Tag: 2017 (Page 3 of 4)

PSM – NORWALK 2017

June 26, 2017 / Todd Veney

At the NHRA Summit Racing Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, an hour outside Cleveland and 10 minutes from the shores of Lake Erie, Cory Reed and Team Liberty kept alive their perfect streak of qualifying both his and teammate Angelle Sampey’s bikes at every event before both bowed out in the opening round.

“It probably doesn’t look that great from the outside – losing first round again – but you have to look at the big picture,” said Reed, NHRA’s 2016 Rookie of the Year. “We continue to make progress, little bits at a time. Chris [Rivas] knows what he’s doing. Ken [“Big” Johnson] knows what he’s doing. When we have a dyno like everybody else, we’ll be faster – a lot faster.”

Reed, who has qualified as high as fifth in his young drag racing career, began eliminations from the No. 9 spot – his highest to date with the newly formed team. He came within a scant thousandth of a second of the top half of the field, matching No. 8 Mike Berry’s 6.932 right to the thousandth of a second but losing the speed tiebreaker, 189.04 mph to Berry’s 192.03.

Already established as a known “leaver,” Reed figured to have the upper hand in such an even matchup, but Berry got the jump, .030 to .064, and slightly outran the second-year racer for a 6.95 to 6.99 win. “When the bike’s not leaving hard, it doesn’t just hurt your e.t. – it hurts your reaction time, too,” Reed said. “I like Mike – he’s a good dude. If somebody had to beat me, it may as well be him. But this sucks. Losing sucks. We ran that 6.93 in the first session, and when you run that good that early you know you’re going to be in the show and can really focus on stuff to make the bike faster. Only this time, we never got any faster.”

TAFC – NORWALK 2017

June 26, 2017 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley set low e.t. of the meet and had top speed until the penultimate round of eliminations en route to a quarterfinal finish at the NHRA Summit Racing Nationals that solidified her hold on a Top 5 spot in the national standings.

Whiteley, a four-time winner on the national circuit with more than a dozen victories in regional competition, qualified the J&A/YNot Racing Camaro a solid 3rd in the Top Alcohol Funny Car field with an outstanding 5.53. She unloaded a 5.50-flat at more than 270 mph in the opening round of eliminations to establish low e.t. for the entire weekend and easily eliminate Canadian Tyler Scott, whose Larry Dobbs entry now is tuned by ex-YNot crew chief Roger Bateman.

In the second round against Chris Foster, who would go on to his third career runner-up finish at this event, Whiteley slipped to a 5.59 and lost a photo-finish match to Foster’s 5.62. Foster fought his car off the wall for much of the run but maintained the lead to win by the invisible margin of just seven-thousandths of a second.

“It shook and I had to short-shift 2nd gear,” Whiteley said. “That 5.50 was perfect, and you can’t help but wonder, ‘Why couldn’t I have run the .59 in the first round, when anything would have done, and the .50 that time?’ but there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s just the way things have been going lately.”

PRO MOD – BRISTOL 2017

June 20, 2017 / Todd Veney

Knowing they were at a distinct disadvantage before they ever pulled through the Bristol Dragway gates, the father-and-son team of Jim and Steven Whiteley fought the good fight at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals. Both made the Pro Mod show, but when eliminations commenced, both got an unwanted reminder of something they already painfully aware of: supercharged cars like theirs will always be fighting with one hand tied behind their back when the altitude’s that high.

Jim’s immaculate ’69 Chevelle, tuned by supercharger authority Chuck Ford, ran a 5.96 to anchor the field, and son Steven Whiteley’s Cadillac CTS, tuned by Jeff Perley and already locked into the field before last-shot qualifying, improved to a 5.94 in that session to improve to the No. 12 spot. Jim, a huge underdog against No. 1 qualifier and eventual runner-up Shane Molinari, left first, as usual, but went up in smoke in low gear.

