The first victory of the 2021 NHRA season for a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat was earned from the No.10 spot on the eliminations ladder by two-time National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Funny Car World Champion Cruz Pedregon who powered his Pedregon Racing Snap-On Tools machine to the national event win at the Summit Racing Equipment Nationals near Norwalk, Ohio. 

It was a 37th career Funny Car win for Cruz Pedregon who’s last victory came in 2018 at Charlotte Four-wide Nationals.

Pedregon’s performance aboard his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat consistently improved with every run throughout the weekend at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park. After earning a tenth place seeding for eliminations with a 3.996 second/320.36 mph qualifying effort, he went on to collect round wins over Tim Wilkerson, Robert Hight and Alexis DeJoria with elapsed time runs of 3.973 sec., 3.959 sec., and 3.947 sec., respectively, to advance to his first final round appearance of the year to face category points leader, Bob Tasca III.

Following a holeshot semifinal win over DeJoria and the second rain delay of the day, Pedregon came ready for his final faceoff and used a 0.053-second reaction time to give his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat another holeshot advantage off the start and power to a 3.958 sec/324.75 mph pass over Tasca’s (0.100 sec.) 3.913/332.02 effort to earn the coveted Wally trophy and the treasured ice cream scoop trophy that the Bader family offers the winners at their dragstrip. 

The Mopar Dodge//SRT contingent now begins preparations for the traditional NHRA western swing that begins with the Dodge//SRT Mile-High Nationals Presented by Pennzoil at Bandimere Speedway near Denver, Colorado, set for July 16-18.

Event Essentials: Summit Racing Nationals  (June 25-27th 2021) 

Posted by Pat Caporali

Photos by Dave DeAngelis and courtesy of Auto Imagery 

Link to more event Funny Car photos at the LMLCMedia gallery: HERE