Annie Whiteley put together another solid if unspectacular weekend at the Lucas Oil Nationals, one not unlike several others this season: she didn’t the race but went rounds, knocked off a top contender, and walked away rightfully encouraged about her team’s immediate future.
For the 13-year veteran, who reached her first national final here as a rookie in 2012, the clear-cut highlight was a huge first-round win over drag racing’s fastest-rising new star, Maddi Gordon, who, in her young career, already has established herself as a leaver. Gordon, who won her first major Top Alcohol Funny Car title at the Northwest Nationals three weeks ago, was more or less on time with a respectable .070 reaction time, but Whiteley had her all the way with an outstanding .027 light for a 5.51 to 5.50 holeshot win.
“I almost felt bad about it,” Whiteley said later. “I’d never want to see Maddi lose like that. I didn’t want to race her in the first place. I love her – her whole family, really. Who doesn’t?”
Neither team had much to go off of heading into the first round of eliminations. Nobody did. Delayed by repeated oil downs from the fuel cars, Top Alcohol Funny Car and Dragster racers sat around all day Friday and never did get to run. Saturday, when teams got what turned out to their only qualifying attempt, Whiteley laid down a 5.56 at 264.91 mph. Then the first round got pushed back to Sunday morning.
Momentum from winning that huge all-female first-round match ebbed a round later when Whiteley’s promising weekend was cut short by tire shake against eventual winner Bob McCosh. Again, she was off the line first with a clutch reaction time (.030), but this lead was short-lived. She went up in smoke almost immediately.
“I wonder if NHRA is prepping the track the same on Sunday as they do earlier in the weekend,” Whiteley said. “No way did we think the car was going to do that. It’s weird – sometimes my brain says, ‘pedal it,’ and other times I just hold the throttle down like it’s somehow going clean itself up. It never does. I guess that time my brain just didn’t compute.”