Author: Todd Veney (Page 1 of 40)

TAFC – POMONA

November 18, 2024 / Todd Veney

The final race of Annie Whiteley’s season ended just like literally 90 percent of her other NHRA national event starts this season: in the second round. The six-time winner didn’t lose in the first round once all year, but for the ninth time in 10 2024 nationals, she was gone after round two.

Whiteley, who went to the final round at the other one, Maple Grove, ran an outstanding 5.43 in the quarterfinals here but fell to Ray Martin’s nearly identical 5.44. “I’m trying to practice going in [staging] second,” she said, “but I’m not there yet. I’m still a little behind. Now that half the cars out here have a two-step, everybody wants to get in there first. So do I. Everybody’s doing it, and some of them are double-bulbing me, and I have to be ready for it.”

The J&A Service/YNot Racing team never made a bad run all weekend. Whiteley clocked a 5.47 at 266 mph right off the trailer and a 5.49/267 in what turned out to be Top Alcohol Funny Car’s only other qualifying session. A 5.42/268, her best run of the whole season, easily eliminated Christine Foster’s backpedaling 6.04/190 in a first-round clash between the only female drivers in the field, but a similar 5.43/268 wasn’t quite enough in the quarterfinals when Martin, driving the Miner Brothers car fielded by third-generation racer Greg Miner, made the best run of his career, a 5.44. (It was no fluke, either – he ran another .44 in the semi’s.)

“I need to get better at going in second, that’s all there is to it,” said Whiteley, who was anything but late with a .065 reaction time – it just wasn’t in the .020s, as Martin’s was, and as Whiteley has been numerous times since crew chief Mike Strasburg made the move to the two-step early this season. “I don’t want to have to race the other guy to get in to the pre-staged light first every time. I want to be good either way – staging first or staging last – and I’m getting my composure and getting my steps down, but Ray’s out there bracket racing when he’s not running Alcohol Funny Car and he’s really gotten good at it.”

PRO STOCK – POMONA

November 18, 2024 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed could’ve decided the 2024 NHRA Pro Stock championship. He didn’t – nobody was keeping Greg Anderson from his sixth title, not even teammate Dallas Glenn – but Reed was right there, shift-for-shift in the second round of one of the truly memorable races of the legend’s long, prolific career.

What Reed did do was kill the Tree all weekend with one .020 light after another; he never had one not in the .020s. “I’m starting to realize that I don’t have to get jacked up or be in some certain state of mind to cut a light,” he said. “I just need to see the light, let go of the pedal, and – bam: .020 light.”

In qualifying, which was reduced from the usual four sessions to just two by persistent rain Friday afternoon, Reed had .022 and .023 reaction times. His K-B/Titan-powered Camaro performed well, too, propelling him to the middle of the field with an aggregate best of 6.534 at 210.01 mph for the No. 9 spot.

Reed faced the Elite team’s Jerry Don Tucker in the first round, and, as he has every time they’ve ever raced, beat him. He was out first with another .022 light and won what would have been an exceptionally close race, 6.558 to 6.563, by a comfortable margin, snapping a nasty streak of first-round losses and setting up a David vs. Goliath quarterfinal matchup with Anderson, who was chasing history.

“Since about St. Louis [Sept. 27-29], I’ve been figuring this deal out – where I have my foot on the [clutch] pedal, how hard I push it, the whole mental side of it,” Reed said. “Ever since then, I think I’ve found a groove.”

It carried into the quarterfinals, but Anderson was not to be denied. With a .026 light Reed was off like a shot, but Anderson erased the lead by 3rd gear and tied Low E.T. of the Meet to that point in a 6.492/211.63 to 6.564/209.56 decision.

“When we took off, we were close,” Reed said. “I couldn’t really tell who left first [he did, .026 to .030], but by about half-track, I could see his nose and knew he was going to outrun me. He deserves this. He had the best car all weekend, right from the start. No way was he going to slow down that time, and whatever he’s figured out with that car should trickle down to the rest of us next year.”

TAFC – LAS VEGAS REGIONAL

November 11, 2024 / Todd Veney

“Double bulbing” – going from not staged to pre-staged to fully staged in one swift motion to catch an opponent off guard – blindsided Annie Whiteley at the final regional event of 2024, where she absorbed a exasperating holeshot loss to Ray Martin.

In the Top Alcohol Funny Car semi’s at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of her first major victory a dozen years ago, Whiteley, who’s cut some of her best lights ever this season, got caught flat-footed when Martin rolled right into both beams. When the Tree flashed, he was ready, she wasn’t, and her best of four great runs went for naught in a 5.52 to 5.46 loss. “When I let go, I just thought, ‘Damn…’ ” she said. “I knew I was late.”

