Page 36 of 40

TAFC – NORWALK 2015

July 6, 2015 / Todd Veney

Until the car inexplicably went up in smoke in the semifinals, Annie Whiteley utterly dominated Top Alcohol Funny Car at the SummitRacing.com Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio. She ran not just low e.t. of the meet, but low e.t. of all three qualifying sessions and each of the first two rounds of eliminations. Her worst run of the entire event to that point, an off-the-trailer 5.57, was better than any other driver’s best run.

“I have no idea why it went up in smoke that time,” said Whiteley of her J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro. “The car was set up just about the same and everything had been going perfectly from the time we got there.”

Whiteley was the only driver in the 5.50s in Friday’s first qualifying session with a 5.579 at 264.96. She followed with a 5.570 later that afternoon, then lowered the boom in last-shot qualifying Saturday with a 5.531 at 265.06 mph, putting more than a half a tenth on the No. 2 qualifier, Sweden’s Ulf Leanders.

The bludgeoning continued in eliminations when Whiteley left on John Headley in the first round and unloaded a consistent 5.55 at the exact same speed at which she’d already established top speed of the meet to that point: 265.06 mph. The car ran even better in the quarterfinals against 2013 Norwalk winner Kris Hool, but that one could have ended in disaster.

For the first time in memory, and for no known reason, the Tree took about twice as long to come down as it normally does, affecting both drivers’ concentration – it was so long that NHRA Official Starter Mark Lyle threw his hands up in the air. Hool was unable to hold his car on the starting line and rolled through the beams for an instant disqualification, but Whiteley hung on, left at exactly the right rpm, and laid down low e.t. of eliminations, 5.553, and a track-record speed of 266.16 mph.

“I didn’t think that Tree was ever going to come on,” she said. “It gets you completely out of your normal groove, but I waited for it.” In the semi’s, Whiteley smoked the tires like a fuel car right off the starting line and could only watch as D.J. Cox scooped up the win with a 5.74 – about two-tenths slower than she’d been running all weekend.

Norwalk was just the first of back-to-back-to-back races for the YNot Racing/J&A Service team. This weekend is the Route 66 Nationals in Chicago, where in 2013 Whiteley picked up the first national event victory of her career, and the following weekend the team will be all the way across the country in Woodburn, Ore., for the fourth race of the seven-race Western Region schedule.

TAFC – DENVER 2015

June 25, 2015 / Todd Veney

With a third final-round appearance in her last four races, Annie Whiteley, who had swept the Las Vegas regional and national events on back-to-back weekends, kept her bid for a Top Alcohol Funny Car national championship very much alive.

Back on the mountainside at her home track, picturesque Bandimere Speedway, Whiteley outran everybody in qualifying, which was saying a lot at this race – two-thirds of the drivers in the field were former national event winners. She qualified No. 1 with an off-the-trailer 5.80, and it’s a good thing she did – there were just two qualifying sessions, and her YNot Racing/J&A Service Camaro had to be pushed off the starting line after the burnout on her second attempt.

In the first round of eliminations, opposite Nick Januik in a matchup of the last two spring Vegas winners, Whiteley charged to low e.t. of the meet to that point, won handily, 5.76 to 5.92, and earned the semifinal bye. A consistent 5.81 on that run seemed to set her up well for the final against Lombardo, who was right there with a 5.77, but when the light turned green in the final, all hell broke loose in both lanes.

Whiteley went right up in smoke, but so did Lombardo, and the race was on. Any other up-on-smoke pass in her entire career would have meant an easy win for Lombardo, but she made him work for this one.

“I learned something that time,” she said. “I’ve always been told that if the car shakes, just stay out of it. And I always have. But that time…I don’t know. I guess that little competitive edge that you have inside you kicks in and you feel like you’ve got to keep trying because you’re in the final. So I got back on it.”

Whiteley got the car calmed down, tromped back down on the throttle and legged it to the finish line for an 8.04 at 211 mph, but Lombardo got there first with a 7.48 at just 160 mph. “That’s OK,” she said. “I learned something. I did something I didn’t know I could do. And this year’s already been a lot better than last year.”

PRO MOD – BRISTOL 2015

June 22, 2015 / Todd Veney

At the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at historic Bristol Dragway, YNot Racing’s Jim Whiteley ran deep into the 5.90s for the third race in a row and for the second in a row ran stride for stride with fellow two-time NHRA world champ, Rickie Smith. If he’d run just 1/200^th of a second quicker, it would’ve been two straight upset wins over Smith.

Whiteley, who won the 2012 and 2013 NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster championships, gained an imperceptible jump at the line, .056 to .059, and his blown car and Smith’s nitrous-injected machine were locked doorhandle to doorhandle the entire length of the quarter-mile in a race won by Smith, 5.97 to 5.98. The margin of victory: four-thousandths of a second.

