Tag: 2018 (Page 4 of 5)

PSM – ATLANTA 2018

May 7, 2018 / Todd Veney

Missing the middle rounds of eliminations for the first time all year, Cory Reed absorbed the first early exit of Team Liberty’s promising 2018 season at the NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway. “We were chasing a clutch tune-up and different gear ratios, trying to learn,” Reed said following a narrow first-round loss to championship contender Scotty Pollacheck.

“It was still a good weekend, if you ask me,” Reed said. “The team came together, people meshed, and everybody’s morale was good. We just ordered six complete transmissions so we don’t have to spend time changing gears between runs. It’ll just be ‘Take this one out and put this one in’ because rebuilding the whole transmission just takes too long to do it between rounds. We weren’t here to test – we came to win – but each pass was a learning experience, and things are looking up.”

Reed grabbed the early qualifying lead with an off-the-trailer 6.88 that had him in the No. 2 spot when the opening session wrapped up, No. 3 at the conclusion of Friday qualifying, and No. 7 on Saturday’s final grid. He and Pollacheck left the line within a thousandth of a second of each other Sunday morning and charged down the quarter-mile side by side to the finish, where Pollacheck persevered by about a bike length, 6.93 to 6.97.

“That sucked, but I’m not down,” Reed said. “The season’s 16 races long – you’re going to lose first round a time or two. My first year out here [2016], I didn’t qualify three times and we still made the Countdown. We’re building for the future. People are telling me we’re assembling a super team and we are – these are the exact people I would pick if I had my choice of anyone out here. Ken [Johnson] and Darrell [Mullis] have the bikes prepared perfectly every time, and everybody knows what Larry [Morgan] and Jim [Yates] can do. I’m not out here for a good time – I want to make my name in drag racing and bring this whole class up. I’m here to win championships.”

PSM – CHARLOTTE 2018

May 1, 2018 / Todd Veney

After what transpired at the Four-Wide Nationals, former NHRA Rookie of the Year Cory Reed is probably better positioned than ever to take down that elusive first NHRA title. In the first quad (round) of eliminations under the sometimes-confusing four-lane format, Reed trounced not only Ryan Oehler in the lane next to him but both Joey Gladstone and reigning world champ Eddie Krawiec on the adjoining track to his right for the most significant round-win of his young career.

“I knew I was going to win that time,” said Reed, who pulled out the zMax gates 5th in the NHRA standings, the highest he’s ever been at any point in any season. “The way I feel now is the mindset it’s going to take to win one of these things. I feel this way and act this way because I really do think we can wax anybody at any time.” Such optimism is hardly unfounded – the addition of all-time Pro Stock greats Larry Morgan and Jim Yates has clearly transformed Team Victory, which is sneaking up on the long-established Pro Stock Motorcycle elite a little more each time out.

Reed found himself in the No. 1 qualifying position after two complete sessions of Friday qualifying for the first time in his career with a 6.83. His winning first-round time against Oehler (who also advanced to the semi’s – second place in each quad moves on, too), Gladstone, and Krawiec was a 6.81, his quickest time to date. The .81 stood as Low E.T. for all 16 bikes in that round – another career-first – but according to the driver himself it could have been a few ticks quicker. “It spun the tire,” he said, “I got a little excited and short-shifted three gears or that seriously would have been about a .77.”

“The motors go Columbus [Ohio with Morgan] after every race,” Reed said. “We do all the chassis stuff at the shop, and at the track Jim [Yates} has spreadsheet after spreadsheet of gear ratios to try. You can really tell the difference. I was at about mid-track on the first run we ever made and thought, ‘This thing really sounds aggressive.’ It just sounded mean, like some kind of growl. There’s so much power, every time I shift, it spins the tire for a split second.”

Early in the semifinal quad it spun a little too hard, and Reed slipped to a 6.94 and fell to Scotty Pollacheck, who won with a 6.84, and Matt Smith, who also made it to the final by finishing second with a 6.88. “The 60-foot time sucked,” Reed said. “It spun so bad, it killed the momentum for the whole run. We’re still trying to find that sweet spot and it’s a little hit-or-miss right now because we don’t have enough data with this much power. But when we hit it, we really hit it. I have to say, right now is the best things have ever been.”

