiber, he had all the answers.

He said, oh yeah, your dad used to dip them in thinner.

So we'd come home after a race and I was like, dad, this guy said, you know, you dipped them

in thinner.

He goes, no, that dumb ass does it.

No.

Bushmaster's full of shit.

You know, and, or, or was it a pump that you had, you shot something in it?

So my dad, you know what he told us when we were kids is he'd give us this smirk.

He had this grin.

He would say it was the cam, right?

So the joke there, if you know engines, it's like, I've got a different cam in it.

I'll make it more power than everybody else.

Yeah.

So we just thought, okay, we're not going to get an answer now, but we never thought

it was that important to understand like what made the tires light on fire.

So, you know, he earned the name, you know, my dad played up, you know, his, his, uh,

the flamin' Mexican thing.

Hispanic heritage.

Was that not a, because I mean, the Latino car culture in Southern California is really

big.

Was there not much in the drag racing world?

Not then.

There were, you know, my dad used to tell us it was a, it was a race named Bobby Tapia.

You know, Tapia, that's, you know, that's a Hispanic name.

And so my dad, you know, became popular.

You know, there were track promoters that said, Hey, frankly, you know, we're going

to promote you.

I see some of the ads, you know, World's Fastest Mexican, you know, Torchmaster.

It's awesome.

And, and my dad used to tell us that Bobby Tapia, you know, who was, it was, you know,

Mexican, he used to walk up to my dad.

He was pretty fast.

He was winning races.

He would walk up to my dad and say, Hey, what am I Irish?

You know, so, so my dad wasn't the only one, but one thing that he understood, he understood

that it promoted.

Now my dad's dragster, it was, it ran in competition back then before they, it was

a top fuel class.

They called it competition eliminator.

So when, when my dad would race and book it to certain races that would guarantee him

a purse, you put the Fiat body on it.

But when the winter nationals rolled around, he'd take that body off, it would shed off

some weight and it was just a top fuel dragster.

So it's kind of cool.

There was 32 car fields and we'd see his name along with, you know, some of the racers

that, that made it, you know, turned it into a big business.

He passed away in a plane crash.

Yeah.

Do you know any details about it?

I couldn't find anything.

We did a lot of business with trucks, you know, with a lot of, you know, a lot of dealers

in Mexico and, and, you know, I just remember I used to race BMX bikes and I just, you

know, my memory is, is my oldest brother showed up at the track one day and he, you know,

it's like I was in the middle, I just crossed the finish line, you know, I was going to

another heat race and I saw my brother at the fence and I thought, that doesn't look

right.

There's something wrong.

He says, Hey, just come on.

Let's go.

And I thought, okay.

And it just really didn't dawn on me.

So when I got home, you know, he told me my dad had crashed somewhere in Mexico.

It was just weather related, you know, it was a weather related crash.

But, you know, that was one of my, one of my dad's hobbies, you know, was airplanes.

I remember if we weren't at our truck shop, we'd go down to Compton airport because we

had a hangar there.

So he started with a 152, 172.

We actually flew, you know, we would, we'd go up on a Sunday and fly with them.

I didn't like flying as much as I like to be in control of certain things.

I just didn't like the idea of, you know, headwind, crosswind.

I, my two older brothers, they took flying lessons.

I think one of them soloed, but, you know, just my dad loved it.

We didn't care for it, but we, you know, we'd hop in the plane and he'd take us fly us

to Bakersfield.

He'd drop us off right next door to the drag strip and he'd say, pick you up at seven o'clock,

be here.

So, you know, that's that.

I think the flying supplemented the racing part.

Did Frankie race at all or was this all Cruz's deal?

No, no, Frankie got into racing.

He was doing like go-karts and USAC and stuff.

Is that right?

Well, Frankie and Cruz race carts a lot.

Yeah.

In fact, you know, because we grew up in Southern California, so they'd go to Ventura, Adams

and Riverside, which I think is still there.

So, so they kind of did the Southern California racing tour.

You know, it's funny because there was three of us, but I was the youngest and I looked

back and it's like, hey, how come, how come I didn't go kart racing?

Well, somebody had to stay and watch.

It was like, I was the youngest.

You're going to stay and watch.

We're going racing.

And at the time I was okay with that.

I wasn't as obsessed about racing as I became.

I, you know, I had other hobbies and then he, you know, Frankie went on to race an alcohol

dragster and there was a, there was a time that the three of us were racing, competing

in the same class in Nitro Funny Car.

And I know there was a little stretch and this was probably either in the late nineties

or maybe early 2000s that he won a race, Cruz won a race and then I won a race.

So we won consecutive races and, you know, most people think it's like none of this was

by design.

I mean, I've always told people there's two ways you can race.

You know, you have a lot of, you have enough money.

You can go up on, on Elon Musk or you go up with Richard Branson, right?

You go to the moon, you can go racing if you have enough money and there's the other way

to do it is, you know, you catch some breaks along the way, surround yourself with the

right people, you know, and, and when that opportunity comes knocking, you know, be prepared

and do a good job.

So, so Frankie managed to get in a funny car, SOTY Cruz, and I tell you when it started

for me was when I started going to the races with Cruz and helping him on the car.

Yeah.

He's drag racing at this point.

He was driving for, you know, he drove the, for Charlie Marquez from Compton and then

he, he took a pretty, pretty good step up and driving a pretty competitive car.

And the car owner was Gary Turner and Gary Turner at the time owned GT bicycles.

Oh yeah.

He was from Huntington Beach.

Yeah.

He had a very competitive car.

Yeah.

I remember we wound up with some after that, but, you know, so that all of a sudden, you

know, we're going to the races, he's in a competitive car.

So what I did was I had an El Camino, my car that I fixed up and I wanted to go to this

racing school in Florida and I thought, I don't really have the money.

I think at the time it was probably 2,500 bucks or 3,000 by the time you, you know,

you buy a ticket, you fly out there, you got to get a hotel and it's X to go through

the course.

It's a two day course.

You can get your license in an alcohol funny car.

So that was my focus.

I thought, you know, if I can get a license in a car, that might give me a, that might

give me a better chance to promote, you know, something in it.

And that's where it started, still took a couple of years, but that's where it started

for me.

But one of the things that I think that really made it happen was when I started to have

a conversation through a friend that said, you know, I know this guy up in Montana.

He's got an alcohol dragster.

My dad knew him.

So I called him up one day and he was interested in running the car, but it was just a conversation.

He said, yeah, and I think it was, I think it was drinking when I, I could just tell.

I thought, wow, this guy sounds drunk.

But I thought, okay, at least, at least I'm having a conversation with somebody.

So I got on the phone.

I would drive by city of industry all the time and I'd notice there was a big pens oil sign.

Didn't know what it was, what the business was, but I more or less knew that if I brought

something to the table, that would, that would help my chances.

So I remember looking up the phone book, because there's a phone book back then, no Google.

See, that's why I got to explain it.

I looked in the phone book, I got the phone number and just as luck would have it, a guy

by the name of Dale Rush answered the phone.

And years and years later, I never realized that Dale Rush headed up motorsports for

IndyCar, for NASCAR, for drag racing.

It was early 80s, mid 80s.

This was in the mid 80s.

Yeah, mid 80s.

I didn't know that.

I didn't learn this.

All I know was a guy by the name of Dale Rush answered the phone.

He worked out of that location in some place in Texas.

Of course, all these years later, I got sponsored by, you know, Quaker State, which was owned

by pens oil.

But he answered the phone that day.

And I said, hi, Dale, you know, my name is Tony Pedragon, I'm looking to race.

One of the things that would help if we could pull some program together, I'm looking for

some type of support program for oil, because he told me what we needed for the car.

And I thought, I'm calling pens oil.

Not because it was the brand of choice, because I saw the sign off the freeway.

So just, you know, just stroke of luck.

And what he told me, it's, it just, I'll never forget, I wish I could have met him.

But he just, there wasn't any hesitation.

He said, Tony, I know who you are.

And I think he must have known Cruz's name.

And maybe he knew of my dad.

I don't know.

I never really asked him.

All I know is that I was surprised that he said, I'm going to send you a couple of pallets

of what you need.

Wow.

So, and then the other thing, so that really got my wheels turning.

Yeah.

And I remember, oh, this is easy.

You're factory now.

Yeah.

That's right.

I'm going to go to the moon now.

Yeah.

But I remember doing the same thing with, with spark plugs.

And I called somebody.

Based on like no results at this point.

No real anything.

Yeah.

You're just cold calling.

Yeah.

So I pulled, I pulled the same thing off.

You know, and if you look at, you know, some of the, the things that these cars consume

so much of, but it was enough when I called him, when I made that second phone call,

I said, I have, I have pens oil and I have championed spark plugs.

And that was it.

That's pretty legit.

He said, okay, let's go.

He kind of had to dust off his equipment.

He used to race.

And he was thinking of breaking it out again.

So your guy in Montana basically went to sit up, got all of these.

John Mitchell.

It may not be there, but I'm thinking this is the time.

Sure.

This is 40 years ago.

And we're going to, we're saying this based on everybody we've interviewed.

There's one common thing among all racers who get started, especially ones without any

real funding.

There is a con or a lie somewhere in their story.

What did you have to say to the guy?

Yeah, they lied about their age, their experience, whatever it is.

Or what your real backing was, maybe?

Yeah, exactly.

I've got pens oil backing me.