“I never saw him,” said Whiteley, who was just 20 inches behind Smith when they went through the lights. Whiteley led by more than half a tenth at the 330-foot mark and by more than two-hundredths as he passed the 1,000-foot cone, but Smith’s better top-end charge, 244 mph to 239, was just enough to get around Whiteley’s ’69 Chevelle.

“I couldn’t hear him either, because a blower engine is louder,” Whiteley said. “He’s been around for a long time and has won a lot of races a lot of ways. He backed out after I pre-staged, but that’s just Rickie being Rickie. I don’t have a problem with him.”

Whiteley powered into the 5.80s for the first time officially on the way to his semifinal finish Houston, but considering the altitude, humidity, and oppressive heat at Bristol, this might be his most impressive performance in a Pro Mod to date. “I’m really excited about this,” he said. “Pro Mod is just a fun, fun class to run, and the car keeps getting better and better every time out.”

PRO MOD – ENGLISHTOWN 2015

June 8, 2015 / Todd Veney

While father Jim Whiteley was spending the weekend, as promised, on the Colorado River with daughter Alicia to celebrate her high school graduation, second-year Pro Mod driver Steven Whiteley was thousands of miles away in Englishtown, N.J., battling the stars of the NHRA at the Summernationals.

The weekend got off to a rough started with a bang – literally – when Whiteley’s engine gave up in a huge explosion before half-track. The YNot Racing Cadillac CTS-V, which hadn’t put a drop of oil on the track all year, rolled silently across the finish line at 51 mph, smoke pouring out from under it as Whiteley brought it safely to a stop and bailed out. The damage was extensive enough to keep the team from making the quick between-rounds turnaround in time to make it to the lanes for the Friday evening session, when the track and atmospheric conditions almost always are the best.

Whiteley had one more shot at breaking into the program in Saturday’s last-ditch session – just like last year at this race. But instead of an outstanding 5.88 that catapulted him from outside of the field all the way up to the No. 6 spot as in 2014, a decent 6.08 at 245 mph left him on the outside of the all-five-second field. He wound up 25th in the final order. 50-year-old Billy Glidden, son of all-time great Bob Glidden, went on to win his first NHRA title exactly 20 years after Bob won his last.

PRO MOD – ST. LOUIS 2015

June 1, 2015 / Todd Veney

In the finest moment of his young Pro Mod career, Steven Whiteley assumed the early qualifying lead at the PDRA Mid-America Open at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Ill., just across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis. With an outstanding 3.89 at 190 mph on the eighth-mile course – the only run in the 3.80s in that entire session – Whiteley put himself ahead of everybody in the huge 23-car field, which, in PDRA competition, is known as Pro Boost.

At the wheel of the stunning YNot Racing Cadillac CTS-V, Whiteley followed with a run nearly as good in the second session until problems set in in high gear, a coasting 3.94 at just 183 mph. In the final qualifying session, already solidly qualified in the fast half of the field with the off-the-trailer 3.89, the Grand Junction, Colo.-based team swung for the fences but the track couldn’t hold it and Whiteley had to click it off early.

Unfortunately, Whiteley was out of the gas early again Sunday afternoon in eliminations. Facing the ’00 Corvette of Georgia’s Colby Barber in the first race of the first round of professional eliminations at the rain-plagued event, Whiteley blasted off the line with a respectable .062 reaction time but was done in by massive tire-shake in low gear and slowed to a 6.69.

PRO MOD – ATLANTA 2015

May 18, 2015 / Todd Veney

The father-and-son team of Jim and Steven Whiteley was locked in the five-second zone on five of six qualifying runs at the NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway, the third race of the 10-race J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod Series. That’s the good part. The bad part is that neither took the green for the first round of eliminations.

Jim’s YNot Racing/J&A Service ’69 Chevelle was still in the pits when scheduled opponent Troy Coughlin won the first round over alternate Gerry Capano. Steven’s ’14 CTS was about one inch from the starting line – pre-staged but not quite staged – when the Tree flashed, and veteran Steve Matusek had the track all to himself as Steven was timed out.

“I was taking my time, trying to stage as shallow as I could, and didn’t notice that he was all the way in or I’d have sped it up a little,” Steven said. “It’s too bad. The car was really running good – mid .90s every time.”

Steven ran a 5.970 at 243.63 mph off the trailer Friday afternoon and followed with an even better 5.957 at 244.25 that evening. After a 5.976/245.45 in Saturday’s final qualifying session, everything seemed to be in place for a deep run in eliminations.