TAFC – CHARLOTTE 2018

April 30, 2018 / Todd Veney

After qualifying somewhere other than No. 1 for the first time all year, Top Alcohol Funny Car star Annie Whiteley, who had set the pace five times in a row, earned the fifth and perhaps most satisfying national event victory of her career at the Four-Wide Nationals in Charlotte. Starting from No. 2, Whiteley wheeled the powerful YNot Racing Camaro to one 5.40-something after another in a race-day performance that culminated in a final-round decision over recent nemesis DJ Cox that catapulted her to first place in the national standings.

With veteran crew chief, former Top Fuel pilot, and accomplished practical joker Mike Strasburg calling the shots, Whiteley reeled off 5.40s in every round to eradicate the painful memory a holeshot loss a week earlier in Richmond against the very driver she faced down in the final round this time. “This has got to be just about just the best win ever,” said Whiteley, who also scored at the national level in Chicago in 2013, Las Vegas and Seattle in 2015, and Gainesville last year. “The car was perfect all weekend – it pretty much has been all year – and it just feels so good to win a big race like this, especially after what happened last week at Richmond.”

Whiteley’s YNot team missed qualifying in the top spot for the first time all season when Swede Ulf Leanders assumed the early qualifying lead with a 5.46 and claimed it for good with a subsequent 5.42. She opened with a 5.52 and began eliminations from the No. 2 spot with a 5.46. From there, it was nothing but total domination, a string of 5.40s at 270-plus mph to trailer defending event champ Johan Lindberg, 2013-2014 winner Dan Pomponio, 2012 winner Andy Bohl, and, in the final, Cox, one of the four drivers to ever run in the 5.30s.

Whiteley established low e.t. of eliminations with a 5.43 against Pomponio, and, after an hour-plus wait to run the final following Stevie Jackson’s spectacular double-wall crash in the Pro Mod final, seemed to have everything under control until she hit the button for high gear not knowing the race was already hers. “The car just went crazy,” she said. “For a second I almost thought I was going to crash, but I stayed in it.” Her reward was a satisfying, vindicating win over Cox, who had barely beaten her on a holeshot eight days earlier in Richmond, Va.

Whiteley, who has reached at least the semifinals in all six starts this season, went the distance for the second time in 2018, including her season-opening regional win at No Problem Raceway in the swaps of Louisiana. “I didn’t try to make something happen this time,” this time. “I just trusted myself to cut a light and believed that the car would be there when it really counted, and it was.”

PRO MOD – CHARLOTTE 2018

April 30, 2018 / Todd Veney

Just days after the ultimate high of a victory at the Spring Nationals in Houston, Jim Whiteley found himself in a most unfamiliar place when qualifying concluded for the Four-Wide Nationals in Charlotte: on the outside looking in, unqualified along with son Steven, last year’s Gatornationals champion, who also missed the cut.

“I messed up on the Tree on the one run that definitely would have been good enough to qualify,” Whiteley said with characteristic modesty. “The Four-Wide Tree can really confuse you if you’re not careful, and I rolled right through the beams because I thought I was in a different lane than I actually was. To be in the what’s the left lane at any other track but one of the two right lanes on a four-wide track and have to look at the other side of the Tree â€¦ it’s just not natural. It gives you something to think about, and in drag racing that’s never a good thing.”

Positioned in Lane 3, Whiteley crept into the beams with a wall on his left and opponent Rickie Smith to his right. For 99.9% of the runs he’s ever made, that would have him looking at the left side of the Tree. But as the third of four drivers lined up across two adjoining tracks, the stage lights corresponding to his spot in the lineup actually were second from the right. Wondering why his staged light wasn’t coming on, he inched through both the pre-staged and staged beams and wasn’t on the starting line when the Tree dropped. Translation: his run wasn’t timed.

