Cruz Pedregon has a secret passion.

“I’ve always said if I could be something, if I could start out in a different career path, I would like to be in the police force in some way. Who wouldn’t want to do undercover stuff, right?” the two-time Funny Car champion said. What I really find fascinating [is] prisons, high-max prisons. And I think maybe because my family, going back a few generations, were police officers. One of my favorite cousins was on the Gardena [Calif.] Police force for almost 40 years. So maybe it’s a little bit of that genetics that I gravitate to that. I don’t know what it is. I don’t tell a lot of people about that.

“I’m interested in guys like that, that do that for a living and train, because physically they don’t just lift weights and get their bodies in shape – also their brains are wired to see different,” he said. “Let’s say any President is talking. I look at the Secret Service guys, because I’m always interested to see how they interact with the public. That’s just crazy to me. Let’s face it, you’ve got to be ready for action anytime.”

And that’s why Pedregon has hit it off with Dr. Jason Winkle, a military tactical insertion expert, Mixed Martial Arts instructor, and university instructor with West Point teaching credentials. The two have worked together for nearly three years. As Pedregon makes changes in his Snap-on Tools Toyota Camry team composition this off-season, Winkle will play a significant role in team-building and preparing them “for action anytime.”

Winkle said, “I’m a collector. I try to collect wisdom from everyone I kind of come in contact with and learn from it, kind of put it in a pot, stir it around and see what I can get out of it to share with others.

‘OK, if the situation’s going to be one that is absolutely worthy of high fear and is guaranteed high stress, what can we do to help them prior to getting into that situation to mitigate or manage that fear and that stress?’”

The Human Performance Consultant is author of the book “The High Performance Athlete: Lessons From S.W.A.T., Special Operations, and Elite Athletes On Achieving Excellence in High-Pressure Situations.” He’s the founder and CEO of WinkleCorp, which focuses on enhancing individual and organizational excellence, and President of WinkleAthlete, a player- and team-development organization for athletes and coaches. Winkle is a former faculty member at the United States Military Academy at West Point and has been an Associate Dean in the College of Nursing, Health, & Human Services at Indiana State University, where he met and coached Cruz Pedregon Racing General Manager Caleb Cox.

“I have known Dr. Winkle since my time in college, and he is one of the biggest mentors in my life and also my first MMA coach,” Cox said. “His resume and business, working with high-performance athletes and military and law-enforcement personnel is impeccable.”

Cox introduced Pedregon and Winkle about three years ago. And Pedregon quickly became a fan of the sought-after speaker, consultant, and coach.

“He’s an amazing guy,” Pedregon said of Winkle. “I met a lot of people in my lifetime, and he definitely is probably the most intense, focused human being I’ve ever seen and met. I like talking to him about, picking his brain about, what he does.” That includes how to deal with high-pressure moments.

With a nod to his Snap-on Toyota Funny Car, Pedregon said, “Look at this car. That’s about as close as you can get to tipping over without tipping over. So, so yeah, I’m a fan of what he does. He trains a lot of Special Forces guys. He cracks me up [with] some of the stories he has - and he physically will show you. He is hard-wired and ready to go. You can tell he’s always in position, even when he’s standing talking to you. He’s, like, ready for any action.

“And I’m grateful that he loves our sport. He really is knowledgeable. He follows our racing, which is great. He drops by our shop. He spoke to our guys one time, and I really felt like our guys were ready to run through a wall after we talked to him. But this is a different group of guys,” he said during the season finale at Pomona, Calif. “So what we want to do during the off season is get him to come to our shop. You know a lot of things, and I get this with sports, so many things with a race team parallel other walks of life in sports, because you’re dealing with people and you’re dealing with focus and being thorough and being ready. So we’re looking forward to his visit. Anytime he comes over, it’s usually a 45-minute conversation, just general conversation. We don’t get into specifics necessarily. I just pick his brain about his knowledge and his ability to do what he does and take a guy out or down if you have to.”

That, he said, is “intermixed with” his off-track interests.

“I don’t really watch many movies. I watch ID network, the ID channel, Forensic Files. I used to watch this show called the New Detectives way back before all these other shows. Now they’re just springing up everywhere. So yeah, Winkle, he encompasses all those things that I find really cool,” Pedregon said.

Winkle, likewise, admires Pedregon.

“One of the things I love about Cruz is here’s a guy who is an elite athlete across the board. The guy’s physically in shape. He recognizes the value of being physically fit. He is incredibly cerebral. He thinks about everything, he understands the mental piece of this, and he’s so humble,” Winkle said. “Here’s a guy who is one of the best in his field and he’s willing to try different things, listen to other ideas. I go in there and talk to Cruz sometimes and I know he knows what I’m telling him, but he doesn’t belittle. And he sits there and listens, and if it’s something he thinks would help him, he’ll apply it. I love that about him. I just think that’s such a testament to why he’s been successful.”

