It’s no secret that Snap-on Dodge Charger owner-driver Cruz Pedregon is a Las Vegas Raiders fan. But after a visit to the Minnesota Vikings training camp at Eagan, Minn., Thursday, and a conversation with defensive end Danielle Hunter, the two-time Funny Car champion has found an NFC team to cheer for in hopes of a Super Bowl match-up with his AFC Raiders.

More importantly, Pedregon said he was rejuvenated by watching the Vikings prepare for their season – just as he is getting ready for the Camping World Drag Racing Series’ Countdown to the Championship that begins in four weeks.

Pedregon, in northern Minnesota for this weekend’s Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway,

"I had a lot of people on social like, ‘Oh, Cruz is a Raiders guy.’ I am. But I'm also an NFL fan. I think, for me, they're on the NFC side, so I don't really have an NFC team I really root for. But guess what? It is now officially the Minnesota Vikings on the NFC side,” he said. “They could meet up. That'd be a heck of a Super Bowl, the Vikings and the Raiders. They could meet up. It could come down to that. Hopefully they'll have a good season. I know the Raiders will be right there. But it was a super-fun event. I had a good time.”

He said, “It got me all pumped up, man, to be able to go up there and see how another team prepares. Those guys were out there hitting, preparing. To be able to watch all these athletes prepare for their season with super fun for me pumps me up for our for our weekend this weekend here up here at Brainerd.

“I got pretty pumped up just from being there and seeing all those guys prepare for the season. They're working on their craft, just like we all do, whether it's prepping the car or getting the reps and making test runs and all the runs we make. I was telling some of the guys, this is, I believe, our sixth or seventh straight weekend of racing, because we did Norwalk [Night Under Fire]. So for us, there's a lot of repetition, and we're getting into the season like some of them,” Pedregon said. “And so we're pumped up. We're ready to go.”

Pedregon said Hunter “was super-cool,” and he said it was “super-cool” to be pleasantly surprised “to find out that he's a NHRA fan. He’s a racer himself, does a little bit of amateur racing on the side.”

According to an ESPN’s Courtney Cronin, the Jamaica-born Hunter occasionally competes here at Brainerd International Raceway in his Nissan GT-R Nismo, a machine that carries a price tag of more than $200,000. He received driving instruction for racing at high speeds and, she said, “careening around corners the way he bends around tackles.” 

Hunter shares his racing passion with Vikings linebacker teammate Eric Kendricks, who is one of Bridgestone’s NFL Athlete Ambassadors and has a Fox-body Mustang 5.0, a Dodge Viper, and a Porsche GT3 RS in his garage.

Pedregon, who admits to being a bit particular when it comes to keeping his race shop tidy, said he was impressed with the Twin Cities Orthopedics (TCO) Performance Center, where the Vikings train.

His first impression upon walking into the facility was “Wow,” he said. “It was a major wow factor for me. On a scale from one to 10, I was expecting about a five on a scale from one to 10. I saw a 10. That thing, they're buttoned up, is the word term I like to use. Everything was manicured. You can tell the ownership and management are on the right track. They definitely invest in that team, that's for sure. Everything looked neat and tidy and organized. That's a good thing. I'm a proponent of that myself, just looking at everything. But yeah, it had the wow factor for sure. They weren't lacking anything, as far as I could see.”

He said he also was impressed with Hunter and how the two-time Pro Bowler takes care of his body.

“I was told by several guys he's their top defensive player. When I was standing there talking to him, you could tell he put some time in on that body of his, and he's dedicated to his craft because you talk about . . . I don't use this term ever, cut or chiseled. Now, that guy was chiseled, head to toe, man. Really good attitude, positive guy. I was very impressed by him. But you could tell that guy puts in the time,” Pedregon said.

“I know there's probably going to be a handful of those guys that aren't even going to make the team. So they're out there fighting for their playoff football lives. Yeah, it's definitely like anything in sports, whether it's racing . . . that's athletics more than racing. But their race car, their clutch combination, is all in their body and their skill set. They bring their body and mind to the party and see how it fares. So they definitely have to take care of it.”

Pedregon said he made one keen observation, one regarding safety: "The other thing they had for safety – and I'd never seen it before live . . . I've seen it lately, just watching the NFL – but they have these extra pads on their helmets to protect their heads, which I think is a good thing, like extra padding. You could tell [that], like any sport, they're advancing to making it safer. There's still an element of danger there, but it was good to see that. But they were out there full-tilt.”

In the past few years, the NFL community has increased its awareness of the long-term effects of concussions and its attendant CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) that causes loss of brain function. And Pedregon said he has wondered about a possible parallel to the dangers of head trauma in drag racing.

“Believe it or not, I've thought about that,” he said. “What my experience has been, and it's something that I do think about from time to time, I did a tire test for Firestone when I was driving Alcohol Funny Cars back when I drove for a team named Miner Brothers out of Northern California. I remember the tires were very soft, and I did probably 35 or 40 runs at Houston over two days. I had such severe tire shake that I don't know about CTE, but it sure gave me neck complications that I still I think exist to this day. Now, I don't know enough about it to know if that gets into the CTE category.

“I read a thing about where – Brett Favre talked about it – where you see a light and you see . . . I don't know that it's that severe, but I know it's probably not a good thing over time. But I think the alcohol cars, at least from my experience, nitro cars don't shake near as bad because they usually will smoke the tires. But alcohol cars, man, I remember I had some real doozies back in the day,” Pedregon said. “But I sure hope not for everybody's sake, that's for sure, that drive these cars over a period of time. But I don't know enough about it to even suggest that or not.

“But I do think about it, believe me. But I think about those. I think about “Big Daddy” Don Garlits. I think about Don “The Snake” Prudhomme. Those guys walk around. They still look in pretty good health to me,” he said. “Yeah, it probably has its nitro fumes and this, that, and the other. Probably has its challenges as far as health-wise. But man, those guys look pretty healthy to me, especially when you see them walking around interacting. Heck, Garlits is still racing. Prudhomme's racing off-road cars. So makes me feel a little bit better. Let's put it that way.”

Pedregon is concentrating on today’s concerns, and they center on the upcoming Countdown. Like the Vikings and all of the NFL teams, drag racers want to be at peak performance for the playoffs. And Pedregon said he’s encouraged heading into his most effective time of the year.

“Yeah, we weren't our best earlier in the season. We've had some stinkers, for sure. But I feel like we're heading into the time of the season we ran well last year, and I think the tracks we're going to. I'm feeling good about how things are shaping up. We have a new car. We're starting to get that dialed in. So yeah, our playoff's similar to football. That's when you want to be at your best.

"I had a great conversation with the team after Topeka about our plans for Brainerd,” he said. “We had one of the best cars [here] last year, so we’re going back to our notes and looking at everything that got us to the finals in 2021. Weather and temperature should be very similar to last year, so I'm confident that we'll get the Snap-on Tools Dodge turned around.

We have definitely dropped off a bit, but this is a new car and it's going to take some time to get the bugs worked out. It has some differences from the previous car, like even the seatbelts are updated. Not only from the mechanical standpoint, but even driving the car. We have a prototype steering to help it drive better, but it's just different from what I'm used to. We're coming up to the time of year where we're going to have to really buckle down here. We've got Brainerd and then we've got the biggest race of the year in Indy with the Dodge Power Brokers U.S. Nationals coming up. Overall, it’s a good learning curve for us. I'm confident we'll get things sorted out and be ready for the Countdown.”