Tag: 2018 (Page 3 of 5)

TAFC – NORWALK 2018

June 25, 2018 / Todd Veney

After winning two of her three previous starts and three races overall this season, Annie Whiteley was upset in the first round of the NHRA Nationals in tiny Norwalk, Ohio. As in her only other first-round loss all year, at Topeka, rain played havoc with the schedule, in this case reducing qualifying to a single session. She and other Top Alcohol Funny Car drivers couldn’t have known it at the time, but their opening qualifying runs Friday afternoon would be the only ones they’d get. She charged off the line and sped to a 5.57 at just short of 270 mph for the No. 2 spot on the grid, her third No. 2 in the past four races after opening the season with five No. 1s in a row.

That set up a first-round match with the No. 15 qualifier – only this time, No. 15 wasn’t the normal second-slowest car in the field; it was Chip Beverett and his 5.40-capable Camaro. Beverett may have run just a 5.84 on his lone qualifying attempt, but he picked up three-tenths of a second to a 5.54 in the first round that edged the YNot driver’s 5.52 at 270.64 mph (top speed of the meet).

“The car started creeping on me at the starting line,” said Whiteley, who’s off until the Northwest Nationals in Seattle (Aug. 3-5). “When I brought the motor up, it kind of staged itself. That just kills your concentration – you’re going back down on the pedal, and, naturally, that’s right when the Tree comes on so you’re late.”

PRO MOD – NORWALK 2018

June 25, 2018 / Todd Veney

Steven Whiteley persevered through rain-shortened preliminaries to once again qualify high in the Pro Mod field, as he has every race since he debuted his 5.7-second Camaro, only to bow out early in eliminations. The second-generation racer, who has yet to miss the top half of the field since debuting a new Jerry Haas-built piece last month in Kansas, took the provisional pole with an off-the trailer 5.79 at 251 mph and eventually landed in the No. 6 spot with that time.

Rain stopped the action six different times Saturday and trimmed qualifying from the usual four sessions to just two. In the first round of eliminations early Sunday morning, in just his second run all weekend in the left lane, Whiteley faced nemesis Todd Tutterow, who had upset him from the No. 16 a week earlier in Bristol. Tutterow, as experienced as anyone in the J&A Service Pro Mod Series and a known leaver, cut a near-perfect .005 reaction time, but by then the outcome of this one had already been decided.

“That third pedal makes driving these cars a little harder, doesn’t it?” asked Whiteley, who disqualified himself with a rare foul start. “I knew Todd was good on the Tree, so I was hanging on the pedal with just my big toe like I’ve done a million times before. It came off the clutch and I tried to save it, but I rolled the beams.” Tutterow rattled the tires in low gear, lifted, got back on the gas, and sped to a winning 6.51 at 240 mph while an aggravated Whiteley coasted across the stripe at 68 mph nine seconds later with a shut-off 14.28.

“I double-clutched, and when I got back on the throttle it picked the front end up,” said Whiteley, who’ll have two months to think about it before the tour resumes Labor Day weekend at the biggest race of all, the U.S. Nationals. “I heard him pedal it and thought, ‘Here’s my opportunity.’ Then it was like, ‘Oh, wait, there is no opportunity – I already red-lighted.’ It leaves a pretty sour taste in your mouth, trust me. I don’t think I’ve ever been this mad at myself.”

PSM – NORWALK 2018

June 25, 2018 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed pulled out of Norwalk, Ohio in a better place than when he arrived, a first-round casualty but one wiser and better positioned for the future than when he left Richmond and especially Chicago. The former NHRA Rookie of the Year entered in eliminations for this race 11th on the grid, a spot that typically holds the promise of a fair chance at beating the fast-half qualifier, who’s only five spots ahead in sixth place.

But in this instance, the No. 6 qualifier was reigning and many-time world champ Eddie Krawiec, who went on to win the whole race. “We learned a lot this weekend,” said Reed, who had gone rounds at consecutive races to open the season but hasn’t since. “We burned up the clutch trying to pull a gear we thought we could run. I didn’t really think it was going to work, and it didn’t. With that longer gear, the bike is dragging when you shift gears – not ‘snapping.’ It’s just not going anywhere, and you can feel it – it’s obvious.

