Just had a very small twitter conversation with Cruzer after he posted a picture of himself outside of Shaver Engines. Says he's building a 410 for next season to run 4-5 times on off weekends around the Indy area with himself as the shoe. I think that's pretty cool so I wanted to share.

Yeah I saw he was active on twitter a few months ago showing interest in getting a sprint car.

He was on MRN Wing Nation and talked some about this several weeks ago. Cool to see someone outside of dirt racing develop a love for it!

Think he's had a love for dirt racing for a good while now. He used to have a Super late model and raced it at Hartford (MI) Speedway a bunch in the late 2000's and early teens. He sold it about 3 years ago. Was pretty good too.

Pretty sure he owned some dirt midgets in the past, and may have run the Chili Bowl a few years ago...

IIRC, Cruz and Tony's brother Frank Pedregon, Jr ran a USAC midget for quite a while. I remember him from the ESPN Thunder midget shows out west. He may have run some of the TV races back in the Midwest also.

Cruz and Frankie were teammates with P.J. and Page Jones on a pretty formidable karting team at Ventura in the mid-late Eighties when I was crewing on TQ's for Jack Zimmerman along with Sean Buckley's dad Dean; If I remember correctly they both graduated to TQ's and they may have both then moved up to the Midgets but Frank stayed full time on the dirt tracks longer, while Cruz began his pro drag racing career. Frank eventually joined him in the straightliners but I think both have always stayed connected to the ovals in some form.

Cruz definitely ran the chili bowl , I remember I was checking out his car and a little boy came up and was looking at him ,he was in his trailer with his back to us and that little boy wanted an autograph but didn't know what to do,so I yelled to him, when he turned around I pointed to the little boy in front of me and that was all I had to do,he came right out signed for him and spoke with him ,that little boy was grinning from ear to ear,definitely a good guy!
A racer is a racer it doesn't matter what you drive!

Cruz was in the stands one night this summer at Lincoln park. Pretty cool!

Yep - a few years ago when USAC ran a lot at Terre Haute, Cruz ran a midget with Josh Wise driving. He sat right in front of us!