Author: Todd Veney (Page 8 of 40)

PRO MOD – FERRIS 2022

October 24, 2022 / Todd Veney

With a quarterfinal finish at the Xtreme Texas World Finals, Steven Whiteley wrapped up a successful season second in the final Mid-West Drag Racing Series Pro Mod standings, with an 8-8 win-loss record, two semifinal showings and a pair of No. 1-qualifying efforts (both in Tulsa). “It was a good ‘starter’ season,” he said. “We could’ve capitalized on a few more opportunities, but overall I’d say this was a good year. Now my priority is winning a Mid-West championship, and if next year is our time, we’re going to hurt some feelings.”

The top three cars all ran 3.65s, and Whiteley, who qualified with a 3.64 or 3.65 at the past four races, ended up second with a 3.655, just ahead of No. 3 Ron Muenks’ 3.659 and right behind points leader Dustin Nesloney’s 3.651. He drilled the Tree for a .000 reaction time on a first-round single, then just missed another perfect light against Brian Lewis in the quarterfinals, where a -.009 foul brought his season to a close.

“A brake line was leaking a little,” Whiteley said. “They stop me two or three feet from the beams to adjust the wheelie bar, and a little more and more fluid was leaking out the whole time I was sitting there holding the brake. The red-light … that really took me by surprise. After being trip-zip on the bye first round, I thought, ‘OK, I know where I stand.’ I backed off a little and thought I compensated for the darkness, but it came up red, so that’s on me.”

Whiteley qualified the J&A Service YNot Racing Camaro in the top half every time and the car was running better at Xtreme Raceway Park than it has all year. “We put a new bullet in it for this race, and downtrack the engine wasn’t even sweating,” he said. “Sometimes, at the end of the year you’re ready for it to be over, but I’m more excited than ever. When we left the track, I was stoked. This is just about the fastest car out here, and I’m ready to go right now.”

TAFC – FERRIS 2022

October 24, 2022 / Todd Veney

Already a major event winner in Pro Mod and a world champion in Top Alcohol Dragster, Jim Whiteley has now reached the summit in a third top-tier drag racing category: Top Alcohol Funny Car, where wife Annie has been winning for years.

At the Xtreme Texas World Finals, the grand finale of the 2022 Mid-West Drag Racing Series, the Whiteleys finally got the matchup both have envisioned since the day Jim first climbed in a Funny Car: husband vs. wife with an event title on the line. The only thing better would have been a side-by-sider right to the lights like so many their other matchups this season.

Instead, Annie blew the tires off in low gear and Jim streaked ahead for the win, his first at the controls of a Funny Car. “Now, that was fun,” he said. “Winning feels just as good as it ever did. I just wish it would’ve been a close race.” It was anything but – his 3.68 at 209 mph easily outdistanced Annie’s harmless 7.62 at 58 mph.

“I guess that was just one run too many on that set of tires,” she said. “It was going to be the last run on them anyway, but it looks they were 35-run tires, not 36-.” Until the very end, every pass she made was a keeper, including a 3.63/213, 3.64/212, and 3.66/211 in qualifying, which added up to not just low e.t. but top speed of all three sessions for her first No. 1 since the rescheduled Memphis race completed in Tulsa.

Both Whiteleys covered the eighth-mile Xtreme Raceway Park course in 3.63 seconds in qualifying, Annie at a booming 213.47 mph and Jim at 211.17. He edged Steve Macklyn in the first round in the best race of the event, 3.70/207 to 3.71/203, after an almost dead-even start. She stayed in the .60s with a 3.669 on the first-round single she earned for qualifying No. 1, then beat newly crowned MWDRS champion Chris Marshall’s event-best 3.63 with an another 3.669 on his red-light start.

When Jim ran within two-thousandths of a second of Annie’s semifinal time on a 3.671 single, the table was set for a classic side-by-side final, the race they’ve been dreaming of. But after a perfect start, nearly identical .030 lights, that dream literally went up in smoke. “I didn’t really care who won,” Annie said. “I just wanted us both to run well, and I really thought we would. We had been all weekend.”