Naturally, it was that very run when Whiteley’s ’69 Yenko Camaro made had its best performance (about a 5.77, according to information downloaded from the data recorder), a run that otherwise would have qualified him in the top half of the field. In each subsequent session, he, like most Pro Mod drivers on the fast but tricky zMax surface, struggled for traction. He went up in smoke Saturday morning in the heat, and a backed-down 5.84 in last-shot qualifying late Saturday afternoon that was one of the better times of that session ultimately was good enough only for 19th on the final grid. “That won’t happen again,” he said of the opening-session slipup.

Son Steven fared no better, never making a representative run and landing 28th on the final qualifying chart with an aggregate best of 6.32 in the Friday evening session and a 231-mph speed Saturday morning. “There’ll be some big changes before we get to Topeka,” he said, undaunted. “We’ll be back.”

TAFC – RICHMOND 2018

April 23, 2018 / Todd Veney

In her first appearance ever at Virginia Motorsports Park in the heart of Civil War country, Annie Whiteley annihilated the track record in pre-race testing and got only faster once the event officially got under way. She led all qualifiers for the fifth time in a row (she’s yet to qualify anywhere but No. 1 this season) and was sailing through the preliminary rounds until it all fell apart against 2012 event runner-up DJ Cox in the semifinals.

When eliminations began, Whiteley had the entire field covered by more than a tenth of a second with an unbelievable 5.40-flat at 273.39 that crushed both ends of the track record. She drew a much tougher than usual No. 8 qualifier in the first round, two-time national event winner Kris Hool, but advanced easily with a 5.41 at another track-record speed, 274.11 mph. Then came the semifinals, where she met Cox, with whom she’s exchanged round-wins from the first time they staged up against each other.

“I’d win one, then he’d win one, then I would, and then he would,” Whiteley said. Never has Cox’s turn to win been more painful than in Virginia, where her outstanding 5.41 lost on a holeshot to his 5.48. Cox, who had blown everyone away in the first round with one of the quickest runs in Top Alcohol Funny Car history (5.38), got off the mark first with a .042 reaction and barely held off her 5.41 with the 5.48. The difference at the stripe: 11-thousandths of a second.

“I was just about in tears after that one,” Whiteley said. “You don’t even want to face your crew after something like that. I was so mad at myself I didn’t even know what to do. The car was running great – it has all year. You care so much and want so bad to cut a good light, and sometimes it screws you up. I think sometimes you just try too hard.”

PRO MOD – HOUSTON 2018

April 23, 2018 / Todd Veney

Two-time Top Alcohol Dragster world champion Jim Whiteley nailed down the second victory of his Pro Mod career at the same place he claimed his first – Houston – but this one was a world apart from his wild 2016 Spring Nationals win. Instead of going the distance despite never qualifying for the field and shutting off early in the final but winning anyway because his opponent plowed into the wall, Whiteley made one strong run after another to bring home easily his most satisfying triumph to date.

Crew chief Chuck Ford had the J&A Service Yenko Camaro on a rail in all four qualifying sessions and all four rounds of eliminations, starting with an off-the-trailer 5.78 at 247 mph Friday afternoon. While others struggled with the green, slippery surface, Whiteley backed up that opening 5.78 with a 5.800-flat and back-to-back 5.82s. “Everybody was complaining about the track conditions, but you’ll never hear a bad word about this place from me,” said Whiteley, who drove to back-to-back Top Alcohol Dragster titles at Houston in 2011 and 2012. “I always loved racing here with the dragster, and I still do now. This place has always been good to me.”

Whiteley ended up just 14th on the final qualifying chart – one position and one-thousandth of a second behind son Steven’s 5.787 – but he placed among the top six of 30-plus entrants in all four qualifying sessions. When conditions improved Sunday for the first round of eliminations, Ford was ready, and the car responded with an outstanding 5.74 that easily covered 2017 championship runner-up Mike Castellana’s out-of-the-groove 8.55.