Steven, the second ranked driver in the J&A Pro Mod series, drew the toughest possible opponent in round one: reigning world champion Rickie Smith, who was undefeated in 2017, a winner in his only appearance since returning from back surgery. He cut a clutch a .047 light – the exact same light he had one week earlier in Englishtown in a must-win first-round matchup against the only driver ahead of him in the standings, Mike Castellana – but wily “Tricky Rickie” produced the second-quickest reaction time of the entire event, a .020, and outran Whiteley’s weekend-best 5.92 with a 5.86.

“Rickie can still pull out a light like that every once in a while,” Steven said. “That’s probably the quickest he’s ever staged against me – he’s not called ‘Tricky Rickie’ for nothing – but give him credit: he cut a great light. We could have beaten a lot of guys in that round with a .92 but not the guy we were racing.

“5.90s aren’t that great anymore,” Steven said, “but for a blown car at Bristol, they’re not too bad. You really can’t keep up with the nitrous cars and the turbo cars here on the mountain. That’s just the way it is. We get to Charlotte, we’re deadly. But here or Vegas – especially here – you know you’re at a disadvantage. To beat the turbo and nitrous cars, you have to outrace them. You have to be smarter than them, and that’s what we’ve tried to do all year: race smart.”

PSM – ENGLISHTOWN 2017

June 13, 2017 / Todd Veney

Though not discernible strictly from the results of the Summernationals, Cory Reed’s all-new Team Liberty continued its season-long rise at the NHRA event just outside New York City in Englishtown, N.J. Reed and his teammate, three-time Pro Stock Motorcycle world champ Angelle Sampey, both made the cut, as they have at every race so far this year – a perfect eight-for-eight combined.

“It’s been our goal from the day we decided to start this team: qualify for every single race, both of us,” Reed said. “We knew how tough this was going to be – when you start a whole new team from the ground up, it always is.”

Competing in easily the toughest class in professional drag racing, one that attracts more than 20 entries at every stop on tour, Reed has qualified as high as 11th on the grid. At Englishtown, he qualified just 15th despite recording an excellent 6.895 that tied his best run of the season right to the thousandth of a second.

Opposite eventual winner Jerry Savoie, the reigning NHRA world champ, in the opening round of eliminations, Reed moved first with an outstanding .017 reaction time, but it all came crashing down not far past the Christmas Tree when his bike refused to shift into 2nd gear. “I hit the button three times and finally just rolled off the throttle,” he said. “Then my scoop started falling off – it actually hit me in the leg. Jerry was so far ahead there was no way I could catch him, so I shut off.”

Reed’s 6.895 in qualifying actually wasn’t his best run of the year – just his best official run. In testing, he’s gone as quick as a 6.87, which Sampey recently eclipsed with an even better 6.85. “We keep track of that stuff,” he said. “It’s all written down on a board in our trailer, and it’s always really competitive between Angelle and me. The team found some new stuff this weekend – we always do. Every run we make at a national event is really another test run, and every race we go to we figure out something else that’ll help us down the road.”

PRO MOD – ENGLISHTOWN 2017

June 12, 2017 / Todd Veney

Steven Whiteley stared down the pressure in a first-round matchup against the only driver ahead of him in the J&A Service Pro Mod standings, whipping feared Mike Castellana from one end of the track to the other in a must-win first-round showdown at the NHRA Summernationals.

“That round carried more weight than any round I’ve ever competed in,” Whiteley said. “The stakes were big – we all knew it going up there. I felt the pressure but I’ve also gotten to where it doesn’t matter what’s going on outside the car, because if you think about what’s at stake, you’re done. Once we rolled under the tower, I wasn’t thinking about anything but driving.”

