Ask veteran nitro tuner Rahn Tobler what the term “Toblerizing” means and he’ll smile and might even chuckle a little. This was the phrase his driver Cruz Pedregon coined when he went to the top of Pomona qualifying.

Pedregon was describing the way Tobler had dismantled the car in the off-season and dissected every nook and cranny of the Advance Auto Park-sponsored flopper.

This is how Tobler describes the process.

“I think, hopefully, it means that we do things in an organized and thoughtful way,” explained Tobler. “Certainly I'm only as good as the people that I have around me.  Cruz has allowed me to get some really good people to help me with this.  Last year when I came here at Indy, I pretty much ran things the way they were when I got here.  When we went to Memphis, which was our second race, I changed a couple of small things around.  Ask veteran nitro tuner Rahn Tobler what the term “Toblerizing” means and he’ll smile and might

even chuckle a little. This was the phrase his driver Cruz Pedregon coined when he went to the top of Pomona qualifying.

Pedregon was describing the way Tobler had dismantled the car in the off-season and dissected every nook and cranny of the Advance Auto Park-sponsored flopper.

This is how Tobler describes the process.

“I think, hopefully, it means that we do things in an organized and thoughtful way,” explained Tobler. “Certainly I'm only as good as the people that I have around me.  Cruz has allowed me to get some really good people to help me with this.  Last year when I came here at Indy, I pretty much ran things the way they were when I got here.  When we went to Memphis, which was our second race, I changed a couple of small things around. 

“Over the winter we stripped the car down to nothing.  Cruz afforded me to be able to buy Allen Johnson heads and some of the other parts and pieces that I wanted and to get to a combination that I know more. I think it's about the consistency which was our hallmark with Doug Kalitta’s car.”

Tobler admits the big picture is best served in getting the car down the track under power, time after time.

“Going down the track is what it's all about at this point,” Tobler said. “I don't mind getting outrun but I hate getting beat or beating yourself. We just try to do things in an organized way and let the driver do his thing on Sunday and getting something that goes from A to B.”

For a tuner whose mantra isn’t based on going for the jugular, Tobler has tuned Pedregon into the upper echelon of qualifiers in the Funny Car division more times than not.
 
“We have some pretty lofty goals around here now,” Tobler said. “Our goal is to win a championship.  It's what I'm in this sport for.  It's what Cruz is in this sport for.  It's what most of the people in this crew are in it for.  That's what we're used to doing is fighting for championships and Cruz has just been driving phenomenally this year.” 

There was a time for Tobler in which his confidence took a beating. Last year he was released from high-profile gigs at Kalitta Motorsports and Morgan Lucas Racing.

“The experience of being on the sidelines allowed me to step back and take a couple of months to figure out exactly what I was going to do,” Tobler said. “That's why I was down for almost two months because the next program I joined, I wanted to be into for a long, long time.  I think I found that here.”

 

Tobler established a solid career working as a tuner in the Top Fuel ranks but he’s quickly learning a Funny Car can be a volatile beast. The least bit of discrepancy between the parts and the tune-up can be disastrous in a Funny Car. He found out this intricacy the hard way in Gainesville when a broken throttle bracket led to an engine explosion and the subsequent body-shredding.
 
“It doesn't take but the slightest little problem to send that body off the car,” Tobler explained. “We had a relatively minor explosion in Gainesville but if it had been a dragster you'd put some new blower studs on it and not thought twice about it.” 

“You certainly know that every time you make a run not only can you lose the body but you can literally burn the whole car to the ground.  It puts a lot of pressure on you with trying to keep the driver safe because he's the one riding in the thing.  That's our first thought is to keep him safe.  If we do that then I think everything else will fall into place.”

The stress of finding the culprit can sometimes be unnerving, unless you are in the middle of eliminations. In Gainesville, not only did Tobler have to have to find what caused the problem, he also had to repair the wounded car in preparation of the next round.
 
Tobler and the crew finally diagnosed the throttle problem once their day was complete. The not knowing can serve as a huge source of frustration for a veteran tuner.

“It does,” Tobler confirmed.  “We're certainly worried about it when we walk back up there but you have to put that aside and do your job.  You've got 17 minutes to get back up there and put a safe car on the race track.”