With both engines screaming at 7,000 rpm, one car fully staged and one about to be, the stage was set for Annie Whiteley. Then she rolled in, the Tree flashed, opponent Shane Westerfield streaked for the finish line in the left lane, and she sat there flat-footed at a dead idle in the right.
“All four [stage] lights were on, and … I have no idea why … it just didn’t register,” Whiteley said. “I thought, What the hell’s going on here? Your foot’s supposed to be going down now.’ All of a sudden, Shane’s seven cars out there and I haven’t left the starting line. I thought, ‘Come on [Westerfield’s] blower belt – break. Please break.’ It didn’t. Of course. So I took off after him, but it got to the point where I realized, ‘Even if it breaks right now, I’m not going to catch him.’ “
Up to that point, everything was right on schedule for Whiteley’s J&A/YNot Racing team. She qualified in the top four, at the Texas Fall Nationals, held at the original supertrack, the Texas Motorplex, just outside Dallas in tiny Ennis, Texas, as she has in 80 percent of her starts this year. She’d already knocked off one of Top Alcohol Funny Car’s top young drivers, Hunter Jones, despite his great light (.027) and solid run (5.54), outperforming him with a perfectly fine .061 light of her own and a superior 5.47 that just missed Low E.T. of the Meet, at a booming 268.29 mph, which came up just short of Top Speed.
“The car was running good, it really was,” Whiteley said. “We ran a 5.49 in qualifying, which just shows that [crew chief] Mike [Strasburg] and the guys are onto a tune-up for places like this. We got back after that run and Mike said, ‘We might’ve just figured something out. I think I know how to get down these hot tracks.’ “
Then came the quarterfinals, and an abrupt, bizarre end to what to that point had been a great weekend. “It sucks,” Whiteley said. “We were doing so good. Then second round I see Shane out there and think, ‘What are you doing that far ahead of me? And why the hell am I still on the throttle?’ “