PSM – DALLAS 2022

October 17, 2022 / Todd Veney

It could’ve been worse – a lot worse. Joey Gladstone red-lighted in the second round of the NHRA Fall Nationals, a potentially disastrous development made much less egregious when the only rider ahead of him in the standings, Matt Smith, drifted toward the centerline and had to lift in the following round, mitigating the damage.

Coasting across the finish with a speed (26.19) nearly the same as your E.T. (20.82) is no is no way to open qualifying, especially in a 20-bike field, but Gladstone made marked improvement from that 20-second throwaway to the 6.90s to the 6.80s, to, in last-shot qualifying, the promised land: the 6.70s.

Only three Pro Stock Motorcycle riders qualified between 6.73 and 6.80, and all three ran not just 6.79s but identical 6.793s that had to be separated on the basis of their speeds. At an even 200.00 mph, Gladstone was right in the middle, No. 4 behind Angie Smith’s 200.96 and ahead of Steve Johnson’s 199.80.

Gladstone, who’s won Sonoma, Topeka, and Reading already this season, drew theoretically the easiest first-round opponent on the ladder – Richard Gadson, who qualified 13th in his NHRA debut. Gadson actually had a slight early lead but eventually had to get out of it after his bike, like many on gray, blustery afternoon, strayed out of the groove toward the wall, allowing Gladstone to drive around him for an easy 6.85/197 win.

“I didn’t take him lightly,” assured Gladstone, who’s reached at least the semifinals in two-thirds of his starts this season. “This may be his first national event, but he’s a phenomenal racer. It takes time. He’s going to have a great career out here, trust me.”

For just the third time in 2022, Gladstone fell in the second round, this time to a self-inflicted wound, a red-light start. It was the perfect time to do it: even with a .000 reaction time, his 6.86/197 wouldn’t have held off resurgent Steve Johnson’s superior 6.77/195. “I apologize to my team and sponsors,” he said, “but I wasn’t going to do anything with that .77 anyway.”

TAFC – DALLAS 2022

October 17, 2022 / Todd Veney

The Fall Nationals, home of some of the truly unforgettable weekends in both Jim and Annie Whiteley’s careers, was anything but in 2022. This year, Dallas, where Jim scored three times in Top Alcohol Dragster (2008-12-13) and Annie was part of the quickest side-by-side race in Top Alcohol Funny Car history (5.37-5.38 opposite Doug Gordon in the 2017 final), ended in first-round frustration for both drivers.

In just their fourth NHRA national event appearance of the season (following Norwalk, Brainerd, and Indy) both members of drag racing’s premier husband-and-wife team were gone after a single round of eliminations, Jim in a match anybody else would’ve lost too and Annie in a heartbreaker she had in the bag.

After stringing together solid back-to-back qualifying runs (5.54/264 and 5.57/261), Jim found himself up against one of the top two Top Alcohol Funny Car drivers of the past five years, 2020 world champion Doug Gordon, who was all but out of title contention a few weeks ago but now finds himself very much back in it. It didn’t last long. Jim got off the line with the known leaver but overpowered the track in low gear while Gordon, fresh off a win at the St. Louis regional, drove away to a 5.51/267 win he desperately needs to chase down Shane Westerfield for the 2022 championship.

Annie positively drilled first-round opponent Kris Hool on the Tree and couldn’t possibly have lost unless something mechanical went wrong. Something mechanical went wrong: the car shut itself off. She and Hool staged simultaneously – always a difficult prospect because both drivers think they’re staging first but in effect are actually staging last. Annie maintained her composure for a clutch .033 light that had her a car-length ahead of Hool, who flinched for a .157 but advanced anyway when Annie’s car inexplicably shut itself off at the top of low gear, spewing unburned fuel out the headers as she looked on helplessly while he drove around her and into the quarterfinals.

PRO MOD – TULSA 2022

October 9, 2022 / Todd Veney

At the second-to-last race of the 2022 Mid-West Drag Racing Series Pro Mod season, Steven Whiteley delivered on the promise he’s shown all year, pacing the field with an outstanding 3.64 – the exact E.T. mom Annie Whiteley recorded to lead the Funny Car program.

“You get additional runs here because you just ran a whole race [the rescheduled Great Bend event] a day ago, so there’s a lot more opportunity,” Whiteley said. “But it’s not just that. The weather conditions all weekend were favorable to our team, and not just our car – all the YNot cars seem to run good at Tulsa.”