No, I think for me, and I may, if I'm sorry, if I'm the exception, it was, it was a connection.

I think what really did it, I mean, the oil and the plugs helped.

It may have, you know, tipped the scale.

But for me, it was the connection that he had with my dad.

It's like, you know, I knew, I knew your dad.

I raised with him.

And, you know, if your dad has some credibility, then, then yeah.

So he was, he wasn't just a drinking buddy.

Come to find out after.

Yeah, these guys spent some time together.

But I didn't know it at the time.

Right.

Frank's Pedrogon, Frank Pedrogon's son called them.

Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, so that, you know, that, that carries someone.

Even if it's, you know, if there wasn't the racing connection, it's like, you know,

we've all learned over the course of racing.

If it's kind of like the mafia, you know, they call it voucher, voucher for this guy.

Yeah.

So that what that means is, yeah, you're giving your word, your recommendation to

this person.

He's a good fella.

Yeah.

He's a patch.

Exactly.

And that's all, that's all some guys need.

Okay.

Right.

The con wasn't anything you sold them on.

It was whatever, whatever Frank Sr. did.

Yeah.

Yeah, there might have been other cons after, but not at that, at that time and

moment.

So that opened the door for me.

We went up to Oregon and raced.

I got my license and, you know, but that, you know, that, that was like the first

step, you know, it's like I was on probably, you know, rounding first base.

And with that experience, you know, it's kind of like Cruz, you know, Cruz, it's

funny how not just the two of us, but you look at racers like Ron Capps and, and a

lot of others like us, you know, Ron's another guy that he grew up around it.

You know, his dad influenced him.

And, you know, it's like, well, how are you going to go racing?

You know, we didn't really have the money.

You know, and you look at today's motorsports, I don't care what form of

racing it is, there's some guys out there.

They, you know, they start a business.

They're successful.

I want to go racing.

So the regional scene starts picking up for you basically.

So basically with very little experience, you've got Penn's oil and champion backing

within reason.

You start and you start winning races.

When did you start showing up on the NHRA national scene?

Everybody.

Well, any driver has a story similar to myself needs needs a, that needs a big

break.

Now I didn't have to come our way here, but I'll tell you it's funny.

I remember opening up speed sport and seeing an article that John force is

going to field a second funny car.

I said, Hey, what's going on here?

Because let me back up a little bit.

So I went from the alcohol car into a top field dragster.

That was the big break for me.

The car owner was Larry Minor.

And the connection there was, was Cruz.

So Cruz hopped in a nitro funny car in his first year.

He won a championship.

It was a big sponsor McDonald's.

It was a big, big time, big time team owner, Larry Minor, multi car team.

So I think a couple of years in, I was getting experience in the alcohol car.

So I was at some of the big races that they were competing at, you know, name

over the PA, which, which really is amounts to not much.

But what happened was Larry Minor, who was a team owner, the team wanted to move

to Indy, right?

Logistically, Indianapolis worked better because, you know, things started

to evolve in our sport, carbon fiber and these lightweight materials and in

access to, to good crew members, you know, a little bit of a crossover

between our sport and Indy car.

So Larry's was in Southern California.

He was a big potato farmer.

So he took one of the cars, one of their backup cars.

And he said, you know, I still, he liked working on the car.

He wanted to tune the car.

So he grabbed a bunch of his buddies that were racers, sand drag racers.

And he was looking for a driver and he knew that I had experience in an

alcohol car, which was a similar background that crews had taken.

So that was a natural.

And so I drove, I started driving that car, but we, we'd compete at three

or four races a year, but it was a top fuel car.

So now all of a sudden I'm, I'm licensed in a dragster lining up against

and doing a burnout against Dom Perdom.

But the big break for me, that was very crucial experience was when I drove

a nitro funny car and this is when the sponsorship went from Larry Miner

to Joe Gibbs and that meant that crews and the other driver left.

And they, I mean, who isn't going to go for Joe Gibbs?

If that's where the McDonald's sponsorship goes.

So that was a business decision that crews made.

So that left a car owner, a couple of different types of cars and just me, right?

So here again, just, you know, stroke of luck that Larry asked me, Miner,

you want to race a top fuel car, you want to run the funny car.

He was kind of partial to the funny car because the funny car won the championship.

He didn't like the fact that crews left.

I think he understood it.

So I think he, there was a little vendetta there that he wanted to run a funny car.

He says, you know what, you're younger, you're the younger brother.

We can get this funny car.

Let's, let's go beat, go beat your brother.

We're not going to run all the races, but we're going to go try to beat his

ass once or twice.

So that was it.

That was, that was the opportunity for me.

And that segwayed into the door opening for John Force.

Now you drive for John Force.

That's, that's like driving for Roger Penske.

That's, yeah.

So, so how that went about, how that happened was I read an article.

I was driving the funny car for Larry, but we would only, we only competed

at three or four races and, you know, I wanted to be at all of them.

So now the, you know, the needle's in pretty good.

And I remember reading that article, I thought, well, John Force is going

to run a second car and Ron caps.

I mean, that's, I got just the same experience.

If not more, he didn't have experience in a funny car.

He was in a top fuel dragster.

I had experience in a funny car.

And I told Cruz, I said, what, where did this happen?

How did this come about?

Cause at that point Force didn't have multiple cars, right?

He didn't.

No, John Force was dominating his winning championships.

Cruz is the only one that snagged one of the championships from him.

So I just remember Cruz telling me something, you know, I heard how

John gets all of his sponsors and he just hounds these guys.

He just calls them.

Yeah.

And when he said that to me, well, it was part of it, right?

I mean, obviously people, sponsors like winners that is winning, but

he had this stick, but I just, that little comment that Cruz made to me,

I remember thinking, I'm going to start calling him.

I'm going to call him up.

I'm going to, I'm going to John Force, John Force.

Yeah.

So that was the BS.

I guess you're right.

I didn't realize it was a BS story behind, behind my story.

And there is the con for me was that I heard the article was out, but what

a stroke of luck.

Um, I, I started calling John is his shop was in Yorba Linda.

It wasn't far from me.

I, his daughter would answer.

I'd say, yes, uh, is John there?

Who's calling told her who I was.

And he said, well, okay.

He was, he was probably there, but I'll leave a message for him.

So I did this every day for about two weeks.

And I know it was a little obnoxious, but she was very nice.

And I said, I just, if he's busy, I understand it.

I just want to let him know that I'm calling.

Okay.

So the funny part was after like the second week, I could hear her.

She didn't put me on hold.

She covered the phone and I could hear her say, this guy,

she said, dad, it's Tony Pedragon again, and I could hear him.

I could hear him tell him, tell her, tell him, I'll call him back.

And if I'm, if I'm hiring anyone based on how much they call, he's hired.

So, you know, it's working.

If you hear that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that was, that was the first spark for me.

But what I didn't know was happening behind the scenes was that Larry

that I was driving for, you didn't want to keep racing.

Oh, but he had a trailer because he had a two car team.

I won a lot of two car teams back then.

He had a trailer that worked out of the left side.

So of course, John, he's in the market for a trailer.

Yeah, he knows Larry Miner is selling his equipment.

I didn't know that and now he can put two trailers together basically to have

both sides. Yes.

Yes. So, so again, unbeknownst to me, I was in good with Larry and Larry said,

why don't you look at Tony?

Hire him. I'll give you a deal.

I was actually essentially thrown into a trailer transaction.

But I didn't know how I didn't know any of the Yankees.

You know, I mean, like, to the best.

Well, the other thing, the other thing that was happening was, you know, if you,

if you know John, John's a little bit of a obsessive compulsive, right?

Look, he's been very successful.

You've got to say it's worked.

Who's going to argue?

Yeah, who's going to argue with that formula?

But what I didn't know was that week,

Caps had gone on a cruise with his wife from from what I heard.

Oh, OK.

John could not get ahold of them.

Oh, that doesn't bother John.

Because there was no reception.

Meanwhile, this lucky guy, this lucky sack, you know what?

Just so happens to be calling.

So it's like all these things were happening at the same time.

All I know is we were at Thanksgiving, myself and Cruz, my mom, my sisters.

We'd go to Palm Springs.

We were having Thanksgiving dinner.

And, you know, I had a house.

I had the the phone recorder, right?

It was the mechanical one.

One little cassette. Yeah, I would call

and I, you know, punch my code in and there was a voicemail.

Tony, this is and he clear his voice.

This is John Forrest.

And I thought it was a prank.

I thought it was a prank call.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you call 14 times and it's all back.

You just figure it's never happened.

I listened to it again and then I hung up my phone

and I was sitting opposite of Cruz.

And I remember just sitting.

I was trying to process.

What did I just hear and who did I just hear that from?

I remember thinking that and I looked over at Cruz and I said,

you know, John Forrest just left me a message

and he said he wants to talk to me.

Now, Cruz had just like blank look on his face, right?

Which I think we were both in shock.

But anyway, that's that was that was that to me.

That was the one moment that I thought this this is,

you know, this is a big opportunity.

Yeah. Now, does that mean he called you on Thanksgiving Day?

Oh, yeah. So does that mean that John Forrest

only stops working with everything he's got going on?

He's like, oh, I guess I call him back.

I had no idea what I was in for.

I will call you three in the morning.

That's when he's at his best.

But I just I'll never forget that.

And the first interview that I had with him,

I remember I went to a shop that's very modest.