Reed was consistent in qualifying, and at it’s a good thing he was – inclement weather limited the two-wheel contingent to just two qualifying attempts instead of the usual four. Team Liberty reeled off similar runs of 6.95/193 and 6.97/193 – one on Friday and one on Saturday. In completely different circumstances in the first round of eliminations Sunday, Reed remained in that range with a competitive 6.95/192, but the Harley rider pulled away with a 6.90/193 and went on to the event title.

“We’ll test before the next race [Denver], and we’ll be ready when we get there,” Reed said. “We’re making changes around here, and I know they’re going to help. We’re starting to see the big picture. With these things, you need to get the momentum going early in the run – if you don’t, you’re done.”

PRO MOD – BRISTOL 2018

June 19, 2018 / Todd Veney

At the Thunder Valley Nationals in picturesque Bristol, Tenn., another promising weekend ended in frustration for Steven Whiteley, who’s been qualifying at the top of drag racing’s most competitive class all year, when he got bounced again in the first round. This time he was at the very top of the Pro Mod qualifying charts – No. 1 – with a 5.823 that held up all weekend as low e.t. “I knew that was a decent run,” he said, “but I couldn’t believe it ran that quick, especially in these conditions. That was right on the edge of not making it – I don’t think the car could have run another .82 five minutes later.”

It wasn’t the only time Whiteley would top all qualifiers at Thunder Valley. Saturday afternoon, when steamy conditions made it impossible for anyone to approach his .82 for the top spot, he established low e.t. of that session, too, with a 5.88. “We knew that No. 1 run from Friday wasn’t going be taken down in these conditions,” he said Saturday, “so we used the day as a test session to have more data for race day.”

The wheels came off again in the first round opposite cagey old pro Todd Tutterow, who would go from the bump spot all the way to the final. Tutterow, seemingly down 13-hundredths of a second, matched his 16th-best 5.95 qualifying time while Whiteley reluctantly lifted early. “It was too weak,” he said. “What’s funny is that the car was set up exactly the same as it was on the No. 1 run, just backed up a little to account for the conditions. Jeff [Perley, Whiteley’s crew chief] figured it would run slower, but not that much slower. It’s bitten us before, and we thought we were getting pretty good at not backing up too much, but a run like that almost makes you wish ran bad all the time so you don’t look like a bunch of idiots losing in the first round after running good all weekend.”

TAFC – DENVER 2018

June 18, 2018 / Todd Veney

After years on the cusp of victory at her adopted home track, Top Alcohol Funny Car star Annie Whiteley went the distance at Bandimere Speedway, the Denver-area track husband Jim owned for his entire his career. Annie, who had a runner-up, two semifinal finishes, and two first-round losses at Bandimere, won the 2018 final by the just about closest possible margin over former Indy Comp winner Jirka Kaplan: 3-thousandths of a second.

“It feels so good to finally win here,” Annie said. “Jim just won here every time. I couldn’t even tell you how many times he won [six in a row – the last six years he competed in Top Alcohol Dragster: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013]. It was nice to finally win after getting so close so many times.”

Whiteley, who scored earlier this year at the Belle Rose, La., regional and the 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, started from the No. 2 qualifying position behind two-time championship runner-up John Lombardo, 5.74 to 5.78. Kaplan strapped a .007 to .140 holeshot on Lombardo in the first round to eliminate the top qualifier, 5.86 to 5.85, and singled in the semifinals. Whiteley had to do it the hard way and win all three rounds head-to-head to take home the title. She matched her No. 2 qualifying time right to the thousandth of a second in a 5.785 first-round decision over Steve Macklyn, who red-lighted, and topped perennial championship contender Jay Payne in the semifinals, 5.91 to a shutoff 6.58.

In the final, Whiteley wheeled her YNot/J&A Service Camaro to her quickest and fastest run of the weekend, 5.76/255, to hold off Kaplan, who also made his quickest and fastest lap of the weekend, by literally a foot. “I never saw him,” she said. “I just stared straight ahead like I always do and never noticed the win-light come on. After losing in every other round, most of them a couple times, this is just a great feeling.”