Whiteley, who fell just short of 210 mph on the 3.64, was joined in the .60s by eventual winner Dustin Nesloney, who won the rescheduled Great Bend event earlier in the weekend; Kentucky’s Tommy Cunningham; series founder and Tulsa Raceway Park co-owner Keith Haney; and the 220-mph Second Gen Camaro of Ed Thornton.

Whiteley wasn’t the only driver in the 3.60s, but he had the field covered early on race day, too, wheeling the J&A Service/YNot Racing ’69 Camaro to not just low E.T. of eliminations but the two lowest E.Ts.: 3.67 and 3.63. A 3.67/207 in the opening round was the quickest run of all 16 qualifiers and handily erased Brian Lewis’ respectable 3.76/199, and he established low E.T. of the entire event in a 3.63/208 demolition of Mark “Tydo” Werdehausen’s slowing 4.89/152 in the quarterfinals.

When the blower belt snapped in the semifinals, silencing his engine and costing him the race, Whiteley absorbed a disappointing 3.66/213 to 6.62/67 loss to Nesloney, who extended his already insurmountable points lead. “We were on a tear, but we keep killing blower belts,” he said. “The two-step is really hard on them. We were only getting five runs on a belt, then it was three runs, then two, and then this one broke on the first run. A burnout and a launch, and a brand-new lets go. It’s too bad – we really had the car to beat all weekend.”

The YNot Pro Mod team now stands second in the MWDRS standings, joining mom Annie, who’s second in Funny Car and wife Delaina, who’s second in Top Dragster behind Whiteley’s aunt, reigning series Anita Pulliam-Strasburg.

TAFC – TULSA 2022

October 9, 2022 / Todd Veney

Any doubt that Jim and Annie Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaros are identically prepared (if there ever was any) was put permanently to rest on a single qualifying run at the Mid-West Drag Racing Series’ Throwdown at T-Town.

Husband and wife blasted off the Tulsa Raceway Park starting line within 1/200th of a second of each other and charged down the strip side by side with nearly identical performances right to the end: .954 to .955 in 60 feet, 2.46 to 2.46 to the 330-foot mark, and matching 3.628s at the finish line, with Jim crossing the stripe going half a mile-per-hour faster, 213.47 to Annie’s 212.96.

A day after the rescheduled Great Bend Nationals were completed, the biggest weekend of the eight-race MWDRS season continued with the Throwdown, which, as was the case a day earlier, went better for Annie than it did for Jim. By a single position (on the speed tiebreaker), he had the edge in qualifying in what turned out to be the quickest field in MWDRS Funny Car history. The entire field was in the 3.60s, from pole sitter Chris Marshall’s 3.61 to No. 6 Bill Bernard’s more than respectable 3.69.

Those 3.60s came to a screeching halt in the first round of eliminations, when only Marshall and Annie maintained their consistency. Annie had low E.T. of the entire round in a 3.64/212 win over Colorado’s Steve Macklyn, who gave it his best shot with telepathic .009 reaction time in a losing 3.71/204 effort.

Texan Bryan Brown, who eliminated Jim in the opening round, 3.71/206 to 3.79/198, did Bernard one better in the semi’s with an ever quicker .00 light against Annie – a near-perfect .001. Annie was on time with a solid .059, but Brown put together his best run of the weekend for a tight 3.63/210 win over her fast-closing 3.64/213, then lost to Marshall in the final.

PRO MOD – GREAT BEND 2022

October 8, 2022 / Todd Veney

In his return to competition after crew chief Brandon Snider filled in admirably with a semifinal finish at the U.S. 131 Nationals, Steven Whiteley did likewise at the rescheduled Great Bend Nationals, advancing to the final four to soar into second place in the Mid-West Drag Racing Series Pro Mod standings.

Whiteley managed just a shut-off 5.52 at 78 mph on the original date four months ago in Great Bend, Kan., but he, like many, got just one run, and for the worst possible reason: in the second qualifying session, Ronnie Hobbs’ car went over the wall in a tragic crash that took his life and took out the timing system, ultimately pushing the race back four months and to a different site, series headquarters Tulsa Raceway Park.

