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Funny Car veteran Cruz Pedregon will have to wait until next year to try to capture his fifth victory, and first since 1995, at Heartland Park Park Topeka.

Pedregon, two-time world champion, was the No. 1 qualifier in Funny Car and advanced to Sunday's second round in the NHRA Dollar General Summernationals before a bizarre loss to Robert Hight.

Hight, the Funny Car points leader, smoked his tires shortly after takeoff and was there for the taking before Pedregon's Snap-On Tools Toyota shot across the center line and hit a center cone, resulting in a disqualification.

Pedregon's car ended up in Hight's lane but he was able to gather it back in. Because Hight smoked the tires he was slow enough that there was no chance of a collision between the two cars.

"Looks like we got some oil on our left tire and it flat out got away from me,'' Pedregon said.

Hitting the center cone did significant body damage to Pedregon's brand new Toyota Camry.

"I feel bad for the team,'' Pedregon said. " We made the right calls today, though. We just need to come back strong at Englishtown (N.J.) and get it right.”

BROWN RED-LIGHTS
It wasn't a great day for No. 1 qualifiers, at least not in the nitro classes.

Top Fuel No. 1 qualifier Antron Brown, who had earned his third No. 1 at Topeka over the past four years, red-lighted against Doug Kalitta in Sunday's second round.

The red light was the second for Brown at Topeka over the past three years.

"We always qualify well here,'' Brown said. "I just pushed the envelope too much. It taught me a lesson. Sometime you have to be reminded not to push so hard. This is a race track that we just want to win at real bad. I just hate losing, it doesn't matter how.

"I didn't need to go up there and push it like I did. I have all the confidence in our team that all I have to do is my job. (I was) just trying to press too hard. I know better. All our Matco guys work real hard, and that's the biggest bummer of throwing a race away at the starting line like I did. It's something I hate doing. But I guess it's not drag racing if you're not pushing yourself, and I wanted to win real bad."

Brown wasn't the only driver that missed the tree in the second round, with Erica Enders and Vincent Nobile both red-lighting in the Pro Stock class.

Nobile had registered a perfect .000 start in the first round.

SCHUMACHER STREAK CONTINUES

Seven-time world champion Tony Schumacher's winless streak stretched to 31 races with a second-round loss to Spencer Massey.

Massey and Schumacher both had to peddle their cars after losing traction and Massey edged Schumacher by a matter of inches at the finish line.

MANHATTAN POSTS WIN

Manhattan's Jeryka Lobner won the Super Comp championship in the Summernationals, beating Billy Torrence (Kilgore, Texas) in the final round when Torrence red-lighted.

Lobner had a reaction time of .004 and had a 8.930-second pass at 160.37 miles per hour.

Kansans Randy Meyer (Spring Hill) and Gary Stinnett (Emporia) made it to the finals in Top Alcohol Dragster and Super Stock, respectively, with both veteran drivers finishing second.

Meyer, the No. 1 qualifier, lost in the Top Alcohol Dragster final to Rich McPhillps (Phoenixville, Pa.).

McPhillips had a 5.337 run at 264.55 miles per hour while Meyer had problems and coasted across at 9.581 seconds at just 92.41 mph.

Stinnett lost to Eric Pearson (Stewartville, Minn.) in the Super Stock final.

Pearson clocked a time of 10.660 seconds at 124.42 mph while Stinnett lost despite a 10.476 E.T. at 125.81 mph.

Rick Peterson can be reached at (785) 295-1129 or rick.peterson@cjonline.com or on Twitter @peterson_rick