PSM – RICHMOND 2018

June 11, 2018 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed staggered into Richmond determined to shake off the most discouraging outing of his career and officially hit rock bottom in the opening qualifying session with an even more disappointing 7.28. From the depths of the Pro Stock Motorcycle qualifying order, Reed’s Team Liberty Buell then picked up dramatically to a 6.96 Friday night, skyrocketing 10 spots in the order. “There’s no magic to this,” he said, “just hard work. We wasted time testing a tire that really killed the bike, really set us back, but I think that’s all behind us now.”

Reed stepped up even further Saturday afternoon with a 6.93 and woke up Sunday back in the race, with a legitimate shot to go rounds and a positive attitude about both his team and Pro Stock Motorcycle racing in general. “The bike class is still growing, and there are big gains to be made for all of us,” he said. “We can find a tenth out here – I’m not kidding. It’s there. We can go 205 mph. The whole field can be in the 200s. The front half of the class is really tight, really competitive, compared to the last couple of years.”

Facing a driver from that top half in the opening round of eliminations, No. 3 qualifier Matt Smith, Reed got the jump off the line, as he typically does, but Smith ran him down for a 6.87 to 6.98 win. “I don’t even care,” he insisted. “We’re better off now than we were when we got here. Larry [Morgan] and Jim [Yates] came up through the hard times of Pro Stock – they know what it takes to win out here. It doesn’t matter if it’s Pro Stock or Pro Stock Motorcycle – motors are motors, clutches are clutches, and transmissions are transmissions. Get it all right, and you’ll win.”

PRO MOD – RICHMOND 2018

June 11, 2018 / Todd Veney

Hot off the promising debut of his new Camaro in Topeka, Steven Whiteley starred in qualifying at the Virginia Nationals in Richmond, setting top speed at 252.71 mph and claiming the No. 5 spot with a 5.82. “Everything we learned off the old car we applied to the Camaro,” he said of the venerable Cadillac he drove to victory last year in Gainesville. “We ran the wheels off that old car – it had 960-some runs on it – but this new car has development from Pro Stock.”

The new Camaro went 0-for-2 on Friday, shaking on the first run and being pushed off the starting line on the second, but hopes were high for Sunday’s eliminations after Whiteley pounded out back-to-back 5.82s in Saturday’s qualifying sessions, first a 5.828 and then a 5.821 late in the day after a storm blew through and drastically changed the conditions. “Jeff [Perley, Whiteley’s crew chief and a key member of several championship Pro Stock teams] figured out a lot on his own and brought it to this team. A lot of what we’ve done is what Pro Stock guys were doing – Jeff just applied it to Pro Mod before other people got on to it.”

Right when a long run in eliminations seemed a foregone conclusion, Whiteley was stopped in the first round by Chicago-area driver Dan Stevenson, who stepped up to a 5.81 while Whiteley’s car inexplicably slowed from earlier in the weekend. The team underestimated the completely resurfaced Virginia Motorsports Park quarter-mile, and Whiteley, who had never lost to Stevenson, slipped to a disappointing 5.89. “We just missed it on the tune-up,” he said. “No excuses – there was a lot more out there, and we didn’t realize it.”

PSM – CHICAGO 2018

June 2, 2018 / Todd Veney

Motivated by back-to-back top-half qualifying performances at Charlotte and Atlanta, Cory Reed and his Liberty Racing crew pulled into Chicago thinking big. “We were all pumped up, like, ‘Hey, we’re going to win this race,’ but, uh, no,” said the 2016 NHRA Rookie of the Year, clearly disappointed. He opened with an off-pace 7.15 and it only went downhill from there.

Well aware that he wasn’t going anywhere in the second session, Reed shut off early and actually went into Saturday not qualified. He then picked up to a 7.03 at just short of 190 mph that squeaked into the field in the 15th spot, and after a similar 7.04 in last-shot qualifying found himself qualified, though barely so in the 16th and final spot. He was pitted against many-time world champ and No. 1 qualifier Andrew Hines in round one, but as it turned out, it didn’t matter who Reed lined up against when eliminations commenced Sunday afternoon – his engine refused to fire, and he was peeling off his gloves as his bike was pushed away from the starting apron when the light turned green for that first-round match.