Winkle said, “I love Cruz. I do. I’ve grown to love him. I think I respect him as an athlete, and as a driver I think he knows his sport inside and out. I respect him as a man. He’s been nothing but generous with me in listening and applying the things that he thinks will help. I just really have great respect for him. And I think he does care. You know, he does do the right thing. He’s in there trying to be the best he can be. We’ve all got stuff to work on, but I think he genuinely tries. For me, I’ve made so many mistakes in my life. I keep going, ‘Wow, I’m glad that people have been forgiving of me and have looked to see that at least Jason is trying,’ right? So I try to do that for others as well.”

He expressed his respect for his former student, Cox, as well.

“This is a shout out to Caleb, too. Caleb understands it, and I think that’s one of the great things that Caleb’s brought to that team is Caleb is an elite athlete himself,” Winkle said. “I met him at Indiana State when he was a walk-on on the football team that became a real threat. He was a stud. And Caleb does MMA fighting. Caleb’s an athlete, too, and Caleb has always been one of these young men that is hungry for knowledge and hungry to get better. And I think that’s one of the best gifts that he brings. You know, he’s tough as nails, he’s a hard worker, he’s a smart kid, he’s a marketing genius, and on top of all that, he understands sport and competition and competitiveness enough to know that you don’t tell Cruz what to do. But you suggest to Cruz what might help. And I think he’s been successful at doing that.”

Winkle said he was impressed that Cox, even as a young college student, started “thinking about what your internal dialog is saying. And I think he’s been a reinforcement to Cruz in that capacity.”

One of the principles Winkle lives by is that “internal dialog affects external performance – always.”

That, he said, means “what you’re saying in your head is absolutely impacting what’s going on in the external world - always.”

He used an example from Pedregon’s long-running rivalry with Funny Car legend John Force. One option is for Pedregon to beat himself up because he just lost a match-up to Force, asking himself, “Why do I consistently get beat in these championship rounds?” or “Why is he beating me?”

In that case, Winkle said, “His brain, like all of our brains [would], is going to give him some reasoning. He’ll say, ‘Well, maybe his resources are better . . . maybe he this . . . maybe he that.’ But that doesn’t help Cruz. What helps Cruz is if he finishes a race, if he didn’t win, he doesn’t go, ‘Why did he beat me?’ or ‘Why did this person beat me?’”

The better response, Winkle said, is to concentrate on future pairings. 

“If he goes, ‘What do I need to do to win the next one?’ that gives him– it opens up a lot of different answers, asking a simple question differently. Cruz, I think, is a master at that. He’s a master of going not, ‘Why did that guy beat me?’ but ‘What do I need to do to win the next one?’ And so his pool of solutions is greatly expanded in a positive way because he gets that internal dialog affects external performance,” Winkle said. “So he conditions his mind to think positively, to be affirmational in that sense, to open up possibilities of problem solving.”

That’s what Pedregon, who finished the season in 12th place in the Funny Car standings, is looking for. He missed the cut for the Countdown to the Championship for only the second time in eight years.

“It’s been a season of change, regrouping, and looking ahead,” he said. “We worked hard this year, and even with the ups and downs, we’re proud of what we’ve done as a team: getting more consistent round-wins and three-second runs.” But he wants improved results.

Pedregon indicated a paint-scheme change is in the works for all trucks, trailers, and car bodies in the new year.

That’s likely not what will give Pedregon the performance edge in 2019, though. The clue to what will lies in the following lesson from Winkle.

“There was a study done about West Point cadets and who made it though,” Winkle said of the grueling regimen that the U.S. Army’s cream of the crop endures. “One of the interesting things that kind of was a defining characteristic of a kid who made it through West Point and became successful was it came down to grit. Are you willing just to hang in there and gut it out? And when you think about athletics, a lot of times it’s the same thing. How do you deal with disappointment? How do you deal with obstacles? How do you deal with all these setbacks? A lot of times it’s just a matter of grit. You’ve just got to hang in there. You’ve got to get up the next day and you’ve got to go back out there and you’ve got to do it again and do it again and do it again and do it again. And then you build that experience. And you’re getting inoculated to the stressors of that sport, of that challenge, of those ups and downs of life, and you come out the other end a different, stronger person. I always found that study just fascinating, that was the difference was grit.”

Pedregon has plenty of that. With fresh insight from Winkle, Pedregon just might earn that third championship.