YNot Racing

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PSM – LAS VEGAS 2018

October 30, 2018 /

Pressed into service when Joey Gladstone’s jet-ski romp on the Colorado River days before the Toyota Nationals ended in a 70-mph tumble and a bruised tailbone, Cory Reed entered his first NHRA event since he climbed off the bike at Indy to grant his much lighter teammate the opportunity of a lifetime. In the end, it might have been better had Gladstone been healthy enough to ride.

Fit as a fiddle and skinny as a rail, Reed is still at a distinct competitive disadvantage, too tall and too heavy for his Buell-powered Team Liberty XBR. The former NHRA Rookie of the Year opened qualifying with an off-pace 7.17 at 190 mph, followed with a similar 7.13 at 190 mph Friday afternoon, and picked up about a tenth of a second Saturday but still found himself a few hundredths short of the all-6-second field after back-to-back 7.0s at 190.

Reed wound up 19th on the final qualifying sheet, a couple of ticks behind Katie Sullivan and many-time national event winner Karen Stoffer and ahead of veteran Freddie Camarena, former Division 7 bike champ Anthony Vanetti, and newcomer Maurice Allen. When the tour wraps up at the NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif., in two weeks, Gladstone will be back on the seat, and when the 2019 season opens in Gainesville next March, Reed will be riding a lighter, faster, more competitive bike.

 

 

TAFC – LAS VEGAS NATIONAL 2018

October 29, 2018 /

Anxious at the prospect of making her first run since she crashed off the end of the Texas Motorplex shutdown area on Oct. 7, Annie Whiteley swapped feet at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the first time in a temporary new ride. “I was nervous as hell on that first qualifying run,” she admitted. “I had two weeks to think about getting back in there, but after that first run, it was over. I was fine for the second one and totally comfortable by the third.”

It was a solid effort not just for Whiteley but for her entire team, led by crew chief Mike Strasburg, who was unfamiliar with an altogether different car than the one they’d run the past two years. “People think this is the body off Lombardo’s car,” Whiteley said of the Camaro they borrowed from two-time championship runner-ups Rick Jackson and John Lombardo. “It’s not just the body; it’s that whole car – the body, the chassis, the computer, everything except the motor, transmission, and pedals out of my car. It’s actually the same one Lombardo was driving when I raced him in the final round last year at Pomona.”

It’s built for a driver about a foot taller than Whiteley. “It’s different, I can tell you that,” she said. “And when it’s not your car, you don’t fit in there quite right, and you definitely don’t want to hurt anything because you know it’s not yours.” The team stuffed padding in the seat so she could see over the injector, and soon she was used to the new cockpit – not 100% at home, but at least comfortable enough to compete.

Eliminations didn’t last long when Whiteley came out on the wrong end of an exceptionally tight first-round match with Brian Hough, who had never beaten the YNot team in national competition. Previously 3-0 against Hough, Whiteley ran four-thousandths of a second slower than the Oregon driver for a disappointing 5.538 to 5.542 loss. “Hey, it was good just to be back out here,” she said. “We’ll get a little closer with this thing at the regional and Pomona and be back with a brand-new car for 2019.”

PRO MOD – LAS VEGAS 2018

October 29, 2018 /

In the final race of the 2018 J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod tour, where Richmond winner Mike Janis was crowned champion when three-time series champion Rickie Smith went down in round two, Jim and Steven Whiteley wrapped up their seasons with solid performances. Steven qualified way up at the top, in the No. 4 position, with a 5.77, and Jim did better than 22 of the 26 teams at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, advancing to the quarterfinals.

