Tag: 2016 (Page 3 of 4)

PSM – DENVER 2016

July 26, 2016 /

Cory Reed’s Pro Stock Motorcycle career continued its upward spiral at his “home” track, Bandimere Speedway, the one-of-a-kind facility carved into the side of the easternmost ridge of the Rocky Mountains just outside Denver. Qualified 9th of more than 20 riders, Reed reached the quarterfinals for the third time in a row – somehow.

“I started doing my burnout and thought, ‘Hey that’s a lot of smoke. That’s kinda weird,’ ” Reed said of his first-round matchup with veteran Shawn Gann. “The next thing I know, there’s fire right underneath my handlebars. The main power line shorted out, and I thought ‘I’m done for sure. There’s no way, I know it.’ They tried one last time, and just as the starter was about to turn around and shut me off, it worked.”

Granted the last-second reprieve, Reed made the most of it, getting the jump on Gann by a full three-hundredths of a second and driving away for a 7.23 to 7.27 win. The 7.23 was the fifth-quickest run of the round, the highest Reed has ranked in any elimination round or qualifying session in his brief seven-race career. “I can’t believe Shawn waited that long – that was cool of him,” Reed said. “I thanked him four or five times. I seriously thought it was all over right there.”

It really was over in the quarterfinals when one of the throttle blades broke and closed. Reed had just gotten off the starting line side by side with eventual winner Andrew Hines, who also spent his high school years in Colorado, in Trinidad, but the race was over before the 100-foot mark when his bike started sputtering and slowed. “I just shut it off,” Reed said. “He kinda got lucky. He ran a .23, and I was about to run a .20.”

Still, it was another successful weekend for the PSE/Star Racing team, which maintained its place just outside the Top 10 in the championship standings, ahead of former national event champions Hector Arana Jr., Michael Phillips, and Gann. “I’m don’t want to sound overconfident, but I honestly think it’s feasible to be in the Top 10 by Indy,” Reed said. “Other people are starting to struggle, and we’re moving up. [Star Racing team owner George Bryce] can bounce the tune-ups from my bike and [teammate] Angelle Sampey]’s bike off each other. It helps us both. Her bike keeps going faster and faster, and that means my mine’s going to, too.”

TAFC – WOODBURN 2016

July 19, 2016 /

By the smallest possible margin – a thousandth of a second – Annie Whiteley missed her first victory of the 2016 season. At Woodburn Dragstrip just outside Portland, Ore., where Whiteley won and was runner-up in two appearances there last season, she fell to lightning-quick Terry Ruckman in the final, 5.54 to a slightly quicker 5.52, despite a better-than-average .077 reaction time.

“Ruckman is good on the Tree – always has been,” Whiteley said of her Grand Junction, Colo., neighbor, who also won the semifinals on a holeshot. “It was still a good weekend. A runner-up isn’t a win, but we still did good.”

Whiteley qualified third at what traditionally is one of the toughest eight-car Top Alcohol Funny Car fields in the country. It took a mid-5.50 to get into the top half of the show, and the bump was one car from being an all-time regional series record. Woodburn has always been a great alcohol track – it’s run by reigning Top Alcohol Dragster world champ Joey Severance, who leads the 2016 standings and won this race for the fourth year in a row.

The J&A Service YNot Racing team ran a 5.54, which put them behind only Jirka Kaplan, who ran a career-best 5.49 for the No. 1 spot and Doug Gordon, who clocked a 5.50-flat for No. 2. Whiteley made her best run of the event, a 5.50 at just short of 269 mph, to erase Sean Bellemeur’s 5.80 in the first round of eliminations and a consistent 5.52 to drop Gordon’s 5.56 in the semi’s.

“The car’s responding to what Mike’s doing again,” she said, referring to crew chief Mike Strasburg. “At the beginning of the year, they found something that made the car haul ass and really thought they were on to something, but it wasn’t a consistent setup because it didn’t respond to little changes to you have to make as the track changes. This is good run after good run for two races in a row, so I think we’re finally back to where we were.”

Back into the Top 10 in the national standings, ninth overall with more than half of her points-earning races yet to claim, Whiteley next races at Brainerd, Minn. where in 2013 she made her first final-round appearance at a national event, and then the big one, the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, where she’s been runner-up in two of the past three years.

TAFC – CHICAGO 2016

July 11, 2016 /

At the site of her first career NHRA national event title in 2014, Annie Whiteley drove to the semifinals of the Allstars race and the quarterfinals of the Route 66 Nationals. At Route 66 Raceway just outside Chicago, Whiteley qualified No. 3 with a blistering 5.49 and never ran slower than a 5.52 in eliminations for either race, moving to within two rounds of the Top 10 in the national standings despite having run fewer races than most of her competitors.

