Annie Whiteley qualified last and got beat first round at the Mid-West Drag Racing Series Funny Car Nationals yet walked away from historic U.S. 131 Dragway feeling good about her team’s immediate future.
The J&A Service/YNot Racing driver was fifth of five on the qualifying grid despite a more than competitive 3.69, then lost by the smallest possible margin, which, after the dismal weekend she’d endured to that point, didn’t seem all that bad. “That’s the most excited I’ve ever been to lost by a thousandth of a second,” she said of her .001-second loss to family friend Steve Macklyn. “After the way the weekend had been going, I almost didn’t care that I lost. But then I started thinking, ‘Point zero-zero-eight of a second … damn, I could have won.”
Both drivers cut uncharacteristic .100 lights and both ran 3.58s, but Macklyn, who eventually made it to the final, where he was trounced by Annie’s husband, event winner and team leader Jim Whiteley, was slightly quicker at both ends of the track. If either she or Macklyn cut any kind of normal light, they’d have won on a holeshot.
“The whole way down the track, I never saw him,” Whiteley said. “We got out and looked at each other like, ‘Hey, nice light.’ .104 to .109 – neither one of us was too happy. And we both said the same thing: it was like the quickest Tree ever. The second we staged the tree was falling. Normally, you’re on the chip for a while, but that time it wasn’t even a second and the Tree was already on. Neither one of us was ready. I’ll say this, though: I’ve never been so excited to lose by a thou.
“We struggled and struggled and struggled to get the car down the track all weekend,” said Whiteley, who barely made it into the 3.60s on the perfectly manicured U.S. 131 surface left with a 3.697 that left her last in the lineup. “Then, in the first round, bam, 3.58. I don’t think any of us expected the car to run that good. We moved some weight around, changed a few things, and it picked up the front end and carried it out there. And kept on carrying it. And I started thinking, ‘Oh, yeah – that’s why I love doing this.’ “