“I guess 5.77’s a good number for us,” Steven said. “That’s what we ran in the final round last year at Gainesville, and with the air up here in the mountains, that’s a way better run than a .77 in Gainesville. Pro Mod is so tough. You run within a tenth and a half of low E.T. in some classes, at least you’re going to get to race, maybe go a round in eliminations. A tenth and half from the No. 1 qualifier in Pro Mod means you’re not even close to making the show. 5.77 is a baller run, but when guys are running low .70s, it’s almost like, ‘.77? Thanks for playing.’ ”

Another 5.77 in the first round would have had Whiteley right in the thick of it against opponent Michael Biehle’s virtually identical 5.76, but Whiteley’s Camaro refused to cooperate, taking him the long way down the quarter-mile and he eventually forcing him to lift. “It just drove the tire off,” he said. “This was the first race in a long time – like, maybe two years – when I made it down all four times in qualifying, and I was really excited for the first round. First round sucks. I hate it – I think everybody does – and when it takes the tire off like that, you just think, ‘Seriously?’ I went to get back on it and saw him way out there and just thought, ‘Forget it. I know we weren’t stellar, weren’t in the low .70s, but we were right there all weekend, running good every time. Going up there for first round, I thought, ‘I have a bracket car. This is something I can work with.’ I really thought we could run .76, .77 all day long.”

Team leader Jim Whiteley didn’t run as quick but fared far better, going from the No. 15 qualifying position to the middle rounds with a pair of low 5.80s in eliminations. In the first round, his 5.84 was enough to take out wily veteran Todd Tutterow, who flickered the stage light, confusing NHRA’s autostart system into turning on the Tree right as his car rocked back out of the beams for a red-light start. A similar 5.82 in the second round, even when launched by a superior .031 reaction time, wasn’t enough to hold off Brazilian Sidnei Frigo, who advanced with a 5.75 and went on to his first Pro Mod victory with identical runs in the semifinals and final.

PSM – CHARLOTTE 2018

October 15, 2018 /

In his fifth start astride Cory Reed’s Team Liberty Buell, Yellow Corn rider Joey Gladstone got faster and faster in almost every qualifying session and entered Carolina Nationals eliminations primed to give Vance & Hines test rider Chip Ellis all he could handle. Gladstone got off the line within thousandths of a second of the 2008 championship runner-up, but that was the last time he was in the race.

Ellis pulled away with an outstanding 6.77 – low e.t. of the entire event – while Gladstone could only watch him increase his lead with every shift after bogging hard off the line. Qualified 15th and down exactly a tenth of a second heading into their first-round heat, Gladstone wasn’t exactly the favorite against the No. 2 seed, but Ellis doubled the distance between them in qualifying (6.80 to 6.90) to an insurmountable two-tenths of a second, 6.77 to 6.97.

But despite entering eliminations in the second-to-last spot, Gladstone wasn’t out of contention. He’d already outpaced five non-qualifiers to make the Sunday field and stepped it up in virtually every session of qualifying with times of 7.01/193, 6.99/193, 6.90/192, and 6.92/194. For a No. 15 qualifier, he wasn’t far from the top – less than a tenth of a second, actually, with a 6.903 to No. 1 Eddie Krawiec’s 6.806 – but against low E.T. of the meet, no one would’ve had a chance.

PSM – DALLAS 2018

October 8, 2018 /

YNot Racing’s newest driver, Joey Gladstone, qualified solidly in the middle of the pack at the NHRA Fallnationals in Dallas but bowed out early with a tough first-round loss at the hands of 2016 NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Jerry Savoie. Negotiating the notoriously narrow groove at the all-concrete Texas Motorplex in the first pair of the first round, Gladstone slipped to a 7.02 at 191.13 mph – 2 mph and about a tenth of a second slower than he ran in qualifying, where he was just a tick behind Savoie.

“There’s not one thing we could point a finger at on that run,” Gladstone said. “I short-shifted 2nd gear a little – that probably knocked a couple hundredths off of it – but it just fell off from qualifying. I think the motor was hurt little when we got up there. The air/fuel ratio was good, the EGTs [exhaust-gas temperatures] were good; it just wasn’t pulling as hard as it had been earlier in the weekend.”

The numbers bear that out: after opening with a strong 6.94 at 193 mph Friday afternoon, the Buell-powered YNot machine’s performance steadily but gradually diminished, from a 7.04/192 Friday evening to a 7.05/191 Saturday afternoon to a 7.03/192 in the fourth and final qualifying session. “Something internally is wrong with the engine – we don’t know what it is,” said Gladstone, who eventually finished in the No. 10 qualifying slot with a 6.94, just a hundredth of a second behind Savoie’s seventh-best 6.93. “Whatever it is, it’ll be right by the time we get to Charlotte.”

