In the scenic resort lakes area of northern Minnesota, Annie Whiteley had herself a solid if unspectacular weekend at the Lucas Oil Nationals, one not unlike several others this season: she may not have won, but she went rounds, knocked off a top contender, and left buoyed by a highlight that hints at better things ahead.
For the 13-year Top Alcohol Funny Car veteran, who reached the first national event final of her career here as a rookie in 2012, that highlight was a huge first-round win over drag racing’s fastest-rising new star, Maddi Gordon, who has already established herself as a good leaver in her short time behind the wheel. Gordon, who won her first major title, the Northwest Nationals, just weeks earlier, was more or less on time with a respectable .070 reaction time but Whiteley had her all the way with an outstanding .027 for a 5.51 to 5.50 holeshot win.
“I almost felt bad about it,” Whiteley said. “I didn’t want to see her lose that way. I didn’t even want to race her. I love her – her whole family, really. Who doesn’t?”
Neither team had much to go off of for the first round. Top Alcohol Funny Car and Top Alcohol Dragster teams sat around all day Friday and never did get to run, delayed repeatedly by oil downs from the fuel cars. Saturday they got just one shot, in which Whiteley laid down a 5.56 at 264.91 mph, and then the first round got pushed back to Sunday morning.
Momentum from the huge win in the all-female first-round match ebbed in the second round, where Whiteley’s once promising afternoon was cut short by tire shake opposite eventual winner Bob McCosh. Again, she was off the line first with an outstanding reaction time (.030), but this lead was short-lived. The car went up in smoke almost immediately.
“I wonder if NHRA’s prepping the track the same on Sunday as they do earlier in the weekend,” Whiteley said. “No way did we expect the car to do that. It’s weird. Sometimes my brain says, ‘Pedal it,’ and other times I just hold the pedal down like it’s somehow going clean up. Uh, it’s not. But that time my brain just didn’t compute it that way.”