It was a 10,000 square foot building and I walked in and,

you know, I sat I sat at his desk and we just talked.

You know, we talked a little bit about racing.

And, you know, he said, I've been talking to Larry Minor

and I'm thinking, oh, really?

I didn't know any of that.

And, you know, he said, you know, I've kind of been talking to some people.

And I never told him.

I was like, well, the reason I'm here is because I read that article.

And, you know, I just I didn't tell him.

I felt like I was the perfect guy for that.

But I just he we talked for about 15 minutes and he talked for 15 minutes.

He talked the majority of it. Yeah.

He did, you know, he asked.

He did ask me and again, I was pretty naive

and I just didn't quite understand the method to his madness

and why he was asking me some of the things that he was.

But but he did ask me.

I mean, it was considering it.

He hadn't done it. He hadn't bought anything yet.

But, you know, I had a background of working on the car.

So any car that I drove, I was very familiar with the clutch.

I could service it. I could do the maintenance.

I had pretty much worked on every, you know, facet of the engine.

And so he started asking me.

He said, you know, Larry tells me that, you know, you worked on the clutch

and, you know, I need a guy that can kind of, you know, contribute.

And the only thing that I didn't want to do was and I told him

and I thought it was a mistake at the time.

I said, John, the only thing that I if I have to, I will.

That's what I told him. I said, but I would prefer not to drive the truck.

I don't don't ask me to get a CDL because, right?

You guys, who's not in need of a CDL driver?

You have a CDL.

You can talk about, like, top level, any type of racing.

Yeah. Wait, does anyone else drive in their trucks?

Yeah. Well, back then, they're probably, I'm sure they were there.

Really? Yeah.

I mean, you've got to bring anything you can.

I don't get that. I haven't told him.

I said, John, I'm bilingual.

You know, you know, and I think that hit a nerve with him.

I yeah, it's like I've got I'm putting more on that I had to.

Anyone if they're bilingual, who doesn't do that?

Who doesn't leverage that in the workplace?

Sure. I tell my kids that you speak three languages.

Now you're one step ahead.

Yeah. Yeah. The Mexican took Ron Cap's job.

That's right. Worked the opposite.

Yeah. So the one thing that he told me that

for me, I just I'll never forget was after we we had this conversation,

he told me before I was getting ready to stand up and shake his hands.

Say, John, thanks for the time.

He said, whoever I hire, he said, I got to like them.

And he says, Petragon, he says, I like you.

And I thought and I thought I just remember thinking, so there's a chance.

There's a chance here.

And I just kind of walked out, you know, just in this, you know, in this fog.

And I think it was it was probably a week later.

He said he said, come down to the shop.

He said, we're going to we're going to put a team together.

And he said, he said, I haven't made any decisions yet.

He said, but but I think I'm going to give you an opportunity.

And and I thought, OK, I'm in.

And so I spent the first couple of days.

They gave me this list of things to do.

John Medlin, who he did hire a tuner.

And when I walked in, he gave me a list.

I was in shock.

He said, this is what we need you to do.

And he added on this tablet.

He said, build engines, clutch, this, no joke.

There was like 15 things.

And I thought as bad as I wanted to do it, I remember thinking,

this may not be for me in terms of how much work this is.

Yeah. So but I, you know, I was just I was all in.

I started doing and putting benches together just to, you know,

help assemble everything.

And and it was it was early mornings and late nights, you know,

for the first week, I remember being in the shop.

They didn't announce anything.

He didn't tell anyone.

He asked me not to tell anyone.

And there was a guy that used to build the bodies and build a tin in him.

He had a, you know, some some business that that John worked with.

And I remember he was the first one to kind of uncover.

He walked in and he looked at me and I was standing there with gloves on,

doing something. And he looked at me and he said, good choice.

And I thought, well, OK, I took that as a compliment.

And, you know, we went down the road and he said, all right, we're going to

we're going to announce this, we're going to release, you know, something.

And I thought, I thought, wow, OK, so that was the beginning.

But, you know, all of that, it's like for me, there was there was never any guarantees.

You know, some, you know, I've been around long enough now.

It's like the video of the runner that you see.

It's like he's raising his arms at the finish line.

Yeah, right. I never did that.

I always looked over my shoulder and I thought, I'm not there yet.

I'm not in yet. Do the work and, you know, it's just see.

And maybe that's just you can probably the psychology behind that.

You could probably trace, you know, how I was raised or what the trauma when I was younger.

But, you know, and I've heard that story and, you know, you hear, you know,

high level athletes, they say that, you know, I had this vision.

I never really, for me, it was I got to try to do this.

And once you get to that, it's like there wasn't really any vision.

It was just let me get here.

And with John, it was like, I got to go to the first test session

and I better not screw it up, you know.

So so my career was always like that.

Yeah. Wait, in those first days, it sounded so uncertain.

Was this always just a handshake deal at the beginning?

And it's still pretty big money at this point in terms of the program.

Was it like, were you contracted in it initially?

Not initially, not initially, but he did.

He did, you know, John was very fair in that he asked me.

He said, OK, I know we took the second meeting.

He said, I need somebody to do the clutch.

He said, but I need a driver that that's not going to be dirty

when he does an interview.

That's what he told me.

And he also said I had good teeth.

And I was surprised because I never really is the most John force answer.

He said I had good teeth.

And I that surprised me because I thought,

oh, maybe he hasn't gotten a good look at my teeth.

Yeah, you're like, all right.

Anyway, I just because I never had braces or anything, but it's good.

He can't see my don't smile in front of this guy.

But but he did.

He was very fair in that.

He said because I had an idea of what a person that worked on the car made.

But I remember him telling me, he said, I need to start you.

I need to start your salary as a driver.

He's because he understood.

He said, you are getting in a car and there's some risk that comes along with it.

So I didn't, you know, I know, I know everybody's different,

but I in no way shape or form sat down and said, John, these are my terms.

You know, and I think that my my approach and my attitude towards that,

when we went to test the car the very first time, we went to Phoenix.

They didn't make me a suit.

You know, they had announced it.

They said, look, Pedragon is going to be the one in this car.

And, you know, of course, John would spin it.

You know, he had his shtick and his personality said,

oh, I want to know everything about Cruz because at the time

that was the biggest rivalry.

It was John Force against Cruz Pedragon.

It was Castro and McDonald's.

And it was a part of it had to be a good story.

You know, for him, it's like, I'm going to hire his brother.

So he he leveraged that, you know, like only an entertainer like John Wood.

And but I just I remember going to Phoenix and, you know, it was like four.

There's five of us on a crew.

It required eight guys, but we did what it took.

You know, I think John, he didn't really know how to expand into another car.

So we showed up at the track and we worked just to get the car serviced

and get it ready for which who I thought was going to be me to get in the car.

And was it? Nope.

John's going to John's going to get in the car and make sure it goes down the track.

And I I I understood that because I thought, well, OK, it is a car they just put together.

And I just remember watching him make a couple of runs in the car was, you know,

it was quick. It was just like his car.

It was going down the track. And I thought, all right, OK, lots of good.

This is still this is big time here, but I'm not in the car yet.

So the next day, it's like, all right, you're going to get in the car.

OK, here's John. Here's John's suit.

You know, his fire suit.

And I thought, you know, the other thing I joke, I said, John,

did you hire me because just because I fit in your suit? Yeah, right.

But I put I put one of his old suits on and it wasn't the best smelling suit either.

But that was not going to be an issue.

It was a smell of greatness.

But I just you should be so lucky.

Yeah. So I, you know, nervous and got in the car and but, you know,

I driven a funny car and it was the same chassis.

And, you know, I was nervous.

But I think I knew, you know, that that I could be comfortable

in doing everything that it took.

But I'll never forget just before they started the car.

And this is a test session.

There's not people in the grandstands and it was pretty quiet.

You know, there's some other cars testing.

But John leaned in when I'm suited up to just getting ready to plug the starter

in and, you know, prime it and start to turn the car over.

And he leans in and says, have fun.

And I thought, well, that that's what the hell was that?

And and and on that run, you know, back then there was what they called

a four second club, right?

There was only, I think, three or four cars that had run in a quarter mile

sub five seconds.

So it was a very small group of funny cars.

And, you know, I left the starting line, car accelerated.

It felt good.

It felt like, you know, my car that I had driven for Larry Minor.

And I just remember trying to pay close attention to what the car was

doing. And I just remember it was accelerating good.

And, you know, when it the clutch starts to apply, it pulls the motor down

and it just sounded good.

It felt good. And I thought I shut it off just before the finish line.

Well, what registered on the scoreboard was a four ninety nine.

So the very first run that I made was, you know, was like quicker than most

of the competition had run. And but I saw it, I snuck a peek on the scoreboard

because the scoreboards have passed the quarter mile.

And I just remember seeing that and I thought, nah, that that couldn't be.

And I just remember they were, you know, coming through was pretty excited.

And and, you know, that was that was big news.

You know, that was big news back then.

And I think it was it was a good start.

I think everybody has a story where they start, you know, here, here and here.

And well, what was your big break?

And, you know, for me, it was it was without question, John Force.

Probably the most common phrase that's come out of this show is being likeable

and how much it can help you.

Because like like in sports car racing, you're oftentimes paired

with a person that's paying to race and you have to go to dinner with that person.

You know, 10 races a year, three nights a weekend.

And if their spouse doesn't like having dinner with you because you're crude

or just off putting, you're probably not keeping that ride no matter how fast you are.

