Aaron Brooks wasn’t out of work for long.

Brooks, who served as a crew chief at Morgan Lucas Racing since 2013, was left looking for employment when Morgan Lucas announced following the season-ending Auto Club NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif., Nov. 13, his team was disbanding.

Brooks landed on his feet as he was hired earlier this month as the crew chief for Cruz Pedregon and his Snap-on Tools team.

“It’s exciting,” Brooks said. “Obviously, he’s been around a long time and he is a diehard Funny Car guy. I thought I would go back at some point and do it (work on Funny Cars). It was unfortunate that the Lucas thing shutdown because we had a really good thing there. My first week (working here) I got to talk to Cruz a lot and we hit it off good and we have a lot in common. Cruz has won championships (1992, 2008) and he’s proven himself and we want him to just focus on his driving. Every crew chief wants to win a championship and Cruz has made a lot of good runs and we just want to get everything in order so Cruz can just focus on his driving.”

Last season, Pedregon struggled, finishing 12th in the points, compiling just six round wins.

The past three seasons, Brooks was the crew chief for Top Fuel driver Richie Crampton at Morgan Lucas Racing. He guided Crampton to seven national event wins and five No. 1 qualifying positions.

Although Brooks’ most recent experience came in Top Fuel, he’s no stranger to tuning a nitro Funny Car.

Brooks began his career working on crews for the legendary Don “The Snake” Prudhomme. By 2005, Brooks served as an assistant crew chief to Mike Neff when Funny Car driver Gary Scelzi won a world championship driving for Don Schumacher Racing. During his time at DSR, Brooks also tuned Frank Hawley’s Funny Car. Actually, in one season, he tuned Funny Car’s driven by Hawley, Mike Ashley, and Mark Oswald.

Brooks continued to wrench Funny Cars as he was a tuner for Del Worsham’s Funny Car at Al-Anabi Racing in 2009 and 2010. Brooks also tuned Melanie Troxel’s Funny Car at R2B2 Racing in 2011.

Now, Brooks is looking forward to the challenge that awaits him in the upcoming season with Pedregon.

“The stuff that has gone on the last couple of years (in Funny Car) with the headers and all that is something I’ve paid attention to and I’m excited to about that and it’s going to be fun to get in there and mix it up with those guys,” Brooks said.