At venerable Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J., just 45 minutes from the heart of New York City, Whiteley drilled Castellana, usually one of the quickest-reacting drivers in Pro Mod, with a clutch .047 reaction time. Castellana was uncharacteristically late with a .103 and could only watch the J&A/YNot driver motor away for an easy 5.82 win that not only prevented Castellana from stretching his lead but cut into it. Castellana, a winner at Charlotte and Atlanta, nearly matched Whiteley’s e.t with a 5.85 but was never in the race.

“I never saw him, never heard him, nothing,” Whiteley said. “He’s a good dude, probably my favorite driver out there – good driver, doesn’t mess around on the starting line. That was a big race was big for us, no doubt about it. Mike was too far ahead for us to catch him this weekend, but there were a bunch of guys right behind us trying to take over second, and we held them all off.”

Cutting further into Castellana’s once seemingly insurmountable lead with a second-round decision over former Top Fuel driver Sidnei Frigo, Whiteley took the long way to a 5.91 victory. “The car moved around quite a bit that time,” he said. “I really had to do some driving on that one. We backed it down a little bit that time – maybe a little too much, actually – but it made it. For the semi’s, we had the tune-up a lot closer to where it would normally be, and the track said, ‘No way.’ It just kicked the tire off of it. I got back into it, but when I saw Rickie [Smith] off to my right, I knew I was done right there even if he blew up, and I lifted.”

Down 178 points coming into the Englishtown, Whiteley now trails the top-ranked Castellana by just seven rounds. “It’s going to take a while to catch him, but if we can keep cutting into the lead every time, we might just be OK,” he said.

TAFC – MISSION 2017

June 5, 2017 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing team endured a frustrating weekend at Mission Raceway on the shores of the Fraser River in scenic Mission, B.C., struggling for traction throughout testing and qualifying and falling in the first round of eliminations despite running low e.t. of the meet.

The team’s frustration was compounded by the fact that the winner of that first-round matchup with recent nemesis Chris Marshall earned a semifinal single into the finals, making it a 32- or 53-point swing from the 64 runner-up points she’d have been guaranteed and the 85 point she would’ve received for winning the final, which she almost certainly would have.

“We got to the track ahead of time to test, but more than just trying stuff we were there to break in some tires,” Whiteley said “We never really get to – it rained. We ended up making two runs, didn’t make it down the track either time, and never made it down the track in qualifying, either – 0-for-3.”

Fifth on the grid when eliminations began with a shutoff best of 8.22, Whiteley stormed to a track-record 5.49 at one of the fastest speeds in Top Alcohol Funny Car history, 273.30 mph. It was her misfortune to do so right when opponent Chris Marshall laid down the best run of his young career, a 5.50-flat, and cut a better light to advance directly to the final.

“We put the exact tune-up in the car that we had in it at Belle Rose [where she dominated all weekend for her second victory of the season],” Whiteley said. “We thought, ‘Hey, maybe we were just misreading the track.’ Then we changed the transmission, but that didn’t work, either. Finally, [crew chief] Mike [Strasburg] figured, ‘OK, it’s not the track, it’s not the tune-up, and it’s not the transmission ratio.’ He realized that we’d really never had a weak shake since we started running Hoosiers, put some 47-run-old Hoosiers on the car and ‘boom,’ it went right down the track – 5.49, 273.”

A solid fourth in the Top Alcohol Funny Car standings, just 1 point out of third and well over 100 points up on fifth-place Ray Martin, Whiteley races next at the Summit Nationals June 23-25 in Norwalk, Ohio, where she just missed winning in 2015.

PRO MOD – TOPEKA 2017

May 23, 2017 / Todd Veney

Steven Whiteley persevered through tornadoes that touched down across the Kansas plains early in the weekend, off-and-on rain that plagued qualifying, and horrendous mechanical carnage in eliminations to maintain second place in the Pro Mod standings.

In contention for the points lead all year with one consistent outing after another, Whiteley’s YNot Racing team bowed out in the Heartland Nationals quarterfinals after posting a strong 5.85 that positioned him 5th of more than 20 drivers in the first qualifying session. He slipped to 15th when a banzai attempt in the only other session ended in severe tire shake and found himself a huge underdog in the first round against Khalid Balooshi.