The weekend had gotten off to a promising start when Whiteley stormed to an outstanding 5.47 at 266.79 mph right off the trailer for the early qualifying lead. A subsequent 5.49/265 positioned the J&A Service/YNot Racing “Shattered Glass” team well for eliminations … until the ladder came out and she found herself paired up with husband Jim first round.

As it turned out, mechanical gremlins sidelined Jim’s team, and alternate Hunter Jones, who enjoyed the finest day of his career here earlier this season, assumed Jim’s spot on the ladder. Annie drilled him on the Tree and drove away for an easy 5.50/265 win while Jones, who’d mustered a best of just 5.97 in qualifying, rattled the tires, pedaled, and briefly gave chase before lifting for a 7.46/142 loss.

In the semifinals, Whiteley picked up to the 5.46 at more than 266 mph but couldn’t run down Martin’s engine-damaging 5.52 at 252. “As soon as you pre-stage, Ray just rolls right in,” she said. “I wasn’t ready – the whole way downtrack, I was just hoping he’d break something. Ray bracket races all the time now, so he’s got this whole deal figured out and just cuts .020 or .030 lights every time.”

PRO STOCK – LAS VEGAS

November 4, 2024 / Todd Veney

Qualified in the fast half for the first time since Sonoma, where he started a career-best 6th and made his first Pro Stock final, Cory Reed didn’t have to do anything special to go rounds here. He just needed to do his thing. But how was he supposed to know?

No one has any idea what kind of light the other driver is about to cut or how his or her car is going to run, and this would have been a perfect time to be late, short-shift, or shake the tires. Anything would’ve done – anything but a red-light, which, unfortunately, is exactly what happened. Gunning for a killer light, Reed came within thousandths of a second of a perfect one, but instead of a near-perfect .006 light it was an imperfect -.006 foul.

Camrie Caruso advanced with a 10-second run, coasting silently behind Reed while he blasted across the finish line at 204 mph thinking he’d won. “I was really trying to kill it that time,” he said. “.010, .012 – something like that. I figured if I went .010 all day long I could win the race. That double-0 red-light wasn’t a mistake. I wasn’t like, ‘How could I do that?’ It felt good. I’ve had enough good lights now to know a good one, and that really felt like one.”

Reed/Caruso shaped up to be a close matchup – the closest possible, actually. Not only was it the No. 8 qualifier against No. 9; both ran exactly the same e.t., right down to the thousandth of a second, at virtually identical speeds: 6.631s at 205 mph. (Reed got eighth and Caruso ninth on the speed tie-breaker, 205.57 mph to 205.38.)

The foul made it a moot point and Caruso’s shake-riddled shutoff pass made it that much harder a loss for the J&A Service/YNot Racing driver to take. “I knew going up there it was going to be the flip of the coin, .00 green or .00 red,” Reed said. “That’s how this game is played.”

TAFC – LAS VEGAS NATIONAL

November 4, 2024 / Todd Veney

The same thing that’s plagued Annie Whiteley’s Top Alcohol Funny Car team all year struck again at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway: the clutch – or, more specifically, its sporadic inconsistency.

“The discs are wearing in the middle now,” Whiteley said. “It’s like we’re ‘clutch light’ [not enough counterweight] but we’re not. It just looks like we are. If we really were, this would be something completely different. It’s not like it happens once every 10 runs – it’s more like once every five or six. It happened in the final round at Reading [where she blew the tires off after running five straight 5.40s], and the same thing happened again here.”

Whiteley laid down one good lap after another in qualifying, as she almost always does, charging past the half-track mark at more than 210 mph and storming to a 5.51 at 265.12 mph right off the trailer. She followed with an unerringly consistent 5.52/264 and a steady 5.519/263.87 in last-shot qualifying that left her No. 6 on the grid.

A huge favorite in the first round against No. 11 qualifier Doug Schneider, Whiteley didn’t disappoint, trouncing Schneider, who competes infrequently and qualified with a career-best 5.59, by almost two tenths of a second on the leave, .059 to .252. She pulled steadily away for a runaway win with a pass almost identical to her qualifying efforts, a 5.52/262, while Schneider trailed with a distant 6.81/239.

It was in the quarterfinals that misleading clutch readings doomed the J&A Service/YNot team. It wasn’t that the car smoked the tires out of nowhere; it’s that crew chief Mike Strasburg didn’t have as much clutch in the car as he otherwise would have, so it didn’t run as quick as it could have. Whiteley got opponent Bob McCosh, who’s rumored to be moving to the fuel ranks next season, at the Tree with an excellent .039 light, but he outran her, 5.49/262 to 5.54/263, to win by about a car length.