PRO MOD – DALLAS 2018

October 8, 2018 /

In his first official appearance at the Texas Motorplex, which immediately rocketed to the top of his all-time personal least-favorite-tracks list, Steven Whiteley, who qualified No. 1 in Bristol and No. 2 with a brand-new car in Topeka, landed in the No. 4 spot with an excellent 5.80-flat at more than 251 mph. Not bad – especially for a field that, like all J&A Service Pro Mod Series fields, attracted nearly 30 cars.

Didn’t matter. “I still hate it this place,” said Whiteley, who’s never voiced his opinion about any other track on the NHRA tour. “I hate dragging our stuff through the pits here.” Texas has always been kind to the father-and-son YNot Racing team of Jim and Steven Whiteley, but most of that good fortune has taken place to the southeast of Dallas at Houston Raceway Park, where Jim has gone the distance two of the past three years. Here Jim DNQed, missing the 5.852 bump by a mere 18-thousandths of a second with a 5.870, but Steven, despite his distaste for the entire facility, managed to go rounds.

The second-generation driver left unheralded Jader Krolow sitting on the starting line Sunday morning in the first round, winning a 5.79-5.89 race that wasn’t nearly as close as the E.T.s would indicate. Whiteley got off the line ahead of his inexperienced and obviously distracted opponent by the unimaginable margin of three-tenths of a second, and was reaching for second gear about the time Krolow left.

The wheels came off in the second round when Whiteley was eliminated by teammate Jeremy Ray. He again took a huge holeshot lead of more than a tenth of a second but had to lift when tire shake set in and was driven around by the eventual winner’s consistent 5.79. “It wasn’t a bad weekend,” Whiteley said. “But I don’t ever want to run here again. We won’t be back next year.”

TAFC – DALLAS 2018

October 8, 2018 /

Throwing the chutes at nearly 270 mph like she has a million times before, national record holder Annie Whiteley had no idea she was seconds away from a terrifying trip off the end of the track. Whiteley, who narrowly lost the Fallnationals Top Alcohol Funny Car final to Doug Gordon last year, barely lost to him again in 2018, this time in the second round, but another narrow loss was the least of her problems.

The YNot/J&A Service Camaro’s parachutes never blossoming and instead becoming entangled and flailing behind the car as Whiteley careened through the shutdown area and the sand trap grew closer and closer by the second – that was the problem. “I’ve never been through anything like that before,” she said. “The end of that track really comes up at you fast. It’s hard to make yourself let go of the brake handle, but that’s what you have to do or the brakes will lock up and the car will just start bouncing.”

The onboard data recorder revealed just how fast Whiteley was still going when she first went for the brakes: 250 mph. “I didn’t know if I won or lost; I just knew I didn’t want to get into the sand and tear up the car,” said Whiteley, who crossed the finish line at 269 mph just 34-thousandths of a second behind Gordon. “At some point I knew I was going into the sand, and I just wanted to get stopped before I hit the net, but I was still going so fast when I hit the sand there was no way I was going to miss it.”

“When I saw her come out of the [roof] hatch, I knew she was OK,” a relieved Jim Whiteley said. “The body is junk and the chassis is going to have to be front-halved, but most of the running gear can be swapped straight into the new car and we should be ready by the first Vegas race [Oct. 26-28].” Annie, currently third in the NHRA national standings and clearly in line for yet another Top 5 finish, will wrap up the season at the Toyota Nationals in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas regional a week later, and the NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif., the week after that.

PRO MOD – ST. LOUIS 2018

September 24, 2018 /

At the second-quickest race in the history of the J&A Service NHRA tour (behind only this race last year), Jim Whiteley charged to the greatest run of his Pro Mod career, a 5.72 at more than 250 mph, to qualify a season-high sixth. It took a 5.77 just to make the cut, and two drivers – Todd Tutterow and, unfortunately, YNot’s Steven Whiteley – ran in the 5.70s and didn’t qualify.

“I absolutely should’ve run between a .71 and a .73 here,” said Steven, understandably disappointed. “I didn’t run good enough in the one [atmospherically] great session, which was a huge kick in the butt. This is probably the biggest disappointment of my whole year. I was a grouch all day Sunday when everybody else was racing and I wasn’t.”