“We’ve finally gotten to where we want to be with the new car,” Steven said of his Haas-built CTS. “We had a setup that was working pretty good with the old Camaro, and we put the same thing in this car and just nit-picked it until we found what it wanted. Now that it’s happy, we just need to throw power at it. It’s going down the track every time; we just need to get a little more aggressive.”

Jim’s car was performing even better than Steven’s – especially on his final qualifying attempt. Coming off his first career semifinal appearance as a Pro Mod driver, the former Top Alcohol Dragster world champ ran a 5.93 at just 236 mph, coasting across the finish line after his engine expired in high gear.

“Dad’s car was flying this weekend – outrunning mine – but it grenaded a motor on that last one,” Steven said. “They had it all put back together and ready to go for first round. They would have made the call, but there wasn’t enough time to get everything totally right, so they decided not to run it, and it was the right decision. The important thing is that both cars are really running good right now.”

PRO MOD – HOUSTON 2015

April 28, 2015 / Todd Veney

At the NHRA Spring Nationals, the second event of the J&A Service Pro Mod Series, in by far the best outing of his Pro Mod career, two-time Top Alcohol Dragster world champ Jim Whiteley whipped the reigning Pro Mod champ to reach the semifinals for the first time as a Pro Mod driver.

“Now, that was an awesome weekend,” said Whiteley, who also went a couple rounds in Top Alcohol Dragster. “It’s hard to hop from car to car, and Pro Mod and Alcohol Dragster were stacked right on top of each other all weekend, so there wasn’t much time to get ready mentally, but it turned out pretty well.”

It wasn’t looking good with one session to go, but a tire swap Saturday morning brought Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing ’69 Chevelle to life. “A few feet off the line, it was obvious that putting the new Goodyear tire like we run on Annie’s Funny Car was the right move,” he said. A 5.92 on that run put Whiteley well into the field and set up a first-round match with the second-ranked driver in Pro Mod this season, Gatornationals runner-up Pete Farber.

Whiteley’s car stumbled off the line, but Farber disqualified himself with a red-light, advancing Whiteley to the quarterfinals. “You never like to have one given to you like that,” he said. “I hated it for Farber – he was way up there in points. I told him, ‘You really shouldn’t have done that,’ and I never even knew he red-lighted till they pulled me off the track – the car shook so hard that it shook the kill switch off, and I coasted forever.”

34 seconds after he left the starting line, Whiteley rolled silently across the finish line at 22 mph, the winner. “You don’t pay any attention to what’s going on in the other lane in a situation like that,” he said. “I was so mad that I lost, I was just looking for the first place to turn off.”

In the second round, Whiteley didn’t need any lucky breaks. In a performance reminiscent of his dominant days in Top Alcohol Dragster, he hit the Tree for an outstanding .043 reaction time, cracked the 5.8-second barrier for the first time as a Pro Mod driver, and whipped the most accomplished Pro Mod driver of the past several years, two-time and defending world champ Rickie Smith, on a 5.89 to 5.88 holeshot.

Whiteley slipped to a 5.94 in the semifinals and fell to eventual winner Don Walsh, who would have been hard to beat regardless with a 5.82, low e.t. of the meet. “The video shows that it put a hole out about 60 feet out, then it picked it back up,” Whiteley said. “The car kind of sashayed through low gear, and that was it. Doesn’t matter. I’m so pumped – I’m ready to race again right now. I wish there was another race this weekend.”

TAFC – HOUSTON 2015

April 27, 2015 / Todd Veney

She may not have won, as she did on back-to-back weekends earlier this month at the national and regional events in Las Vegas, but Annie Whiteley didn’t leave Houston’s Royal Purple Raceway empty-handed. Driving the J&A Service/YNot Racing Top Alcohol Funny Car, she set low e.t. of the meet in eliminations with a 5.53 and top speed of the meet during qualifying with a 266.85-mph blast, the fastest run of her four-year career.

Currently fourth in NHRA national points, just a round out of second place despite running fewer races than the drivers ahead of her in the standings, Whiteley grew increasingly quicker throughout qualifying with an opening 5.614 at 264.29 mph followed by a 5.595/264.03 and a 5.581/266.85. “Up until the second round, the car was running great,” said Whiteley, who ran at least 2 mph faster on all three qualifying passes than she’d ever gone before this race.

After dispatching former U.S. Nationals winner Chris Foster in the quickest side-by-side race of the opening round, 5.53 to 5.59, Whiteley dropped a weird second-round match with Sweden’s Ulf Leanders, the eventual runner-up. “The car shook the tires about 200 feet off the starting line and at first we couldn’t figure out why,” said Whiteley, who was runner-up at Houston last year. “The computer graph was odd. It shouldn’t have done anything different on that run because the way the car was running, we hadn’t really made any changes.”