So that's something on our side of the sport.

But I guess on your side, like there's a lot of sponsorship in mind.

And if you're, you know, contentious, difficult to work with, not not bad teeth,

not as pretty as Ron Kapps, you might not keep that sponsorship.

Bad hygiene. Yeah.

Yeah. No, you're right.

You're right. And I think, you know, personality goes a long way.

You know, he probably had conversations with Capps.

Yeah. Because and maybe maybe John thought the same thing.

It's a good looking guy.

You know, I mean, we're talking about Ron like he got the wrong to the deal.

It's like, you know, he did fine.

I mean, where did this guy land?

The guy landed with Dom Pradome.

I just remember thinking that it's like, damn, this guy's driving for Pradome

because that was big news back then.

And I'm and I'm still, you know, you get a bad race or two in.

It's like, this guy get the frickin' better end of this.

Yeah, right. Damn it.

Yeah. Yeah.

When you start doing the and I don't know what kind of financial status

the the diesel business or the truck business was doing for you.

But when you get the John Force program, is that a big uptick in income for you?

It wasn't initially. OK. It wasn't initially.

But John just he liked throwing a lot of stuff at the wall.

Sure. What would stick?

And he really didn't tell me till I think we were four or five races in.

And I think the, you know, the Hispanic angle was very interesting

or compelling to him, because I think that allowed him.

He discovered that these companies actually have Hispanic

budgets, yeah, right.

That he could tap into.

So Adrian Fernandez. Yeah.

We have a very good episode about that.

Well, they do. I mean, you get to under.

I had a big time Mexican American flag and I used to get bombarded.

It's like, you're American.

You hear, it's like, you guys, I know, you got to understand.

You understand why this car is here.

Yeah. What's sending this thing down the track?

And I never. Yeah, I never.

But that's you got to understand psychology of a fan.

And that's OK. Right, right, right.

But I remember, I remember John, he pulled up to me and he says,

Peter gone, he said, you have a job.

You have you have a job for the year is what he told me.

So we didn't really have an agreement or a contract, so to speak,

until then, because I think he was able to sell the car and get funding specifically.

Initially, he wanted to hire an R&D driver, research, development,

put different parts on that car, try the things we want to try to help him win.

That was the whole premise of adding that car.

He wanted to continue to win.

And and that just kind of evolved into, you know, a completely separate team

that was funded, never really changed, you know, that he still,

you know, he still wanted to utilize that car to help him win.

And that they did, which, you know, hey, again, for me at that time,

it's like, hey, I'm here. You tell me to drive the car, I'll drive the car.

You're going to do something to the car to make it lose traction.

I'm still going to drive the car.

So they never came to me and said, hey, we want you to lose.

You know, we're going to try the weird stuff on you.

Yeah, yeah, but it was it was no mystery that when I would go up against

John a few times, you know, it's like the car is going.

It's like 300 feet, it's all right.

It's going to make it because I knew a couple of seconds into the run

is where the outbearing starts to move.

Those levers start to, you know, squeeze that clutch.

And just when I thought, all right, it's going, it would it would just,

you know, not pull the tires loose.

So but, you know, that that was, hey, that that strategy that's happened

and in any form of motor sports.

And, you know, I at the time, I thought, hey, I'm I'm here.

I'm getting paid, you know, so to answer your question, I think that as time

went on and he was able to promote more funding for the car, he would come

back to me and say, OK, I've got to pay you, you know, a fair wage.

So I guess that if you're driving a race car and you have success and you can

get up in front of an audience of people and do a good job of representing

those brands, then you're going to get compensated.

You will be fairly compensated for that.

One of the first functions that I did with John that year in 96 was

as a manager's conference for Castro and it was in Houston.

There was probably 300 brand managers and people within the company.

So they brought in all their drivers, right?

So there was John myself.

There was a few other NASCAR drivers or an Indy car driver or two.

And I just it hit me because I thought this is a perfect job for me.

This guy just talks up, you know, 100 miles a minute.

Yeah, I don't really have to say anything.

That's right, John. That's right.

You got it. You tell him.

And I just I'll never forget not really realizing what I was getting myself

into when they started introducing everybody and they introduced John.

And I saw the pattern after a few guys were introduced.

They weren't just introduced.

They didn't just smile and wave.

Yeah, they actually had to say a few words.

Right. And I just I didn't expect that.

And I just I remember you're going to have to bleep this out.

But I remember standing there thinking when they introduced John,

yeah, he started talking.

I knew he was going to set the stage for me to introduce me.

Yeah. And I just remember thinking, think fast.

I remember thinking that to myself because I thought I wasn't prepared.

Nobody told me about this. Yeah.

But I think to some degree, I think some degree, John did that.

I think some of these guys, they want to throw you out there to the Lions.

They want to see how you perform.

They want to see what you have.

So it was very cookie cutter for me, you know, great opportunity.

You know, I had some experience.

I grew up around raising whatever it was.

I got through it and I was glad because it didn't take me long to realize

that they're sponsoring you, they're paying.

Yeah, yeah, they want to win on the track, but they want representation.

Yeah. And you know what? You know what else they want?

They want to be entertained, too, by the way, that's something they don't tell you.

But I could figure that out.

I figured that out through John.

You eventually move on to your own program that you started with your brother

after winning lots of races and eventually a championship.

Yeah. You know how that came about was it really didn't didn't happen the way

that I planned it. So long story short, you know, Cruz was still racing with Joe Gibbs.

And when that ended, he went out on his own.

You know, it was a struggle for him.

You know, I think people forget that, you know, that part of his career.

But he he had, you know, had his got his own funny car

as the McDonald's deal was gone.

And but he still had a relationship with Shell.

And it was actually when he was driving for Gibbs, they approached him

and inquired about me. Yeah.

This is what he told me. And he said, you know, the

one of the reps or people in marketing, they're inquiring about.

And I think they were talking to NHRA at the time.

It's like, we're we're interested in, you know, promoting the Quaker State brand.

Quaker State brand was the number one selling oil in Mexico.

It's a value brand, right?

But it competed against, you know, all the other

it didn't go toe to toe with Penn's oil, right?

You get in the oil business, you start to understand

who they're targeting, where the demographic is.

But they wanted to try to duplicate that model in the U.S.

OK, number one selling oil in Mexico.

Like, let's go, let's go, let's get a Mexican guy.

So it was working in Indycar.

Yeah, there you go there, too, with with Adrian.

So they had connected with Cruz and they said,

hey, what about your brother?

You know, is he you know, is he interested in kind of forming his own team with you?

And and so Cruz approached me.

But it never it was it was something that I thought of.

I thought was pretty compelling. It's like, really?

Wow, I never thought about that. Yeah, right.

And I don't mean to interrupt, but you were by this point, you'd won a championship

or you were in the process of winning a championship, at least.

Hadn't won a championship yet. OK.

I was I was I was eight years in.

I was eight years into driving for John.

Yeah. Hadn't won a championship, finished second a lot.

Well, and that's where I'm going is that if you're the pseudo R&D car,

you're still not necessarily matched with him.

And so at a certain point you win enough races,

then you're still not winning the big one because John's always going to do better than you.

After eight years, and this is I think a lot of people said, oh, this guy is crazy.

He's nuts. What are you doing leaving?

And well, if you know, if you wake up in the morning as a competitor, right,

you know that and I'm sure a boxer's mentality is no different.

When you wake up in the morning after training and doing everything, living the life,

you know, putting yourself at risk, you wake up in the morning.

What makes you think you have a chance is is, you know, you believe you believe

you can get out there and win.

And there were a lot of days that, you know, based on how we qualified,

if I had to race John or if I saw if I advanced to the second or third round

and I have to race John, it's like, I know what's going to happen.

They're just and they wouldn't ask me.

They didn't say, hey, Tony, we want you to throw a race.

I just knew my car was going to when when John's best friend would lean in the car.

If I'm racing someone else, he would say, hey, go get him.

You know, good luck, right? Good luck.

And when I'd race John and I'll never forget the first time he did this,

he leaned into my car and he says, hey, be careful.

And I'm thinking, mother, be careful.

What happened to the good luck?

Yeah, right. So look, look, it is what it is, right?

Yeah, it's amazing.

It was an opportunity of a lifetime.

I did my job, but but to your point, after after eight years of that,

I never really entertained that.

But when when that did come up, I started to think to myself,

where where do I go from here?

Right. And of course, you know, John,

I think about five years in five years in, you know,

he's coming to me, saying, Pedragon, you're the you're the heir apparent.

This is you're the guy.

You're going to be the guy when, you know, when I step down, it's OK to be Scotty Pippin.

You know, and after, you know, then another year goes by,

finished second in the points, you know, we're winning races.

But so there's a there's a roadblock.

And and when I the more I thought about it and the way it really happened was

was there was someone in marketing that worked for NHRA.

This was supposed to be a confidential conversation that we were having,

because we started talking and we had a few a few meetings.

And NHRA fired a guy by the name of Ray Ricky, who was in marketing.

He was one of those guys that provided the, you know, the deck,

the demographics to to Shell, right, to Quaker State.

Hey, we want to know the numbers. What are the attendances?

They fired this guy.

Well, a lot of people would go to run to John because John was John was like a politician, right?

It's like, hey, let's go.

John promises promises a job because we're doing this, this and this form.