Whiteley, long established as one of the premier leavers in any kind of car, cut a season-best .022 reaction time in the quarterfinals to easily handle former Top Fuel racer Khalid alBalooshi with a consistent 5.77 and used those reflexes in the pressure-packed late rounds to go distance again on the tricky Houston surface. He drilled perennial title contender “Stevie Fast” Jackson for a holeshot semifinal win, 5.77 to 5.75, and did likewise to Rick Hord in a 5.83-5.81 final when both drivers’ engines expired with the finish line in sight.

“Now that was a good race,” Whiteley said of a classic final decided by less than a hundredth of a second. “When you’re in the right lane, you can’t see the win light on the wall [because the massive blower and injector sticking up through the hood totally blocks the driver’s view], but I knew it was close because I could hear him the whole way down.”

TAFC – DALLAS 2018

April 15, 2018 / Todd Veney

At the Texas Motorplex, where last year she became the first Top Alcohol Funny Car driver in history to hit 275 mph, Annie Whiteley landed in another final round, this time at the track’s Central Regional event. Leading the standings following a victory at the only previous regional, the season-opener in Belle Rose, La., Whiteley advanced to the final round again only to fall to upstart Kirk Williams when she lost traction not far off the line.

The perennial Top 5 driver qualified No. 1 for the fourth time in four starts this year with a 5.52 at 267.16 mph and ran nearly as quick in a first-round win over Bryan Brown despite dropping a valve as she went into high gear and losing 10 mph. “It was weird,” she said. “It dropped the number 7 valve right at the 2-3 gear change. I thought I hit the rev-limiter – that’s exactly what it sounded like. We didn’t realize at the time how much damage was done; we just swapped in another motor for the semi’s. Later we saw that the top of the valve was jammed sideways in the combustion chamber.”

On Whiteley’s semifinal burnout, the car slid to the left and she had to take corrective action to avoid disaster before the run – a bye – even began. “I stood on it in the burnout and all of a sudden I wondered if I was about to hit the Tree,” she said. “It was almost like everything was happening in slow motion – ‘There’s the Tree, don’t hit it’ – and you’re on a bye run. All I had to do to win was get down the track, so I got off the throttle, backed up, and just tried to make a normal run.” It turned out to be anything but – she barely made it off the line. “Apparently, the new motor made a lot more power than the one that was in there for the first round. It was a bye run so I couldn’t lose – I thought – and it was really hopped up.”

Everything was calmed back down for the final, but it didn’t make any difference – Whiteley’s car never made it out of low gear. She went up in smoke and coasted across the finish line at 95 while the underrated Williams drove away to a 5.57 for his 19th career divisional/regional title.

PSM – GAINESVILLE 2018

March 19, 2018 / Todd Veney

In his first outing with all-time Pro Stock greats Larry Morgan and Jim Yates in the fold, 2016 NHRA Rookie of the Year Cory Reed went rounds at the season-opening Gatornationals, sidelining new national record holder Hector Arana Jr. with a clutch holeshot in the first round. Arana, who became the first Pro Stock Motorcycle rider to eclipse 200 mph in Friday qualifying and upped the all-time mark to 201.01 mph Saturday, got left in the dust by Reed’s near-perfect .007 reaction time, falling to a 6.95/191 despite his quicker 6.94/198.

“I didn’t think we’d outrun him, but I knew we’d be close enough to beat him,” said Reed, who, in his brief time in drag racing, has already established himself as a leaver. “My mindset was that I absolutely could win, and when I left it felt like a good light – I even did a double-take as I went by the Tree to make sure it wasn’t red. Halfway down the track, I still didn’t hear him, and when I glanced over a couple times at about half-track, he wasn’t there. In high gear, it hit me: I’m going to win.’ ”

Reed qualified 13th in the field, well behind Arana’s 6.80/201 record run with a 6.91 at 191.67 mph – not bad for the first outing with an all-new setup. “We tested in Orlando before the race,” he said. “We were still down there Thursday, the day before qualifying started for this race, and didn’t pull into Gainesville until late Thursday night.”