Whiteley’s Mike Strasburg-tuned J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro opened with a solid 5.63 at 263 mph in the first qualifying session and got only stronger from there, picking up to a 5.57 at 266 for the provisional No. 4 position in the late Friday session and ultimately to a 5.49 at 267 mph early Saturday for the No. 3 spot on the final grid.

That 5.49 couldn’t have come at a better time – the final qualifying session for the Route 66 Nationals was actually the first round of the prestigious Jegs Allstars race, which pits the top two drivers from each of NHRA’s four geographic regions against each other on an eight-car ladder comprised of the best of the best.

The 5.49 wiped out East Coast contender Dan Pomponio’s distant 5.79, and an equally outstanding 5.52 at 267 mph in the Allstars semifinals left her just short of a 5.50-flat at 270 mph by Shane Westerfield, who went on to sweep both the Allstars and the Route 66 Nationals.

Whiteley stomped former national event champion Ulf Leanders of Sweden in the first round of the Route 66 Nationals with another 5.49 but came out on the wrong end of a tight race to Doug Gordon in the quarterfinals, 5.53 to 5.50. Next up is the first of two regionals at Woodburn Dragstrip, just outside Portland, Ore., where last year Whiteley won once and was runner-up at the other one.

PSM – NORWALK 2016

June 28, 2016 /

Norwalk represented a weekend of firsts for Pro Stock Motorcycle rookie Cory Reed – first official 6.80, first start from the top half of the field, and, most important, first career round-win in NHRA professional competition.

“I wanted to do better – and we could’ve done better, and we will – but this was a great weekend,” Reed said at the conclusion of the Summit Raceway Equipment Nationals. Reed, son of champion racers Jim and Annie Whiteley, has impressed in his short time as a professional drag racer, but never more so than at the supertrack in the middle of nowhere in tiny Norwalk, Ohio.

“I think people already knew what we could do, but now they really know,” said Reed, who cut a .009 reaction time in his first-round win over veteran Scotty Pollacheck, a former national event finalist. “I kinda wanted to sneak up on them, but I think they know we’re coming now.”

Reed drove away from Pollacheck for a 6.95 to 7.73 win and was poised for another round-win over a name driver and a first career semifinal appearance but, again, he was too quick for his own good. By the smallest possible margin, one-thousandth of a second, Reed disqualified himself in the second round with a -.001 red-light start, just a blink of an eye from a perfect .000 reaction time.

“I saw it when I went by the Tree and knew it was over and just hit the [shift] button, or that run would’ve been a lot better than that,” Reed said of his short-shifting 6.94 against many-time world champion and eventual runner-up Andrew Hines. “I’m still mad about that – it was so close – but I feel good about where we are right now, probably better than I’ve ever felt. We’re halfway through the year, but we’re nowhere near halfway through the schedule.”

Norwalk marks the halfway point of the 24-race NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour, but for motorcycle teams, which run 16 of the 24 NHRA national events, Norwalk is less than a third of the way through the season. “There’s a long way to go,” Reed said, “and we’re just getting started.”

TAFC – NORWALK 2016

June 27, 2016 /

Annie Whiteley qualified No. 1 for the third race in a row, but for the second straight time her J&A Service/YNot Racing team struggled off the line in the opening round of eliminations and suffered an upset loss.

“Maybe we shouldn’t qualify No. 1 anymore,” joked Whiteley, who was also No. 1 at the Summit Racing Equipment Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, last season. “I don’t know what’s going on, I really don’t. We did about four different things to make sure the car didn’t shake the tires on that run, and it did it anyway. It’s the same thing that happened in Denver, and we still don’t know why.”

Whiteley charged off the starting line with a slight lead on rookie Chris King, a newly licensed Chicago fireman who was making his national event debut, but the lead didn’t last long. Her car went into violent shake, slowed to a troubled 12.44 at 78 mph, and King was long gone. Even though his fire bottles discharged around half-track and he had to lift, King had enough momentum to coast to an unlikely win in by far the biggest upset of the entire event.

“It’s disappointing, but what are you going to do?” Whiteley said. We’ll keep testing, and we’ll get this thing figured out.”

Qualifying, as has been the case almost all year, was a huge success. Whiteley was No. 1 for the second year in a row at this race and for the third time in a row this season, including Houston, where she reached the semifinals, and Denver.

Whiteley paced the field with a 5.531, the exact same e.t. that was good for the top spot last year, right down to the thousandth of a second. Her speed was within 0.05 mph of the 266.16-mph blast she ran for top speed last year.