So he ran to John and said, you know, Tony's talking to these guys.

So it's like, wow, that that thanks, you know, that.

So we had it was at the U.S.

Nationals, I'll never forget it.

We had a team meeting.

We walked in in the morning and I just thought everything was going to go.

It's like, right, he's going to do his little team leader speech.

He's going to get us fired up and we're going to go out there.

We're going to try to try to win this race.

And he looked at me and Pedragon's talking about it's like he pointed his finger at me

and in front of the group in front of everybody, both teams before he never called you about it.

There's three teams, actually.

Before you didn't even know that he knew that you were talking about.

Yeah, well, that was that was his reaction.

You know, that's he just kind of flew off the handle.

He pointed at me and I said, John, I just I'm having a conversation with him.

I said, I haven't committed to any.

And I hadn't.

I hadn't really given it much thought.

Right. I had a couple of conversations.

It wasn't real like for me.

So really. Yeah.

But the interesting thing about that was that was in 2003.

That's when I won my first championship.

Our team got so good that he couldn't even beat us.

That's how that's what chemistry does.

And that's what having the right people around you.

So so in the early stages, you know, if we, you know,

you have an inventory of four or five superchargers, right?

The two or three of them might be better than the other three or four, right?

So we'd always we want the best supercharger.

Any part that we would get is going to John.

That's what an R&D car does.

So we survived like that.

And we won races and we beat his competition for a lot of years.

But that last year, in fact, the writing was on the wall in O2

because we finished.

It was a close race to the end, but they weren't going to let me win.

Even though it went down to the last race of the season.

So so that was a little that was a learning experience for me

because I was sat down and I was told some things that weren't going to happen.

And I thought, OK, I didn't push back.

I didn't argue.

And, you know, John asked me, he said, aren't you going to say anything?

I said, John, I've, you know, I've never, you know,

I've never really complained about anything that we've done.

So if you're asking me, you know, to be OK with with, you know,

what you want to happen, I said, you know, I got to be honest with you.

I'm going to do my job, but I mean, I can't be OK with it.

If you're saying that we've gotten so good that even if we get that good,

I can't beat you.

I, you know, I said, I'm going to walk out of here, John,

and I'm going to be the same guy that I was when I walked in.

OK, are you asking me if I like it?

I don't like it.

But but I said, John, you're not asking me to lose.

I know what you're going to do to the car and I'll protect your equipment.

I'm not going to crash it when it, you know, loses traction.

So so I had that to work with, you know, so that last year

when he brought that up at the U.S. Nationals, our car was in the points

lead and John just his car wasn't running as good.

So as much as you think you can control,

he couldn't control that.

So I think by that stage, it was the latter part of the season.

I think John started to realize and was making him uptight.

He had won 10 straight championships, right?

That is absolutely unheard of.

And now he's hearing rumblings of the sky.

Your driver, your driver, that's leading the points that you can't control.

It's good they're leading the points because it's still your car.

You're going to get to check.

But now you're hearing he's thinking of leaving.

So it was it was a little bit of a blow up.

And and I had that, you know, weighing on me.

But I just remember I remember thinking and realizing, you know,

who's going to win this championship?

It's either going to be me or it's going to be Don Schumacher's car

with this driver.

I ain't going to be John.

So so, you know, I had that to deal with.

And when I when I won the championship, I didn't.

I had a signed contract in my hand at the SEMA show at the last race.

And it needed my signature.

And it was for X amount of dollars for four years.

And I hadn't made a decision because I to be honest with you,

I had no intentions of leaving. Right.

But I called from from John Force.

I had no intentions of leaving.

Yes, sorry. The contract that was already signed was for your new team.

It was for the new team. OK, copy that.

It was a signed contract from Shell. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

For the Quaker State brand. Yeah.

And so we had gone that far.

Still didn't know. And I had gone that far.

But I didn't give them an answer.

I wasn't leading them down a dirt road.

Was this was the apprehension about the devil you didn't know?

Was it a loyalty question?

It was it was the living.

The it was yeah, it was it was on the brink of winning a championship.

Yeah, it was $100,000 signing bonus that he offered that he put on the table.

John, yeah, it was Dan Davis from Ford that walked in and said,

we heard you talk about a new car.

He put a Range Rover or a Jaguar catalog on my desk.

He said, you get the one you want.

He said, the only one you can is the Aston Martin.

He said, but there's only one one catch.

You got to stay. Yeah.

So, you know, so like those things last week, those things started to make me think

it's not only the the cash or the car and some of it's the feeling loved.

Yeah, no. Like, oh, I really wanted here.

Well, one thing I'll tell you what swayed it because I wanted to stay.

You know, financially, I was I was getting paid handsomely.

Yeah. And we were winning races.

You know, you get bonuses. Right.

But I'll tell you what swayed it was.

I call them right before the Vegas race and and I wanted to just talk to him.

And I was I was going to tell him, John, I'm going to stay.

I actually had this conversation with him and he was having a tough time

with a lot of things because now there was word that I was going to leave.

And there was Eric Medlin, who was the son of my tuner that wanted to drive.

There was his son-in-law, who was a mechanic that his daughter was pushing.

It's like, well, wait a minute, you're going to let this guy drive.

I want him. So he was getting bombarded, you know?

And I don't, you know, a guy of John's stature.

You know, you don't you don't walk away from that.

And I think what really swayed me was I called him and

I knew what I wanted to tell him.

And I listened to all of these things that he was throwing out there.

And most of all, when I hung up the phone,

I realized that my relationship is never going to be the same with him.

Oh, it's already changed.

Yeah, yeah. And it's like, you know, he doesn't know.

I wasn't going to I wasn't going to go.

I wasn't I was going to I was very well prepared to tell

James Stone from Shell, James, I'm sorry, but I'm going to stay

because they put enough on the table and made it right, made it work.

But I just I knew that it's kind of like, you know, like a girlfriend.

If she thinks you were really cheating, yeah, good luck, right?

You just come back and I just I kind of felt that way with John.

I thought, you know, enough has happened here and we've gone far enough that

I can't stay right.

I just thought it's not going to be right.

So I really don't want to do it.

But I signed the contract Monday.

I remember waking up after winning a championship.

Yeah, we had one more race to go.

Sure. But I remember waking up that morning.

I had a headache.

I thought, aren't you supposed to enjoy this?

Right. So it was very bittersweet for me.

Yeah. And then and then going through the last race,

having to deal with the questions.

And, you know, it's like my she wasn't my wife at the time.

But it's like, you know, she said, are you making a mistake?

So it was scary, you know? Yeah, right.

Having an eight year run with all that success

and being in a comfortable place.

And then it's like, it's my first day at school again.

So it was it was a tough time.

So we have a Patreon and we have questions from fans that knew that

we were going to be sitting with you today.

We have one from Brad Furman, who asked and I don't even know what this is about.

Has he smashed the printer on the top end yet?

Ask about blowing his crew chief's pants off on the starting line

and getting into an argument with John Forrest on national television.

OK, OK. What's the what's the printer?

OK, so we have a printer at the end of the at the end of the track.

There's a monitor for the top end reporters.

So they can see the race. Yeah, they can react.

And so when you do a TV, you want to get a natural reaction from the driver.

Right. Yeah.

What doesn't allow that is this fricking printer that prints out their E.T.

Right. Yeah. OK.

So this is something new.

This is what these idiot PR people have allowed.

And I've gone on the record on our show, as well as on the NHRA podcast.

Now that I'm involved on the TV site, I want these drivers.

I want to see a natural reaction.

So when we try to interview them, we see them looking at this stupid piece of paper.

So there's no element of surprise. Sure.

And I've made a comment.

I would like to find out how much that machine is, because I would really.

And this is no joke. I'd like to smash the fuck out of it.

I'd like to take a hammer and I'd like to smash it.

And they can even get it on tape. Yeah.

But now if it's a it's a five thousand dollar machine, I'm probably not going to do that.

But if it's a few hundred bucks, what are you going to do?

Say, Tony, just get us a new one. Yeah. Right.

And now you got some good TV.

So that's what I'm that's what I've been very open about.

So how would you fix that problem then?

Get the printer the hell out of there? OK.

Because if you go back in our sport, you know, there have been some pretty good

top end reporters, Dave McClellan, Steve Evans.

You know, these guys have done a good job.

They get a reaction from an Eddie Hill.

It's like, yeah. And Kenny Bernstein, you're just the first driver over 300.

Oh, so you get a natural reaction.

But when a PR person who really shouldn't be there anyway,

walks up to their driver because they're not doing much to begin with.

And they give their driver an E.T. slip.

So now you're just you've distracted them.

So they already know there's no reaction that we get.

They're looking at that stupid piece of paper.

They see their reaction time. Yeah.

They see they're in command.

They see who won, who lost the outcome.

I want to do away with that. Yeah. I say, leave them in suspense.

I didn't have like the commentator do it.

Like have somebody like you just the top end, the pit reporter.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a completely sensible to make good TV.

To make spectacle.

Have a presentation.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

It's like guys, it's TV and I've mentioned this

and some of the PR people have gotten offended.

It's like it's not about them. It's not about that way.

But hold on. Are you saying that PR people do make it about them?

I've never seen that ever.

Apparently it's the same in all forms of racing.

Oh, it is. Look, we need them.

They need to be there. Yes, they do their job.

Right. But I've asked them.

I said, isn't it, am I mistaken?