“Mike will say, ‘I think I know what’s wrong,’ and then we’ll make a run and he’ll say, ‘Well, that wasn’t it. That didn’t fix it,’ ” Whiteley said. “It’s bitten us several times this year, and it’s driving him nuts. It doesn’t make any sense.”

PRO STOCK – DALLAS

October 14, 2024 / Todd Veney

Cut a good light, make just about your fastest run ever, and still get smoked in the first round … that’s what competing at drag racing’s highest level can be like, as Cory Reed learns on a weekly basis. He was off like a shot and still got sent home by the legend Jeg Coughlin the last way any driver would ever want: on a holeshot.

It’s just what happens when you face one of the truly great drivers in the history of sport. Reed cut a serviceable .035 light, nailed his shifts, and still barelylost in the first round of the Texas Fall Nationals. “I left pretty good – I knew it when I let the clutch out – but when I peeked over around half-track, there he was,” he said of the many-time world champion, who’s won NHRA national events in a record-tying seven different categories.

Mired in the back half of the field, as he’s been since the first two races of his burgeoning Pro Stock career, Reed made a run quick enough to beat Coughlin, who not only survived the round but went on to win the event, keeping alive his remote championship hopes. “I didn’t just see him, I saw him the all way through high gear,” Reed said. “Somewhere around the eighth-mile mark, I thought, ‘Get out of here, Jeg,’ but he never did.”

The Texas Motorplex scoreboards showed a 6.58 at just over 208 mph in Coughlin’s lane and a quicker 6.57 at more than 210 mph – the second-fastest speed of Reed’s young Pro Stock career – in the right. The margin of victory was an agonizingly close eight-thousandths of a second, which, at more than 200 mph, is less than two feet.

Reed’s run was the third-quickest of the round, better than those of championship contenders Dallas Glenn (6.582), Erica Enders (6.579), and a dozen other drivers and bettered only by the other two contenders for the 2024 title, Aaron Stanfield (6.559) and Greg Anderson (6.543). “I told Jeg at the top end he was one of my all-time heroes,” Reed said. “He told me, ‘You’re doing good, stay at it. You’ll get there.’ “

TAFC – DALLAS

October 14, 2024 / Todd Veney

With both engines screaming at 7,000 rpm, one car staged and the other about to be, the table 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 lights were on, and … I have no idea why … it just didn’t register that I was staged,” Whiteley said. “I thought, What the hell’s going on here? Why isn’t your foot going down on the throttle?’ Shane was seven cars out ahead of me and I hadn’t even left yet. I thought, ‘Come on [Westerfield’s] blower belt – break. Please break.’ It didn’t. Of course. I took off after him, but eventually it got to where even if it broke I was never going to catch him.”

Until then, everything was going according to schedule for Whiteley’s J&A/YNot Racing team. She’d qualified in the top four at the original supertrack, the Texas Motorplex, as she has in 80 percent of her starts this year. She’d 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 that fell just short of Top Speed.

“The car was running good,” Whiteley said. “We ran a .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 had been a great weekend. “This sucks,” Whiteley said. “We were doing so well. Then Shane was so far out there that I was like, ‘Why are you so far ahead of me? And why the hell am I still on the throttle?’ “

PRO STOCK – ST. LOUIS

September 30, 2024 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed’s disappointing first-round loss at the Midwest Nationals wasn’t the result of iffy conditions, a lack of power, or bad racing luck as much as it was a product of where he qualified: 14th, after being 12th at Indy, 14th at Maple Grove, and 10th at Charlotte.

“We have to stop qualifying like this,” said Reed, who, like everyone, got half as many attempts as usual (two) because Friday qualifying was washed out. “My team is really, really good at getting a car down the track. They’re smart. They always have a plan. But sometimes I’d rather not get down the track because we were trying to run great than get in near the bottom of the order again and not have lane choice first round.”

Reed made solid runs in both sessions Saturday, a 6.62 and a 6.61, both at 206 mph. Problem was, 13 other cars were faster than the J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro and he got stuck in the dreaded right lane first round while his opponent, K-B/Titan team leader and racing legend Greg Anderson, lined up on the smoother, much preferred left side. Vastly experienced, impervious to pressure, he had every advantage.

“It’s not like these guys would throw a race to make sure Greg wins because he’s running for a championship,” Reed said. “We’d never do that. And it’s not like I don’t have great equipment – I do. But that’s a hard guy to beat. Nobody is more dedicated than Greg is, and nobody spends more time at the track.”