Heading into the West regional at Woodburn Dragstrip just outside Portland, Ore., Whiteley is tied for 14th in the national standings, 52 points outside the Top 10.

 

PRO MOD – BRISTOL 2016

June 22, 2016 /

The Thunder Valley Nationals at historic Thunder Valley Dragway in Bristol, Tenn., ended early for the father-and-son YNot Racing/J&A Service Pro Mod team of Jim and Steven Whiteley. Jim, whose classic ’69 Chevelle won the Houston event last month and reached the semifinals last week in Englishtown, N.J., shook hard and fell to points leader Rickie Smith in the first round of eliminations. Steven did likewise and dropped his first-round match against No. 1 qualifier and 2015 runner-up Bob Rahaim.

“We needed to get the car to run a little better early, so we made a move – a big move,” Jim said. “It didn’t work, and we got our legs cut off.” He opened qualifying with a respectable 6.02 in the first qualifying session and backed it up with a consistent, quicker 5.99. Steven made his best run of the weekend, a 6.04, right off the trailer that put him third on the qualifying grid at the time.

Steven shut off to a 10.44 in the late Friday session, one of the few times he and his dad have run side by side. “He got me on the Tree, which I’m sure he enjoyed,” joked Jim, who dipped into the five-second zone on that run for the No. 10 spot at the time. Neither driver put down a representative run in Saturday’s final qualifying session, but hopes were high when the first round went off that evening.

Unfortunately, it was more of the same for both YNot Racing entries. Jim, one of few drivers on the J&A Service Pro Mod circuit with a .500 record against Smith, had to shut down in in a rematch of the wild Houston final won by Whiteley. “We took a little power out for that run, but it didn’t work,” he said. “We almost got by with it in the third qualifying session, and I really thought we could again in the first round. I figured running after the nitro cars would make the track better.”

In the last pair of the round, Steven’s flawless Cadillac CTS fared no better in a shut-off loss to Rahaim, who advanced all the way to the final and had the race won until he lost control near half-track and narrowly avoided a crash.

TAFC – DENVER 2016

June 21, 2016 /

After qualifying No. 1 at the Denver regional for the third year in a row, perennial title contender Annie Whiteley was out early for the first time ever at this event. While husband Jim Whiteley and son Steven were 1,500 miles east racing their Pro Mods in Bristol, Tenn., Annie lost traction in the first round for an upset loss to No. 8 qualifier Nick Januik, 5.88 to an up-in-smoke 7.23.

“I probably didn’t make it two feet,” she said. “No idea what happened. There wasn’t any use in trying to run him down because I never got a chance to build up any momentum. It was fine in every single round of qualifying. We tested before the race, and it was the same thing – two for two, no problem.”

Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing team had never failed to reach at least the semifinals at breathtaking Bandimere Speedway, carved into the eastern ridge of the Rocky Mountains. She was runner-up the past two years and paced the field again this year with a 5.74 blast in Saturday qualifying.

Sandwiched between the matching 5.81s of upstart Bill Bernard and eventual winner Kris Hool at the conclusion of Friday qualifying with a 5.81 of her own, Whiteley pounded out a 5.74 – the same e.t. that made her No. 1 in 2014 – for the No. 1 spot. Behind her on the ladder was one heavy hitter after another: recent Chicago regional winner Jay Payne, national points leader John Lombardo and former national event champions Jirka Kaplan, Nick Januik, and Grand Junction, Colo. neighbor Terry Ruckman.

Denver was the first of five races in a six-week span. Up next is Norwalk, Ohio; followed by Woodburn, Ore.; Seattle; Brainerd, Minn.; and the big one, U.S. Nationals at Indy, where Whiteley has two runner-ups in the past three years.

PSM – ENGLISHTOWN 2016

June 14, 2016 /

Less than an hour from New York City in Englishtown, N.J., in his first appearance at the prestigious Summernationals, one of six “majors” on the NHRA tour, rookie Cory Reed made the cut at a race too fast for many-time national event winner Shawn Gann and former world champ Matt Smith.

Pitted against one of the most accomplished riders in the field, reigning U.S. Nationals champ Jerry Savoie, in the very first pair of the first round, Reed had a holeshot on his mind. “I definitely have to cut a light on him and hope he doesn’t make one of his good runs,” Reed said. “It’s hard to make six or seven of them in a row, and he’s already made a bunch here, so he’s due for a bad one.”