Because I know like it could stand for a country like Puerto Rico.

But is it not in this sport?

Is it public relations?

Is that what PR stands for?

Yeah, public relations.

OK, so coach your drivers, help your drivers and help us help them.

That's right.

And give us a natural reaction to facilitate your spectacle.

Yes. It's not supposed to be about their spectacle.

Yeah, you have real fans watching.

You guys are really sponsored.

This is a very specific button for me.

So to me, I'm on your team.

It's such a simple fix, but it's just falling on deaf ears.

So I made the I made the threat.

It's like, I'm willing. I'll be the guy.

I'm I'm very well good with being a bad guy.

So well, you have the credibility because you're a champion

and you won 43 times like that.

That's sometimes commentators.

And I'm not I don't have a specific example of this,

but sometimes they'll they'll put their two cents in on something

and immediately as a racer, I'm like, you don't know, you don't know.

Yes.

You know, I think when a racer is the commentator,

I'm like, that dude's lived there.

That person's lived there.

Yeah. And I could see it.

And I'm not the only one, but I've I just can't understand

why they don't get rid of that.

And our top end reporters have complained and they said, you know,

we've got PR people that are in front of us trying to watch a monitor.

That monitor is there for the peer reporters out of here, man.

Top end for me is the person at the end of the drag strip.

Yes. Yes. At the top end.

So when the car is reported, they pull the cars around.

We want to see the reaction.

Which is so cool.

Yeah, it's a really cool concept.

We want to see the excitement from.

But I will say this, this wouldn't have happened 20 years ago

because you had guys that directed traffic and that would have put their foot

down and wouldn't have taken the bulls*** from PR people that are down there.

So it's almost like these guys have kind of taken over.

It's no fault of theirs, but the sanctioning body should say, you know what?

You guys stand behind that line over there and start printing it out.

I'm pretty sure if PR people in sports car racing tried to tell NBC Sports

how to do the broadcast, it would immediately end.

They'd be like, oh, just don't do this.

Yeah. So I take a hammer to it.

But I'd be totally OK throwing it as far as I could.

So you haven't smashed it yet, but now we know what that that thing is.

Shout out Brad Furman, what a great reference for us.

And then he picked up on two things that we both have written down.

So the second thing you wanted to ask about was blowing your crew chief's

pants off on the starting line.

I was scary.

Is that the deal where the kid lifted the front of the car?

Is that the same thing?

He did. Yeah, you did the back.

The back story there was it was at the U.S.

Nationals because of the year and it was during qualifying.

Prior to that, I got an argument with my crew chief because we made two runs

before and, you know, of course, the routine in a in a nitro funny car

or a top field dragster is we do a burnout, OK, burnout.

There's a water box and the burnout, the idea there, it used to be just to lay

some rubber down, right, for better traction.

But today's burnout, you want to build up some temperature in the tire,

but not if it's a hot day.

But most of all, the burnout is to build up engine temperature, right?

These nitro engines, the nitro cools them off.

So you want you want close to 210 degrees staging the car.

So right.

So I do a burnout.

I was having a problem doing a burnout the first two runs.

The linkage wasn't right.

It was a new injector and there was a little everybody was a little tense

because the biggest race of the year.

We have a pretty good car.

All of a sudden, this driver forgets how to do a burnout.

That driver was me.

I just so happened to own the car.

So my crew chief kind of snapped at me.

He says, I think I got off and on the throttle.

It backfired the blower.

He said, what did you do that for?

I said, well, I'm trying to fix the tune up is what I'm trying to do.

You guys just get sniffed.

Yeah.

So, you know, he was pushing back and I just told him he calmed down.

He came over.

He says, OK, I'm going to try to fix it.

He understood.

He's a dicky.

Yes.

OK.

Dicky.

And he conceded to the fact, look, nobody likes being told that they're doing something

wrong.

But I understood him.

He and I worked so well together because I just wanted my car to run good.

And he just needed somebody like me that had a personality that wasn't going to fire back

and say, OK, get the F out of here.

I just want my car to run good.

So I was able to deal with it.

We found a good balance.

So he came to me.

He said, I'm going to fix it.

So he fixed it.

All right.

He put an exit.

We didn't have a lot of time.

We had to go make the run.

So he did put an extension on the linkage just to change the geometry of it.

Well, he never checked the clearance.

So when I went to attempt a burnout, that linkage started to open.

Well, that clearance wasn't there wasn't enough clearance.

So that linkage pinned up against the body.

Right.

I didn't know that.

So I just basically hung up on the on the bodywork.

Yes.

Yeah.

Of course, I didn't know it at the time.

I just remember thinking, OK, the throttle, maybe it's pinned on something.

So a failed burnout.

I backed up and we didn't really have onboard radios then.

But I was just going off of his hand signals.

So of course, one of my crew members that would lift the body up,

he was going to do what he always does.

And I remember Dickie, my crew chief, looking at that area.

I just remember this in the car.

The car's idling.

I remember I was I had a pretty good amount of brake pressure,

but when they lifted that body, it caught that linkage.

So it opened it opened the throttle.

And regardless of what kind of brake pressure you have,

yeah, that car is going to roll.

Yeah.

And the scary thing for me was I just remember the car lunged forward

and it went to the right.

So it hit that barrier.

But I just remember one of my crew guys flying over the hood.

And I just remember thinking, I got to get out of this thing to see if he's OK.

I didn't know that I blew my crew chief's pants off.

And I don't know if you guys have seen the video.

Yeah, we have.

So this is on YouTube.

If you go on YouTube right now and terrifying it.

Yeah, just look at Tony Pedragon, U.S. Nationals.

I think it's like pit incident.

And it's a pretty, fortunately everybody's OK.

And Dickie, hey, sorry for bringing this up,

but you've made a lot of money in the sport.

You've got a lot of championships.

And it's on YouTube.

And I'm not promoting it.

It's very useful.

But it blew his pants off.

And fortunately, Dickie, you and I know it.

It's the guy who had his underwear that stayed on.

But it burned.

It burned.

It was the pressure, but it was the heat.

It just shredded his pants.

What's crazy is that he doesn't get hit by the car.

It's the exhaust that blows his life.

You see him tumble.

And the guy doesn't look like a small guy.

No, he's not.

But it also burned him.

It gave him some second, I think second degree burns.

Seeing somebody get thrown away from a car

just from exhaust pressure is unbelievable.

And the kid that went over the hood, he was young enough.

He was athletic enough that his body bent.

He looked like a scorpion.

And he was OK.

The only thing that happened to him

was he broke, he chipped a tooth.

And there was a dentist at the race

that opened his office that night and fixed his tooth.

So we got lucky that we didn't hurt anybody.

We fixed the car.

We competed.

I don't even know what happened after that,

but just one of those scary moments.

So something that we both wanted to discuss,

because it's just a hilarious clip of you and John Forrest

battling it out.

So it was 2009.

You and John Forrest are getting into it.

Brad Furman wants to know just about the argument

in you guys on national television going at it.

Well, again, the back story there

was that we went to the race before.

And my brother and I, he was trying to get into the top 10.

You make the top 10.

You have a run at the championship.

So the previous race, he and I raced in the second round.

I beat him.

So here we go to the US Nationals.

And Robert Height, who was John Forrest's driver,

he's trying to, he and Cruiser, one of them

is going to make it, the other is not.

So he and John raced in the first round.

And it was pretty apparent that John threw the race for Robert.

OK, so that's what.

Which is illegal in drag racing.

It wasn't them.

Oh, OK, interesting.

It wasn't them.

It's like a written rule now, right?

It's a written rule because of that.

It came in after.

So I made a comment before we even started competition.

Like, you know, of course, ESPN was doing the coverage end.

And I think for me, that was my only voice.

You know, what was I going to go to?

I had an idea, but I felt the only platform for me

to bring that up was during my interview.

You know, and we had a car that was leading the points.

I was the number one seated car going into the countdown.

So they came to my pit.

And I said, ah, you know, it's a shame

that some teams can manipulate the outcome of a race.

Because I figured they're going to throw that race.

It'll bump crews out, which, you know, he's a big boy.

But I just frowned on the fact that, you know,

I spent, I spent a lot of years understanding

what was going on there.

So anyway, I made my comments.

Well, TV did what they were supposed to.

They went over to John said, hey, you know,

Tony just said this, this, and this.

Well, John, John Bitt, the bookline singer.

They're my cars. I can do what I want.

That's actually not true.

They are his cars, but you can't do what you want at that stage.

So the argument really sparked off when I had just gotten

beat in the semifinals by his daughter.

I had a pretty good car.

I thought, you know what, we made a last minute change.

That was a mistake.

But I just got out of my car.

I was a little dejected.

And I remember looking over because Robert Haidt

was still in competition.

And I saw John, I think John had gotten beat.

And Ashley, you know, she just beat me.

So now his two cars are going to the final.

And I just remember looking over because the loser pulls off.

Nobody wants to talk to them.

Yeah, yeah, they just drive away.

I just pulled off.

But I remember taking my helmet off.

And I just remember hearing laughing and excitement.

And I thought, that's not right.

So John gets on a scooter and he's riding by me.

And I said, I just got to say, I said, John, just like old times,

huh?

Well, he makes a U-turn.

He flips the dog.

He makes a U-turn.

And he's just hysterical.

You, why don't you say that to my face?

I said, I just did.

So in TV, they heard us arguing.