“We had a different injector for this race, different manifold, shorter pipes, and moved the power curve up,” Reed said. “It all looked good on the dyno, but that’s not how it turned out. You make a small change to the clutch, and nothing happens. Even a big change, nothing happens. Out of nowhere, it does something it’s never done before. When we fried the clutch, we thought, ‘OK, no problem, that wasn’t the right way. We’ll just work back in the other direction,’ but that didn’t work either. It’s been a mess. Right now, the clutch just is not repeatable, but believe me, we’ll get this figured out before the next one.”

TAFC – TOPEKA 2018

May 21, 2018 / Todd Veney

After plowing through the first third of the season with one late-round finish after another and winning the season opener in Belle Rose, La., Annie Whiteley and the YNot Top Alcohol Funny Car team hit their first bump in their road at the Heartland Nationals in Topeka, Kan. Whiteley, who had reached at least the semifinals of every race all year, was unceremoniously dumped in the first round of eliminations by Texas upstart Bryan Brown, who had never beaten her before.

Whiteley shut off on her first qualifying attempt, coasting to a 7.62 at just 126 mph, and rebounded with a cautious 5.60 at 265 mph on her only other attempt at the rain-plagued event, which put her No. 3 at the time and was good for No. 5 when the last car cleared the traps. Under threatening skies in the first round, with storm clouds gathering and rain clearly on the way, she left with a competitive .074 reaction time, but her best lap of the weekend, 5.59, was edged out by Brown’s virtually identical 5.58. As soon as they exited the track, the skies opened and racing was halted for nearly an hour.

“Not much you can do about a deal like that,” Whiteley stoically said later in the pits. “You can’t shoot for the 5.40s and risk smoking the tires when you have the advantage – you have to just make sure you make it down the track. We did, but not quick enough, I guess. Looking at all the numbers, the guys said there was a lot more left, but what are you going to do? We’ll just try to be better at the next one.”

Next up on the schedule for the YNot/J&A Service Top Alcohol Funny Car team is the Central Regional at Bandimere Speedway just outside Denver, where Whiteley’s husband, Jim, always dominated in Top Alcohol Dragster but where she’s still looking for her first win after one near-miss after another.

PRO MOD – TOPEKA 2018

May 21, 2018 / Todd Veney

Until the light turned green in the first round of eliminations, the debut of Steven Whiteley’s immaculate ’18 Camaro at the Heartland Nationals in Topeka, Kan., couldn’t have gone much better. The Jerry Haas-built beast’s first official run was a 5.84 at 251 mph that gave Whiteley the provisional qualifying lead, and after 16 cars had run he was still on top. Next came a better 5.80-flat, a 5.81 that was low for that entire session, and finally a 5.78 that landed him No. 2 of 24 cars on the final grid.

Then came the first round of eliminations, when Whiteley lost traction and Pro Mod veteran Todd Tutterow stepped up dramatically from his 15th-best qualifying time to a 5.80. Whiteley, a winner last year in Gainesville, shoved the clutch in and coasted to a 7.27 at 137 mph while Tutterow disappeared in the distance, bringing a disappointing end to what had been a promising debut.

“We made one full run at St. Louis after leaving Haas’ shop, loaded it up, and went to Topeka and ran that .84 off the trailer,” Whiteley said. “I really can’t complain about a weekend like this with a brand-new car, and I’m still trying to figure out how to drive it – it’s so different from the old car. I can see better, for one thing, but the biggest thing is that it has auto-shift. The old car was the last one out there with a clutch and no auto-shift. I hate auto-shift – it’s boring. You drive the car and it shifts itself and it just seems like, as a driver, you should be doing more. I wish they’d make it a rule that the driver has to shift the car himself, but there’s no rule and this thing shifts at exactly the right time every time, so there’s really no choice.”