A post-race analysis of video from that run revealed the culprit: liquid spraying up from one of the rear tires. “It looked like I was pushing puddles, like there was water on the track or something,” Whiteley said. “We refired the car in the pits, and it was making a puddle underÂ one of the headers because the inner tube was cracked.”

The Spring Nationals, Whiteley’s third race in three weeks, will be her last for nearly two months, and she heads for the sidelines having won 80 percent of her rounds so far this year, tops in Top Alcohol Funny Car. Next up: the Central Regional at Bandimere Speedway just outside Denver, the YNot team’s home track, June 19-21.

TAFC – LAS VEGAS REGIONAL 2015

April 21, 2015 / Todd Veney

Hot off a convincing victory at the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last week, Annie Whiteley continued her mastery of the sprawling desert facility with her second straight and sixth career Vegas title.

For her third triumph at the West Regional, which she also won in 2012 (in just the fourth race of her Top Alcohol Funny Car career) and again in 2013, Whiteley wheeled the J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro to a final-round win over neighbor and friend Terry Ruckman, whom she defeated in the national event semifinals seven days earlier. Whiteley charged to a third straight run in the 5.60s at more than 260 mph, a 5.66 at 260.11, to score easily while Ruckman lost traction and coasted to a 7.18 at just 139.

After qualifying No. 2 behind John Lombardo with a 5.62/262.23, Whiteley stopped Doug Gordon in the first round of eliminations in a rematch of the SummitRacing.com Nationals final, 5.64/261 to 5.78/256. Then came the race that no one who saw it will ever forget.

While Whiteley was speeding to a consistent 5.64 and another Vegas final, Payne’s car got completely sideways in the first 50 feet, slammed into the Christmas Tree, flipped on its side, pitched the body off the chassis, and pointed itself back toward the starting line before the veteran driver was able to shut it off and avert further disaster.

With her second win in just three starts this season, Whiteley has shot all the way up to third in the national Top Alcohol Funny Car standings, behind only Jonnie Lindberg and Brian Hough. She’ll go for her eighth round-win and third event title in a row this weekend at the Spring Nationals in Houston, where last year she was runner-up.

TAFC – LAS VEGAS NATIONAL 2015

April 13, 2015 / Todd Veney

With one killer run after another at the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals, Annie Whiteley left behind a year of frustration for her second major Top Alcohol Funny Car title.

“We’ve been through so much for so long,” an emotional Whiteley said after beating Doug Gordon in her first late-round appearance since Houston last April. “I can’t believe how this all turned out and how all the changes and all the hard work by this whole team paid off. When it all came together, it came together quick.”

Racing at her favorite track, The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Whiteley set low e.t. and top speed in three of four rounds and overall top speed of the meet (263.67 mph). Only two cars were quicker than her brand-new J&A Service /YNot Racing Camaro all weekend – No. 1 qualifier Mike Doushgounian’s ex-Manzo Monte Carlo (5.56) and No. 2 John Lombardo’s NAPA entry (5.57) – and both were gone after one round.

Whiteley qualified No. 3 with a 5.60 and laid down one 5.6 after another – most in the low .60s at well over 260 mph – for her first national event win since Chicago in June 2013. In the final against Gordon, who had been matching her run for run and had set low e.t. of the only round she didn’t (round two), he red-lighted and she closed the deal with a second consecutive 5.61.

“I didn’t worry about what the crew was doing or get involved in any of that this time,” Whiteley said. “They know what they’re doing. I just tried to put everything out of my mind and stay calm like I used to.”

Whiteley managed a consistent 5.62 Saturday afternoon in the first round to eliminate 10-time national event winner Steve Gasparrelli and a 5.67 when the shift light failed Sunday in the second round to take out defending event champ Nick Januik, who slipped across the centerline. In the semi’s, in by far the closest race of the weekend, her best run of eliminations, a timely 5.614, was just enough to edge former Division 7 champion Terry Ruckman by one-thousandth of a second.

“I couldn’t believe it when they told me how close it was,” Whiteley said. “I never saw him. The way these cars are now, you really can’t see the other guy unless he’s way ahead of you.”

For the first time since he clinched the second of back-to-back NHRA championships in 2013, husband Jim Whiteley hopped in his old Top Alcohol Dragster, now owned by longtime YNot crew chief Norm Grimes, and picked right back up in the 5.30s. Joey Severance, driving a J&A Service team car, made it a J&A sweep of the alcohol categories with his fifth Top Alcohol Dragster win in a row at Las Vegas.

Whiteley now has five career victories at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, including a sweep of both the spring and fall regionals in her 2012 rookie season and again 2013. “I have no idea why we’ve always done so well at Las Vegas,” she said. “Maybe it’s because I don’t go gambling. I save all my luck for the track.”

YNot Racing