Well, yeah, it's perfect for them.

So boom, they were on the scene.

Now we're having this.

As they should.

Yes, exactly.

What TV is supposed to do.

They're supposed to capture those moments.

So that's what sparked it.

You know, and of course, John, he pushed one of the officials.

And, you know, and I had made a comment,

if you listened to all that, because in those years

that I worked for John, I saw him choking a couple of guys.

He was choking.

What baseball?

I went to talk to him and I walked around the trailer

and he was choking this guy.

And I said, I'll be back.

Yeah, right.

So one of the things I said is I said,

yeah, John, just because at that stage, I thought,

OK, now it's just going to get heated.

Now we're going to throw out some F-bombs

and start acting stupid and childish.

And I said, why don't you try choking me

like you choked some of that?

So anyway, we were just.

As you do.

The embarrassing part was, you know, my daughter,

she's 26 now, just going home that evening.

And, you know, social media wasn't anything like it is today.

This is 2009.

But I remember when I walked in my house

and saw my daughter, she was probably nine years old.

I remember thinking that was pretty stupid.

A couple of grown men arguing like that.

And then I was watching Sports Center

and they kept cutting to break and saying, stay tuned, right?

Because they leave the good stuff for last.

And I'm thinking after seven or eight times I'm seeing this,

John and I arguing nose to nose and I'm thinking,

this isn't going to be good.

And I got a call that night from my sponsor

and the motorsports manager from Quaker State.

And he said, Tony, he said, we saw it.

And he said, great job.

He said, we're behind you.

Nice.

That's what you want.

And I remember thinking, I'm off the hook.

We're so good to say like, crazy.

I'm off the freaking hook here.

But yeah, there's.

You got your back, bro.

There you go.

That's the stuff you didn't know.

Run the controversy business and business is booming.

Yeah, I was going to say, like, NHIR should be like, yes.

Yeah.

Oh, believe me, they were.

Yeah.

They were that night.

Michael Renwick asks, outside of safety updates,

what's the top technological update

that you've seen in the top classes of NHRA

in the last few years?

It's probably the automation, the electronics on the car.

OK.

Because you now have a pan pressure sensor,

which it's been around for a good amount of years.

But you have a pan pressure sensor that will,

when it sees pressure, which is not supposed to be,

certain amount of pressure is not supposed to be in the crank

case.

So once that sensor in the crank case sees over five pounds

or six pounds, that's telling that sensor,

shut the engine off.

So it can electronically kill the power.

It's going to shut it off.

So that means that there's either a piston failure

or there's something happening that that pressure is getting

through in the crank case.

So but it doesn't stop there.

More recently is another safeguard that is manifold RPM

pressure.

So when it is programmed with the parameters,

with the proper parameters, if the car revs up to 8,500 RPM

and the boost spikes with the engine RPM at this,

something's happening with the valve train.

So that could potentially shut the engine off before,

and anyone that watches drag racing,

they can see how violent these explosions are.

So not only does it put the driver in harm's way,

but it damages a car, essentially.

And really, and we still do it, even with all these sensors

and the electronics on the cars, the car explodes.

And if it's a funny car, it's $150,000.

You've got a $50,000 body, carbon fiber body,

and you have a supercharger, the case that balloons

and the injector, and you start adding it all up.

And but I would say that aside from the halo

and some of the things that we've done,

that all forms of motorsports should have and do have.

But in terms of us, it's electronics

and it's technology on the car.

Fundamentally, it's still all mechanical parts

that are making things go on a performance level, correct?

It's still very anti-electronics,

compared to say what we're doing.

It is.

I mean, electronics are only going to catch so much.

I mean, a good experienced driver

can feel the G-meter fall off or rather feel the performance

fall off.

They can hear it, but can they react quick enough?

Electronics are going to step in.

Your electronics are safeguards for blow-ups.

They're not electronics that make the engine go.

They don't make the engine go.

They can program a timing map and a fuel map.

We have a control module and they can control,

they can now control each cylinder individually.

That's performance.

We've been able to do that for a few years,

but there's really not been anyone

that has relied on that yet.

So if you've got a rich cylinder on idle,

they can go on their own.

Oh, we are at that level now.

Yeah, so they are.

They're there, but they really can't,

they don't have enough runs to know

how it can really help them.

So they're doing that?

Can they start doing TC and stuff like that?

Traction control.

Well, that's the controversy.

Yeah, yeah, because you're killing timing

to stop the wheel spin.

Yeah, right.

If you can start doing stuff like that,

so right now, that's going to be the big one.

By the time this airs, I think that the...

Oh, is this the controversy?

The other foot, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It's funny because from what I understand,

allegedly, if you have a device,

if you have something that's monitoring

Yeah, if you can manipulate the power,

yeah, right.

That converts that to pressure.

Yeah, yeah.

That's called traction control.

Yeah, that's a wheel speed sensor,

basically, at that point.

Yeah, so that's, yeah.

By December, I'll be ironing

out if that's the deal now.

So we had dinner last night.

Well, do you know the name Mark Dismore?

He's an Indy car driver from the 80s and 90s.

Yeah, he owns Newcastle.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we didn't have dinner with him.

Oh, okay.

Who failed about an hour before.

Oh, no, no.

So we just pivoted and we interviewed Zach Veach.

He raced Indy cars for quite a few years

and now he raced sports cars at Race Against Him.

Oh, okay.

And he's been on the show several times.

So it was very easy because we know him pretty well.

And his questions for you were,

what's the most recent thing that's happened

that reminded you of how much you love racing?

Um, well, aside from, you know, being,

being at, I, I'm at the drag races every weekend,

you know, I'm behind, I'm behind a monitor.

That part of it makes me miss it.

But I talked about my 19 year old son.

When he started karting, it's like, I'd go to Newcastle.

We'd go to Newcastle.

We went to Daytona.

We'd go to Ohio.

We'd go to all these different tracks.

And I got to tell you, when he was there with a KT 100

or 100 CC engine on the grid,

and they'd sing that national anthem,

here's this 13 year old kid that I'm sitting there,

standing there and thinking,

this is what we did every Sunday morning.

We listened to this anthem and then we get in the car

and I'm just, I'm doing that all over again.

And I still do.

He races at IRP, the pavement midget.

And when they sing the anthem, I just,

I'm thinking this is never going to leave me.

Right.

So that's it.

The second question you had,

which I think for us will be very curious to hear your answer.

When was the last time you were absolutely scared?

And I think where he's going with that

is because driving a funny car to a sports car driver

seems terrifying.

Well, I'll tell you exactly when.

So the last race in competition for me was in 2015.

You know, I owned my own equipment.

I sold it all because I knew the longer it sat,

I still wanted to keep it.

But I knew the longer it sat,

the more out of date everything was going to get.

So sold my rig, car, all the equipment.

But in 2017, now in my agreement as an analysis,

I can't, I can't race a car, not competition.

So in 2017, Cruz, my brother wanted to test.

Car wasn't running good.

He was going to be out of town.

They were going to test right here at IRP.

And he says, Hey, would you be able to test the car?

I had to get permission.

I went to the executive producer and he said,

Hey, that might be a good piece.

Forget about my safety.

And I haven't driven a car in a couple of years.

He said that would be content there.

So I got in the car and when I sat in the car

in 2017, that was an era for nitro funny cars

that they laid the headers back more.

And that improved the performance, early acceleration.

Right. They've tried that before, but it never really worked.

But it worked now because now they had the aerodynamics

to go along with it.

So when I sat in his car without the body,

the first time I warmed it up, our cameras were there

and I'm trying to narrate a few things while I'm doing it.

But I just remember sitting in the car.

My car didn't have the laid back headers to that degree.

I just, I'll never forget sitting in the car

and looking at the angle to the header and thinking,

maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

And, you know, and I made three test runs for him.

One of them was quicker than I had ever gone,

you know, in competition.

Wow.

And I shut it off early and it put a misfire to cylinder

and the car darted over.

And when I got out of the car, they came and said,

wow, this, you know, like, look at how impressive this is.

And I just remember thinking,

let's just get the other runs done.

I want to get done with this.

Go back and sit in my booth and mind my own business.

But it was, it was a scary feeling for me.

Tonight we're going to have dinner with Mike Lanagan,

who is a business owner, but also a long time

sponsor of Indy cars and champ cars.

And if there's ever a question, you could ask him

anything that comes to mind.

Well, you know, one thing I learned doing analysis

is you got to show up prepared.

You got to do your homework and I did my homework.

Oh, nice.

And I've been to a shop.

Look at this guy.

I've been to a shop and it's like any of these

drag race facilities, you know, they're pretty nice.

I've been to Forrest's place, you know,

Cruz and I had a building.

And, but until you go to that shop.

This is the new one in Zinesville?

The new one in Zinesville.

Yeah.

I thought some of the drag race shops were nice,

but it kind of ruins it when you go to their shop.

So, you know, I thought about a question

and, and, you know, I have a little English bulldog

and I thought, I want to know if this guy likes that

because I know, I know these guys have car collections

and, you know, he's a businessman

that loves racing and, and makes it work.

And, you know, he's partnered up with some good people.

But, you know, when I thought about it,

I thought, you know, I know where he's at now

where I have a pretty good idea, you know,

you surround yourself with people like that

that have a passion for racing that are successful.

But the only thing I could really think of

that I would like to know is what was his first car?