The results of the team’s focused, intense testing were obvious when Gainesville qualifying began and everybody was playing for keeps. “First race of the year, and we already have a round-win,” said Reed, currently eighth in the NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle standings. “Last year, it took us more than half a season to get this far. Larry had the motors running great, redid pretty much everything, worked his magic. Jim’s smart. He’ll be helping us for a few more races, at least. He has all these crazy formulas and spreadsheets. He set up his own office in the trailer – even brought his own printer – and when it comes to the transmission, gear ratios, clutch tuning, he really knows his stuff. After this, my goal is to at least go a few rounds like we did here at every race for the rest of the year.”

TAFC – GAINESVILLE NATIONAL 2018

March 19, 2018 / Todd Veney

Defending Gatornationals champion Annie Whiteley just missed her first repeat win in national competition, losing one of the quickest races in Top Alcohol Funny Car history in this year’s final against Sean Bellemeur, the only driver ahead of her in the NHRA national standings, 5.46 to 5.48. “I’m getting a little tired of runner-up,” said Whiteley, who has four national event titles in 15 career finals. “One more round-win makes a big difference.”

Whiteley’s YNot team qualified No. 1, as it has at all three races so far this season, with an outstanding 5.404 at 273.16 mph, missing top speed of the meet by just 0.16 mph. Bellemeur was just a few thousandths of a second behind her in the No. 2 spot, and both plowed through eliminations, overwhelming the competition in two of the preliminary rounds and getting a break in the other.

For Whiteley, the break came in the semifinals, when both she and D.J. Cox lost traction almost immediately. Whiteley recovered first, tromping back on the throttle for a 6.33 at 260 mph to hold off his 7-flat at 194. “You add up the runs at Belle Rose, here last weekend at the regional event, and in testing in Orlando, and that was just the second time the car has smoked the tires in 20-25 runs all year,” she said. Her first- and second-round passes were flawless – a 5.406/273.11 in Saturday’s first round that came within .002-second and 0.05-mph of her qualifying numbers, and a 5.437/270.70 in hotter conditions Sunday in the second round that stood as the quickest and fastest of that round by a mile.

After the near-miss in the semi’s, YNot crew chief Mike Strasburg backed the car down for the final – maybe a hair too much, in his estimation. “It probably could have taken a little more, but you really don’t know that before you go up there, do you?” he asked. “Sean’s one of the best drivers out there and that’s one of the best teams, and you don’t want to just give it away.”

PRO MOD – GAINESVILLE 2018

March 19, 2018 / Todd Veney

In cool, fast conditions in Gainesville, Fla., in the first round of the first race of the season, 2016 Houston Pro Mod winner Jim Whiteley met, of all people, his son, defending Gatornationals champ Steven Whiteley. Both drivers overcame a gargantuan 35-car field to qualify for one of the quickest races in class history (5.83 bump), Steve in the No. 5 spot with a 5.78 and Jim at No. 12 with a 5.80-flat.

As dictated by the NHRA eliminator ladder, No. 5 drew No. 12 in the first round – the last thing either ever would have wanted. Forced to square off in an all-YNot showdown, father and son shot off the starting line with identical .063 reaction times and charged side-by-side to the end of the quarter-mile, where Jim emerged victorious by the smallest possible margin: one-thousandth of a second, 5.868 to 5.869. Steven’s clutch-equipped Cadillac was traveling 6 mph faster than Jim’s Yenko Camaro when they got there, 250.88 mph to Jim’s 244.16, and the cars were separated by literally inches as they sped across the finish line in one of the closest races in Pro Mod history – if not the closest.

“It’s about time I beat that little SOB,” Jim joked. Both were acutely aware of their all-time head-to-head record: Steven 4, Jim 0. “People kept telling me, ‘Well, if you had to lose, there couldn’t be anybody better to lose to,’ ” Steven said. “Yeah, I guess, but I don’t want to lose to anyone. I can’t really say that losing to my dad made it any easier to take.”

Jim then lost in the quarterfinals to eventual winner Rickie Smith, long known for doing anything to win. Seeing that Jim was having trouble getting his car to hold on the line, Smith double-bulbed him, and when Jim revved the engine for the launch, he lurched off the line for an aggravating red-light loss. “He can do that,” Jim said “Lighting both lights like that isn’t illegal. But it won’t happen again.”