Near-perfect conditions at Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Ill., just across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis, had the Pro Mods flying all weekend. After a single qualifying session, the entire field was packed within a tenth of a second and the bump was already down to a 5.82. Steven’s 5.80-flat Saturday morning put him 12th at the time but ultimately did him no good, and his subsequent 5.77 left him two-thousandths of a second too slow, 17th in a 16-car field.

Throw out Mike Castellana’s ridiculous 5.67 national record run, and the entire field was separated by just five-hundredths of a second – 5.72 to 5.77. Jim qualified 6th with a 5.729, but Mike Janis, who also ran a 5.72 (5.725), was all the way up in the No. 2 spot. In eliminations, Jim strapped a holeshot on PDRA star Jason Scruggs in the opening round and pulled away to a 5.80 to 5.82 win, then fell in the quarterfinals to eventual winner Stevie “Fast” Jackson, 5.74 to 5.79, for his best finish since he won Houston.

PSM – ST. LOUIS 2018

September 24, 2018 /

Seemingly outgunned against the top-ranked rider in Pro Stock Motorcycle all year, reigning NHRA world champ Eddie Krawiec, Joey Gladstone upset his heavily favored opponent, who handed over a first-round win with the most aggravating red-light of all, a -.001. “I was squatting behind the beams,” said Gladstone’s boss, Team Liberty leader Cory Reed. “They left, and I never even noticed the red-light in Eddie’s lane. I watched them go down the track and thought, ‘Dammit, we lost,’ and then somebody yelled, ‘Wait, he red-lighted!’ ”

Gladstone was outqualified by his much more accomplished foe by a full nine spots – No. 4 to No. 13 – but those numbers are somewhat misleading. Gladstone actually was right there alongside Krawiec in the 6.80s, 6.82 to 6.89, and the same numbers flashed on the scoreboards when they raced – 6.82 for Krawiec and 6.89 for Gladstone – but the win-light shone on Gladstone’s side of the track. “The bike is running better now than it would be if I was on it because of Joey’s weight – 135 pounds,” Reed said. “I weigh 150. In this class, that makes me a fat guy. It’s funny, the different emotions you feel watching someone else riding your bike, but it doesn’t bother me that much. It’s all about taking the next step, ’cause I’m tired of getting my ass kicked.

“Joey keeps making good passes,” Reed said, “and we keep learning more than we ever would if I was on there – the way the clutch works, way the tire hits, the way the wheelie bar works … when Joey’s on there, the weight transfer is what it’s supposed to be. When I’m on there, everything’s all wrong – it works right one time and doesn’t the next, and we never know why. When we get the new bike, it’ll be like 40 pounds lighter and we’ll be able to move weight around and have everything exactly the way we want it.”

PSM – READING 2018

September 17, 2018 /

Riding for Team Liberty, as he will all next year, Joey Gladstone drove Cory Reed’s bike into the middle rounds of eliminations at the Dodge Nationals in one of his first races as Reed’s replacement. He ripped the Tree down for a near-perfect .003 reaction time to put away Scotty Pollacheck, 6.90/192 to 6.93/192, but despite Pollacheck’s exalted status as a title contender, this was no upset – it was Gladstone who came from the top half of the field.

“I knew I couldn’t cut that Underdahl team any slack,” said Gladstone, who ran Underdahl power until his recent move to Team Liberty and knows as well as anyone how competitive those motorcycles can be. “That light felt almost too good. When I dropped the clutch, I actually looked up to see if his win light was on because I knew it had to be close.”

It was three-thousandths of a second from perfection and four-thousandths from a disastrous red-light, but Gladstone was right back in the .00s again in the quarterfinals, carding a nearly identical .008 reaction time opposite Hector Arana Jr. for another holeshot lead. But Arana was right there with a .018 and drove around him in the middle of the course for a come-from-behind 6.88/197 to 6.94/192 win and then went on to win the race and move to within three points of incoming leader Eddie Krawiec for the number one spot.

“Second round … that’s not really what we wanted, but you really can’t complain,” Gladstone said. “We did pretty good this weekend, and the bike’s running good. We’ll just see what happens over the next few races.”

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