“I went only about 10 feet and blew the tires off in the left lane on that one run at Great Bend and never got to make a run in the right after Ronnie’s crash,” Whiteley said. “I think morale was down for everybody, and rightfully so. We were all just thinking about his family.”

A world away in Tulsa, the rescheduled Great Bend event served as Race 1 of a two-race extravaganza on the penultimate weekend of the eight-race MWDRS season. From the No. 2 qualifying spot, Whiteley plowed through the first round of eliminations with the quickest and second-fastest run of the stanza, a sizzling 3.64 at 208.33 mph. Only Ed Thornton’s 219.54-mph blast was faster, and he was nearly a full tenth of a second behind Whiteley in the all-important E.T. department with a 3.72.

For Whiteley, the race may have ended in the quarterfinals when his ’69 Camaro slipped to a 4.59/111 against second-generation driver Justin Jones, but the weekend was far from over. Things were looking way up a day later at the Throwdown at T-Town, where the J&A Service/YNot team towered over the entire field with an event-best 3.64/209.

“By the time we made up this race, it wasn’t the same vibe as at that next one after Great Bend,” Whiteley said. “It’s a different track, and enough time has passed that things were just different. You could feel it. I wasn’t fazed about getting in the car again – I just wanted to get back at it. I think we all did.”

TAFC – GREAT BEND 2022

October 8, 2022 / Todd Veney

The last time a cancelled Mid-West Drag Racing Series race was contested at another venue (earlier this season when Memphis was moved to Tulsa), Annie Whiteley emerged victorious. This time, not so much – but she didn’t miss by much.

Whiteley, who entered the rescheduled Great Bend Nationals atop the Funny Car rankings, made the final but actually lost ground in the standings because the only driver ahead of her was the one who took her out: longtime nemesis Chris Marshall. The 10-year pro, who’d shut off to a 5.76 at 82 mph on her lone qualifying attempt back in Kansas, which was called off after Ronnie Hobbs’ fatal crash took out the clocks, led Marshall by a single point when they passed through the gates at Tulsa Raceway Park.

With an outstanding 3.636 at 213.27 mph in the first round, Whiteley trounced friend Steve Macklyn, who blatantly fouled and coasted to a 9.25 at 48 mph, completing an odd pattern: for perhaps the first time ever, every single race in a round of Top Alcohol Funny Car eliminations was decided on a red-light.

Bryan Brown’s near miss (-.006) invalidated a 3.68/206, advancing Annie’s husband, Jim, who ran a similar 3.67/210 in what otherwise would have been the best race of the round. Then Colorado’s Bill Bernard, using a clutch instead of the torque converter he has for years, threw away any shot he had of upsetting Marshall’s 3.57/314 low E.T./top speed blast with a -.107 bulb.

After Marshall clocked a 3.64/212 on a single, Jim and Annie faced off, as they seem to every weekend, in the other semifinal matchup. Annie got the best of their latest head-to-head clash in a great race after Jim moved first. Both were more than on time (Jim with a .041 reaction time, Annie a .052), but Jim’s 3.68/209 wasn’t enough when she duplicated her first-round time almost to the thousand of a second for a 3.635/213 win.

Pressing to dip into the 3.50s in the final, Annie lost traction, coasting to a disappointing 8.24 at 51 mph. It was particularly exasperating because another low .60 might just have been enough to win – Marshall slowed to his worst run of eliminations, a 3.64 at 212 mph, but still won the race and passed her for the points lead.

PSM – ST. LOUIS 2022

October 3, 2022 / Todd Veney

A round and a half ahead of Matt Smith coming into the Midwest Nationals, Cory Reed and rider Joey Gladstone hit St. Louis thinking big. Title contenders typically average a semifinal finish across the Countdown to the Championship playoffs, and Gladstone did in fact make it to the semifinals, but the rider best positioned to keep him from the crown – five-time world champion Matt Smith – got the best of him there and won the final to assume the points lead with three races to go.

“I’m not going to stress too much about points,” said Gladstone, who’d won three of the past four races, the first three of his NHRA career – Sonoma, Topeka, and Reading. “It’s a dogfight every weekend, and we’re all running so close together and are so close to each other in the points, but whatever I’ve been doing seems to be working so I’m just going to keep doing it.”