The former Pro Mod world champ and Top Fuel winner cut a perfectly fine .057 light but Whitely drilled him with a clutch .028 reaction time to win on a holeshot. With its tongue hanging out, his powerful Cadillac CTS, which easily would have run in the 5.70s on all eight cylinders, made it across the finish line first, but at just 244 mph. Balooshi’s turbocharged ’17 Camaro blew past him at 249, but only after they’d crossed the stripe in a 5.81 to 5.81 loss.

“That was a cool run,” Whiteley said. “We got lucky – he had a good light too – but we got the win. I used to cut .00s in my bracket car, but your leg is never going to be as quick as you hand is. I’ve worked at this for a long time, and I think it’s starting to come around. A deal like that, it’s pressure, and that actually helps – when you’re No. 15 and the other guy’s No. 2, you’ve got to cut a light.”

With no idea why the cylinder went out, the team, led by crew chief Jeff Perley, played it safe and changed everything for Sunday – new wire set, new coil, new cap. The power was there against second-round opponent Steven Matusek, but after leaving first Whiteley was left fighting for control when his car tried to shake itself apart.

“It destroyed basically everything,” he said. “The drive shaft, a couple 4-link bars, the wishbone, a rocker panel, a tire, the main hoop. The yoke was half-gone. The carbon driveshaft tunnel: destroyed. Looking at everything, you can’t really tell what happened first. The car will be fixed and heading back to North Carolina by Tuesday night, and then we’ll test the wheels off it, maybe at GALOT [Motorsports Park], where we’ve never run before. When Englishtown gets here, we’ll be ready.”

TAFC – TOPEKA 2017

May 22, 2017 / Todd Veney

With a runner-up to John Lombardo, who had never beaten her in national event competition, Annie Whiteley just missed a third win and second national event title early this season. At the Heartland Nationals at sprawling Heartland Park Topeka, where she had laid down multiple 5.40s and some of her best reaction times of the season, she went up in smoke off the line in the final and lost to Lombardo’s sub-par 6.26.

Whiteley took the lead for about 15 feet in the final with a clutch .047 reaction time, then went up in smoke, pedaled until the car was such a bucking bronco that there was no point in continuing, and coasted to a 9.22 at 111 mph. To compound the frustration, Lombardo, who earlier had made the third-best run in class history, 5.398, was pedaling for his life in the other lane, eventually recovering to win with an E.T. that would lose virtually any round at any race all year.

It was a disappointing end to what had been a great weekend. Whiteley and the YNot team reached the final round for the third time in 2017 by knocking off top-ranked Shane Westerfield in the semifinals in one of the closest races of all time. “Shane’s about the last guy I’d ever want to race,” Whiteley said of Top Alcohol Funny Car’s top-ranked driver. “He leaves on everybody. When he wasn’t already ahead of me, I actually thought, ‘I must have had a decent light – I don’t see him’ somewhere in low gear. I heard how close it was later but I never saw him the rest of the way.”

Westerfield was right there, falling to Whiteley’s 5.47 at 269 mph with a 5.44 at 272. Margin of victory: .0002 (1/5000 of a second). It was even tighter than her .0019-second MOV over Lombardo in the Gainesville semi’s that ended up being even more important than this round was, a rare two-for-one: as the winner, she got a single for the Gatornationals title when opponent Dan Pomponio was unable to return from a blown engine in the other semi.

Whiteley, who ended up No. 3 in rain-shortened qualifying with a 5.48/270 and erased Brian Hough in the quarterfinals with an outstanding 5.43/273, was grateful to still be around after the first round. Granted a first-round bye when Jeff Jones was unable to return after destroying an engine on an explosive, fiery qualifying run, she suffered some engine damage of her own, blowing up well before half-track and coasting to a 7.65 at 104 mph. “We had to change everything,” she said. “We didn’t end up winning, but the guys fixed everything and had the car running better on Sunday than it already was.”