One of the things that we've,

we've noticed with some of our friends like

James Hinchcliffe, for example, you know,

he gets out of the, he gets out of the car.

You're fresh out of the car and your peers.

And now your job as a, as a commentator is to

spill the dirt, say negative things, tell a story.

And that's hard when you're first into the deal.

Is this, what was your experience when you first got in?

Well, the, the downside of it was, you know,

I was told and they, I was provided a day and a half

worth of training. It's not enough.

It really is. Right, right, right.

And I believe it or not, I didn't know at the time,

you know, they, they hired somebody that was let go

from ESPN that had been there.

He hired the talent and worked with the talent for 30 years.

But one thing I learned is it's like, to me, it was very bad.

It was like, I crashed and burned.

And part of it, I can say this now,

part of it was because of the people that I worked with,

you know, on, on camera, they could have been more helpful.

They weren't really a good team is someone that'll take you in

and help you. Yeah.

But I didn't realize that till they brought the current host

of the show that I'm working with.

Because after three years, they brought someone else in

and they sent us to Charlotte.

And I instantly knew that these guys were,

I was being bamboozled.

Why? Because they liked the other guy and they didn't like me.

So, so what suffered was, was TV.

The show suffered. Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

Now, after a while, I kind of started to catch on, but,

you know, that's how important chemistry is.

But for me, I just assumed I've done,

I've done a couple thousand interviews.

Sure, I can talk about it.

But the tricky part is try to explain something in six

seconds, seven seconds, right?

So you've got a, the other part for me was somebody talking in

your ear. Yeah, that part's hard.

While you're talking, right?

So I would stop.

I mean, I would try to say, well, this is what's happening.

Yeah, right, right, right.

And it's like, you got a director and a producer.

It's like, well, and I almost, on air a couple of times

when we were live, I almost wanted to say,

guys, what the **** are you guys talking about?

Hey, shut up.

Yeah.

So that was, that was, you know, the hard part to do.

And just like anything else is like listening to the sound

of an engine.

You do it a couple dozen times.

You're more comfortable.

You know, you're listening to this.

You're feeling this.

TV is the same way.

You've got to be able to continue to talk

and finish your sentence with somebody saying,

counting you down.

It's like, when they started counting me down,

I would get, I'd get a little defensive.

Yeah, totally get it.

But that's what you have to do, right?

Is you work on that side.

But that's what you have to learn.

You have to get good at and you have to do your homework.

But for me, and I think for anyone,

you just listen to yourself and you hear

some of the things you say right.

You say wrong.

Some of the habits, bad habits you have.

So that's what the tough part for me was.

When I came home after a few shows,

I was feeling good.

I thought, all right, I can string two sentences together.

And my kids, they were little.

I said, hey, did you guys watch the show?

I saw I'm getting the hang of it.

And one of them said, no, dad, we can't listen to it.

And the other one said, yeah, dad,

because you're staring at us the whole time.

Well, this guy that they sent in to train me,

he gave me the worst advice.

He looked down the barrel.

He said, look at the camera.

This dirty bastard said, I contract.

I contact with the camera.

And you know, that is the creepiest thing

a guy could ever do.

So what I did, I'm staring at the camera.

And my kids are creeping out.

And can you imagine a couple little kids had to tell me that?

Nobody that I worked surrounded with could tell me that.

And to be clear, you mean when you're interviewing somebody?

Yeah, or talking, or even framing up the show.

It's like my focus, because the so-called expert said,

and then I googled them after a few races.

And I thought, why would this guy was not an on-camera guy?

And I saw him on a panel.

The only thing I could find on YouTube,

he was on this panel of five guys,

and he was this speaker on that panel.

So for me, that was the hard part.

And then you get some pushback, because an analysis,

an analyst analyzes what they see on the racetrack, right?

So this guy did a good job.

And the first guy that got sideways and hit the wall,

in fact, I think it was Brittany Force.

She, her car lost traction.

And it's so common for drivers with not a lot of experience

to stay on the throttle too long.

It's like that should scare the s*** out of you,

the daylight's out of you enough to get off the throttle.

But if you don't feel it, if you're not recognizing

and reacting to that, they stay on the throttle.

Because their brain is telling them one thing,

and their foot is just, get to the finish line.

So that tunnel vision gets them in trouble.

And they get sideways, they hit the wall.

Well, the first time I said,

this is the mistake that Brittany Force makes.

And boom, bombarded by social media.

And it's like they didn't like it, but it's the truth.

It's like you learn to, to deal with it,

because they're not going to change.

They're not, they're not, they're not,

they either like this guy or they like that guy.

So I think for me, it was understanding that

and learning that I'm not here, it's, you know,

it's like, I've watched, I liked Charles Barkley

and some of these analysts, big time.

I watched foot NFL and I realized we're not them.

But if we want the sport to grow, we want to attract

the new viewers.

You know, you guys brought up something about us talking here.

It should be about a couple of guys talking,

like you're talking on the couch.

It should be that type of a conversation

that people can connect to,

and they can pick up on things that are pretty interesting,

because that's what TV has to do.

How hard is that?

It's coming has a driver.

You know, you've got to be in the same paddock

as the drivers and the crew members every other weekend or so.

But you've got to kind of fan the flames

on some of these stories.

And I mean, you know, there's a controversy that,

again, these aren't stories the week there's a controversy

just from the last couple of weeks of Eric Anders

and I don't know any of the details.

But my point is like, if it's not that,

it's something else from a month ago or whatever.

How tough is that to then see these people who I assumed

you want to be friends with all these folks?

These are all your peers.

I would love for all of them to like me.

And there are people that show up

that are track announcers that work on the TV side

that concern themselves more with people liking them.

Me, I love that notion, but I don't really care.

And now I don't say that recklessly.

I actually do care, but I look at it two ways.

My job is to call what I see and to be good at it

and not so much concern myself with who I'm going to offend.

Because occasionally, I've learned to question things.

And when you question something and when people get offended,

you know, it's like deflate gate.

You know, Belichick didn't want to talk about that.

He said, oh, we're on to Cincinnati, right?

OK, so what does that tell you?

That tells you a little something.

So my job is to bring up what the optics are for the viewer.

And that makes some people uncomfortable.

I mean, I've had guys call, not me, but try to get me fired.

I've been told that.

And that's always the thing.

They're not going to go to you.

They're not going to come to me.

They're going to go to the producer of the Fox head.

No, no.

But you know, to answer your question,

it could be a little awkward.

But I've told a couple of tuners, you know,

that I've stated that, you know,

there's a pattern of this car not going down the track.

When they push, they lose traction.

They've got some things to work on.

And my first encounter with them could be a little bit awkward.

But I've been open with one.

One called me up and I said, look,

anytime I've needed any information,

this guy has dropped what he's doing.

I said, but I explained a few things to him

about my position and they understand.

In fact, Force is one of the guys, he says,

Pedragon, I know you're just doing your job.

But some of the things that I have

and some of the controversy and some of the dislike

that I've generated, I can back it up.

I have been able to.

Five years from now, we always mean these to be evergreen.

So five years from now, theoretically,

somebody could hit play and it would be your story.

Where is NHRA and where is Tony Pedragon

when somebody listed this in 2030?

Well, where the sport is is going to be,

it's going to be here.

All the hopes are that it's bigger and better.

The viewership, the attendance,

that's constantly a challenge, safety,

but you have to contain the cost.

So I would only say that if I can look back,

I would hope that the sanctioning body

takes some measures to contain the cost.

Because when you want, it's like a full field at the 500.

I remember a time where there wasn't a full field, right?

You got problems.

So you have to change things within the business model.

But I think they can do that.

There's the potential to do that.

For me, I keep waiting for him to show me the door

because I said the wrong thing.

A lot of people ask me, do I miss racing?

Yes. Would I ever do it again?

I would consider it for a year.

I have a son that's 19.

He's in college every day.

He's run the shootout.

We're going to try to get him to the Chili Bowl

on one of my brother's cruises midgets.

And this is Desi Pedragon.

Desi Pedragon, yeah.

I don't care if he races or not.

I do care if he gets a couple of degrees that he's going to get.

But my agreement with him is you're going to race,

you're going to stay in school and do it well.

Not just do it, you're going to do it well.

So because he's so obsessed with it,

then I'm going to help him.

Because there's part of me that is going to keep me in the game to some degree.

Yeah, so I think for five years now,

the hopes would be that I played a role in doing good things for the sport,

whether I'm still involved or not.

I would like to think that I'd be a little blip in the needle there somewhere.

I'd say with that, Connolly's got the check.

Thank you.

About this episode

Tony Pedregon, a two-time NHRA Funny Car champion and current head of R&D at John Force Racing, shares his journey through the world of drag racing. From his childhood memories of racing to his experiences as a driver and commentator, Tony discusses the evolution of the sport, the importance of storytelling, and the technological advancements that have shaped modern racing. He also reflects on his relationships with fellow racers, the challenges of transitioning to a media role, and the unique dynamics of competition within the NHRA. The episode is filled with humor, insights, and behind-the-scenes stories that highlight the passion and dedication of those in the racing community.

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Original notes

Another drag racing addition to the roster, Tony Pedregon is a one-of-a-kind figure to the NHRA. The son of “Flamin’ Frank” Pedregon and the product of the Southern California drag scene, Tony went from working-class roots to becoming a two-time NHRA champion and working for the legendary John Force before starting his own team with […]

Dinner with Racers

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