Gladstone’s Diamond W/Fatheadz team didn’t make a bad run all weekend, hovering in the 6.70s throughout, starting with a 6.79/199 Friday evening in the first qualifying session that placed him precisely in the middle of the pack, seventh of 13 qualifiers. He followed with identical 6.777s Saturday afternoon, first at 198.67 mph to leapfrog emerging star Marc Ingwersen (6.785) and former world champion Jerry Savoie (6.791) for the No. 5 spot and then backing it up with a second 6.777, this one at 199.58 mph.

“In weather like this, you can really get after it,” Gladstone said of the ideal track and barometric conditions present all weekend. Sunday morning in the first round, he drew a much tougher first-round opponent than No. 5 usually faces, national record holder Karen Stoffer, the only rider to beat him since Denver.

When the tree flashed green, Gladstone was more than up to the challenge, trouncing her otherwise fine 6.87/196 with his best run all weekend, a 6.75 at more than 200 mph. In the quarterfinals against Angie Smith, he covered the quarter-mile in precisely 6.777 seconds for the third time in four runs and passed the tree with a bike-length lead, .031 to .177, to easily outdistance her.

The wheels came off in that crucial semifinal battle, when Matt Smith matched Gladstone on the tree, .019 to .023, and walked away for a 6.75/201 to 6.78/198 win to overtake him by a single point. (After Smith’s final-round win, the lead now stands at 21 points.) “If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be,” Gladstone said of their ongoing championship battle. “If it happens, it happens, and if it goes our way, we’ll enjoy it.”

PSM – MAPLE GROVE 2022

September 19, 2022 / Todd Veney

Righting a ship that seemed adrift just two weeks ago at the U.S. Nationals, Joey Gladstone rode Cory Reed’s Diamond W/Fatheadz Hayabusa to victory in the first race of the five-race Countdown to the Championship, the Pep Boys Nationals. Qualified in the middle of the pack – No. 8 – he came to life in eliminations, smashing incoming points leader Matt Smith in the quarterfinals in perhaps the biggest single round of his career.

“This is awesome,” Gladstone said, still clearly in disbelief after winning for the third time in four races – his first three NHRA wins ever. “It’s still hard to believe it’s really happening.”

“Pure happiness,” exclaimed Reed, now almost fully recovered from his devastating crash last September in Charlotte. “Having so many people rooting for us … it’s a dream come true.”

Gladstone, who entered the Countdown in second place, an even 20 points behind Smith, opened with a decent 6.81/198 in Friday night qualifying, slowed to a 6.83/197 early Saturday afternoon, then powered to a 6.79/199 in last-shot qualifying to move back into the fast half of the field – barely. Waiting for him was Hector Arana Jr., a 15-time national event winner whose career has been marred by red-light starts and who took himself out with another one here.

Smith, the five-time Pro Stock Motorcycle champion who passed Gladstone for the points lead with his Indy victory and qualified No. 1 at this race, loomed in a titanic second-round showdown. For a crucial win that surely will be looked back on as the turning point if he eventually wins the title, Gladstone got Smith at the line and outran him in an instant classic, 6.815 to 6.818.

“I thought I saw the win-light,” Gladstone said, “but then I was like, ‘Wait a minute. Did I really?’ I wasn’t sure until they pointed at me as I rolled around the corner. I’ve never beaten Matt on his V-Twin, have I? He’s a great competitor, one of my idols, and getting him out of here early was huge.”

In the semifinals, Gladstone came from behind for a 6.86/196 to 6.92/195 win over upstart Marc Ingwersen, who’d taken out Angelle Sampey on a huge holeshot, then faced Angie Smith, who had the full might of Matt Smith Racing behind her, in the final. That one was over immediately when she went red, but he had her all the way with a clutch .012 reaction time and a better run, 6.83/196 to 6.86/198.

“To win these things, you really have to learn how to tune on Sundays,” said Gladstone, now Pro Stock Motorcycle’s top-ranked rider. “Eliminations is not the same thing as qualifying, and, as we learned at Indy, what works at one track doesn’t necessarily work at another one.”