PRO MOD – ATLANTA 2017

May 9, 2017 / Todd Veney

After reaching the semifinals for the second time in a row and the third time in four races this season, Pro Mod star Steven Whiteley finds himself second in the J&A Service standings. Whiteley, who won the season opener in Gainesville, knocked off former national record holder Jonathan Gray in the first round of the NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway and former world champ Khalid Balooshi in the semifinals before losing to eventual winner Mike Castellana, the only driver ahead of him in the standings, in a photo-finish semifinal matchup.

“I should’ve had a better light that time, that’s all there is to it,” said Whiteley, who was anything but late with a solid .060 reaction time that gave him an imperceptible early lead on Castellana’s similar .065. They were locked side by side until the end of the quarter-mile, where Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Cadillac CTS came up five-thousandths of a second short, 5.77 to 5.78. The margin at the stripe was just 22 inches.

“If I would’ve pulled a .030 light or even a .040 that, we would’ve won,” said Whiteley, who actually just needed anything quicker than a .055. He was consistent throughout eliminations, with reaction times of .064, .058, and .060, E.T.s of 5.83, 5.82, and 5.78, and speeds of 248, 249, and 250 mph.

“Things are definitely going in the right direction, and ever since Gainesville there’s just been a new motivation around the team that we’ve never experienced before,” Whiteley said. “There’s a lot of pressure on our shoulders – the good kind, the kind you put on yourself. The way all these cars are running now, you really have to go for it every single time. If you don’t, you’re not going anywhere. I felt pretty good coming into Atlanta, but now, I feel better about this team than I’ve ever felt before – even better than when we won Gainesville.”

PSM – ATLANTA 2017

May 8, 2017 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed was out early at the NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway, victimized by a rare starting line miscue that disqualified him from a race he wasn’t going to win anyway.

Reed red-lighted in the opening round of eliminations, but opponent L.E. Tonglet, winner of the most recent event and a tenth and a half faster than Reed at this one, ripped off low E.T. of the meet to that point, 6.81, to win handily. After the foul, Reed charged to a 6.92, by far his best run of the weekend.

“I knew I had to go for it to even have a chance, Reed said. “Qualifying with a 7-flat … I didn’t think anyone would be qualifying anywhere all year with a 7-second run. I had to do something. It doesn’t feel quite as bad when the guy who beats you ends up winning the whole race, and he did. He beat everybody.”

For Reed, already known for his lightning-fast reflexes, it wasn’t a matter of being too quick for his own good and missing the Tree by a few thousandths even though he left on yellow. He just left. “I started thinking up there, and that’s never a good idea,” he said. “My hand wasn’t quite where I wanted it, and I was still moving it after I was staged. It was slipping, slipping, and finally I just let it go. I knew it was going to be red when I went by the Tree.”

All is not lost for the 2016 NHRA Rookie of the Year and his all-new Team Liberty, who blew up two motors testing in Charlotte the Monday after the 4-Wide Nationals. “One of them wasn’t that bad,” he said. “It just dropped a valve. The other was completely blown up – there was a rod sticking out the side of it – and that really set us back at this race. We had to run a couple backup motors, and they weren’t quite as good.”

In 2016, the Atlanta race was the first time the rookie rider made the field. This time it was his third in a row – he’s qualified for every race all year. “Power is right around the corner,” he said. “We just need to keep doing what we’re doing. We haven’t had much time to do anything, really. We haven’t done what normal teams do, like run every possible combination on the dyno. We don’t have a dyno. We will, though. We’ve been shooting in the dark. It’s one try on the right piston, one try on the right cam. We’ve got all kinds of good stuff coming. When the power gets here – and it will, soon – we’ll be fine.”