Unfortunately for Reed’s PSE/Star Racing team, Savoie, who qualified No. 2 with a blistering 6.78, laid down a 6.84 that proved immaterial when Reed’s ultra-quick reflexes turned out to be too quick for his own good. The 22-year-old rookie let the clutch fly a fraction of a second too soon for a -.006 reaction time – just six-thousandths of a second from a perfect light but still a red-light start.

“I guess I was too ready,” Reed said. “It’s hard to slow yourself down just a little – you’ll just end up slowing yourself down a lot. I left on yellow – I never saw the red. I didn’t even know I’d red-lighted until they told me at the other end.” Savoie, the third-ranked rider in the 2015 standings, ran him down anyway despite Reed’s fine 6.93, by far his best run of the race.

The weekend ended on a high note when PSE/Star Racing teammate Angelle Sampey claimed an emotional win, the 42nd of her career but her first seven finals over the past nine years.

PRO MOD – ENGLISHTOWN 2016

June 13, 2016 /

With his second late-round finish in the past three races, former Top Alcohol Dragster world champ Jim Whiteley now holds a 6-1 win-loss record in J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod competition this season.

Whiteley, who catapulted from the second alternate position to victory at the Spring Nationals in Houston May 1, backed it up with another late-round finish at the Summernationals in Englishtown, N.J. In the first round there, as in his wild final-round win over Rickie Smith in Houston, Whiteley shook the tires and thought he was done, only to see his opponent veer across the track and into his lane for an automatic disqualification.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Whiteley said of his upset first-round win over perennial contender Danny Rowe, the No. 1 qualifier (5.823). “Right when I thought it was over, there he was, coming into my lane.” Fortunately, Rowe, also driving a supercharged car, eased back onto his side of the track instead of careening off both walls as Smith’s out-of-control nitrous Camaro had in Houston.

Earlier in that same round, son Steven Whiteley, who rebounded from his qualifying crash in Atlanta to qualify a strong 5th in his rebuilt Cadillac CTS, shook the tires in a loss to Khalid alBalooshi.

In Sunday’s second round, Jim parlayed the unexpected first-round gift into a semifinal showing and kept himself undefeated in side-by-side competition in 2016 with a wire-to-wire decision over Michael Biehle, 5.94 to 7.94, leaving first by a mile with a .043 reaction time. Whiteley, who hasn’t had a reaction time worse than a .040-something all year, then cut a .047 in the semifinals and made his best run of the weekend, 5.92, in a close loss to defending event champion Billy Glidden, who reached the final in his debut in Harry Hruska’s Precision Turbo entry.

PRO MOD – ATLANTA 2016

May 16, 2016 /

On his only run at the NHRA Southern Nationals, Pro Mod racer Steve Whiteley crashed for the first time in his career … and still qualified with a 5.96 at just 206 mph. “Not bad – a five-second run probably breaking the beam with the right header,” he joked. “Crashed on our only run and still made the show.”

Whiteley banged into Atlanta Dragway’s unforgiving left wall, but not nearly as hard as he could have because he got the chutes out just in time. “The car was fighting its way to the right the whole time, and I kept trying to get it to move back into the groove,” he said. “By the time I decided, ‘No, it’s not worth it,’ and lifted, all the weight shifted. That’s when it made its way over the centerline.”

When opponent Shane Molinari saw Whiteley’s J&A Services/YNot Cadillac veer across both lanes after the lights and sideswipe the wall, Molinari – who had to pedaled twice and had already given up on the run – jammed on the brakes and immediately was sideways and pointed at the opposite wall. He slammed into it while Whiteley was well beyond the finish line, bouncing off the left wall in a shower of sparks and rolling safely to a stop on all four wheels.

“The chute coming out as quick as it did really saved me,” Whiteley said. “There was definitely a little pucker factor going on, but I was focused on not hitting wall head-on. In a situation like that, you don’t think – it’s all reaction. By the time I had cognitive thoughts, I was more pissed than scared. I figured that was gonna be the last time I got to drive a race car, but my dad said, ‘He’s fine,’ and my mom was OK.”

The impact caved in the rear quarterpanel, smashed up the headers and left door, and trashed the left door tree. “It was a lot of little stuff, really – nothing too big,” Whiteley said. “The left side of the car is dinged up, but the actual chassis itself is OK. I’m just glad it happened now, right when we were about to have some downtime.”

It’s a full three weeks until the J&A Service Pro Mod Series picks back up with events in three consecutive weeks – Englishtown (June 10-12), Bristol (June 17-19), and Norwalk (June 24-26). “The car’s already at [chassis builder Jerry] Haas’ shop getting fixed, and we’ll be testing it in a week or two,” Whiteley said. “By the time we get to E-Town, we’ll be ready to go.”

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