It showed on the scoreboards. Reed made his best run all weekend, just missing the 6.50s with a 6.600, but with a 6.567, low e.t. of eliminations, Anderson would not be denied. “We made a decent run, but against him, what are you going to do?” Reed asked. “We always work our way up, taking it easy to make sure we get down the track, sneaking up on it and getting faster all weekend. Four or five runs in, we’re hauling ass. But here, we only got two shots. I’d rather be aggressive the entire time instead of building up a baseline of usable, successful laps. If we don’t qualify sometime because the car is spinning or shaking, I won’t care.”

TAFC – CHARLOTTE

September 23, 2024 / Todd Veney

After perhaps the most consistent three runs any Alcohol Funny Car driver ever made anywhere and an even better one in the first round, Annie Whiteley inexplicably blew the tires off in round two. And it wasn’t just a barrage metronomically consistent E.T.s; it was all the progressive times, too. Thousands of horsepower to control and varying, ever-changing track and weather conditions to account for, yet every run looked exactly like the last: smooth.

“I knew the car was consistent,” Whiteley said, “but I didn’t realize it was that consistent – I never pay attention to the little numbers [the thousandths of a second]. But you look back on it, and it’s like, ‘How did we do that?’ “

As the race wore on, Whiteley’s times grew infinitesimally quicker and faster at each increment down the zMax Dragway quarter-mile: 2.497, 2.491, and 2.490 to the 330-foot mark; 3.679, 3.673, and 3.668 to the eighth-mile; 209.98, 210.64, and 210.97 mph half-track speeds; and 1000-foot times of 4.683, 4.676, and 4.671 led to increasingly quicker E.T.s of 5.530, 5.522, and 5.520, the last of which left her No. 3 in the final lineup.

After progressively better reaction times of .077, .054, and .033 in qualifying, Whiteley left on first-round opponent Chris Foster, the former U.S. Nationals winner, by more than a tenth and got the best of a 5.50/266.58 (top speed of the meet) to 5.575/261.83 decision not nearly as close as the E.T.s alone would indicate. In the quarterfinals, Whiteley, who last scored here in 2018, faced three-time national event winner D.J. Cox, who won this race in 2016.

That’s when the J&A Service/YNot team’s unerring consistency vanished, tire smoke billowed from behind the car, and the weekend ground to an unceremonious, premature halt. “This car has kicked our ass a couple times now, hasn’t it?” Whiteley asked. “They don’t tell me what they’re doing – it’s more like, ‘Get in it and drive.’ But it’s been taking the tire off every once in a while, and we’ll think, ‘Why did that happen? There’s no way it should have smoked the tires that time.’ “

PRO STOCK – CHARLOTTE

September 23, 2024 / Todd Veney

Pro Stock rookie Cory Reed got quicker and quicker on the Tree in qualifying, culminating in a perfect .000 reaction time, but ultimately took himself out of the Carolina Nationals with his first red-light in years.

“I’m not discouraged,” he insisted. “Disappointed, sure, but not discouraged. The thing is, after you get to the final at your second race ever [Sonoma], your perspective changes because now you know you can win. I didn’t think I’d feel this way until next year. When I started this deal, I was like, ‘Pro Stock? Yeah, that might be fun. Let’s do it.’ No expectations, no pressure. But then you get out there and do well right away, and you’re like, ‘Hey, I can win one of these things…’ “

Reed had a .057 light on his first qualifying run, a .025 on his second, and a perfect trip-zip .000 on his third. In the first round, the car lurched through the beams when he decked the throttle and opponent Cristian Cuadra inherited an easy win. “My foot got kicked off the pedal,” Reed said. “I was floating the clutch, cheating the pedal a little. We were on our third different engine, so I didn’t know if the car was going to run good or not. I figured the least I could do was give us a chance with a .010 light.”

Cuadra, another young driver with quick reflexes on the cusp of his first major victory, scooted to a winning 6.67 while Reed clicked it early and still coasted to a 6.76 at 178 mph. “I moved my foot to a different place on the pedal that time,” Reed said. “The pressure point was right on the tip of my toes, so the pedal was barely pushing back on my foot. I did it in qualifying and it worked great, so I tried it again first round. I thought I’d found something.”

Instead, Reed got a red-light, which, until this weekend, he’d never had in Pro Stock – even in qualifying. “As soon as the car started to move, I knew I was screwed,” he said. “I thought, ‘You dumbass, what was that?’ and stayed in it just to see what it’d run, and I was all over the place. In 5th gear, I was like, ‘What the hell are you doing? You red-lighted – why are you still on it?’ I just drove the hell out of it for no reason. That would’ve been a good run, too, because I lifted before the 1,000-foot mark and still went a .70-something. He only went a .67, so if I would’ve just cut my normal light, I would’ve won.”