Tag: Annie (Page 1 of 17)

TAFC – POMONA

November 18, 2024 / Todd Veney

The final race of Annie Whiteley’s season ended just like literally 90 percent of her other NHRA national event starts this season: in the second round. The six-time winner didn’t lose in the first round once all year, but for the ninth time in 10 2024 nationals, she was gone after round two.

Whiteley, who went to the final round at the other one, Maple Grove, ran an outstanding 5.43 in the quarterfinals here but fell to Ray Martin’s nearly identical 5.44. “I’m trying to practice going in [staging] second,” she said, “but I’m not there yet. I’m still a little behind. Now that half the cars out here have a two-step, everybody wants to get in there first. So do I. Everybody’s doing it, and some of them are double-bulbing me, and I have to be ready for it.”

The J&A Service/YNot Racing team never made a bad run all weekend. Whiteley clocked a 5.47 at 266 mph right off the trailer and a 5.49/267 in what turned out to be Top Alcohol Funny Car’s only other qualifying session. A 5.42/268, her best run of the whole season, easily eliminated Christine Foster’s backpedaling 6.04/190 in a first-round clash between the only female drivers in the field, but a similar 5.43/268 wasn’t quite enough in the quarterfinals when Martin, driving the Miner Brothers car fielded by third-generation racer Greg Miner, made the best run of his career, a 5.44. (It was no fluke, either – he ran another .44 in the semi’s.)

“I need to get better at going in second, that’s all there is to it,” said Whiteley, who was anything but late with a .065 reaction time – it just wasn’t in the .020s, as Martin’s was, and as Whiteley has been numerous times since crew chief Mike Strasburg made the move to the two-step early this season. “I don’t want to have to race the other guy to get in to the pre-staged light first every time. I want to be good either way – staging first or staging last – and I’m getting my composure and getting my steps down, but Ray’s out there bracket racing when he’s not running Alcohol Funny Car and he’s really gotten good at it.”

TAFC – LAS VEGAS REGIONAL

November 11, 2024 / Todd Veney

“Double bulbing” – going from not staged to pre-staged to fully staged in one swift motion to catch an opponent off guard – blindsided Annie Whiteley at the final regional event of 2024, where she absorbed a exasperating holeshot loss to Ray Martin.

In the Top Alcohol Funny Car semi’s at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of her first major victory a dozen years ago, Whiteley, who’s cut some of her best lights ever this season, got caught flat-footed when Martin rolled right into both beams. When the Tree flashed, he was ready, she wasn’t, and her best of four great runs went for naught in a 5.52 to 5.46 loss. “When I let go, I just thought, ‘Damn…’ ” she said. “I knew I was late.”

The weekend had gotten off to a promising start when Whiteley stormed to an outstanding 5.47 at 266.79 mph right off the trailer for the early qualifying lead. A subsequent 5.49/265 positioned the J&A Service/YNot Racing “Shattered Glass” team well for eliminations … until the ladder came out and she found herself paired up with husband Jim first round.

As it turned out, mechanical gremlins sidelined Jim’s team, and alternate Hunter Jones, who enjoyed the finest day of his career here earlier this season, assumed Jim’s spot on the ladder. Annie drilled him on the Tree and drove away for an easy 5.50/265 win while Jones, who’d mustered a best of just 5.97 in qualifying, rattled the tires, pedaled, and briefly gave chase before lifting for a 7.46/142 loss.

In the semifinals, Whiteley picked up to the 5.46 at more than 266 mph but couldn’t run down Martin’s engine-damaging 5.52 at 252. “As soon as you pre-stage, Ray just rolls right in,” she said. “I wasn’t ready – the whole way downtrack, I was just hoping he’d break something. Ray bracket races all the time now, so he’s got this whole deal figured out and just cuts .020 or .030 lights every time.”

TAFC – LAS VEGAS NATIONAL

November 4, 2024 / Todd Veney

The same thing that’s plagued Annie Whiteley’s Top Alcohol Funny Car team all year struck again at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway: the clutch – or, more specifically, its sporadic inconsistency.

“The discs are wearing in the middle now,” Whiteley said. “It’s like we’re ‘clutch light’ [not enough counterweight] but we’re not. It just looks like we are. If we really were, this would be something completely different. It’s not like it happens once every 10 runs – it’s more like once every five or six. It happened in the final round at Reading [where she blew the tires off after running five straight 5.40s], and the same thing happened again here.”

Whiteley laid down one good lap after another in qualifying, as she almost always does, charging past the half-track mark at more than 210 mph and storming to a 5.51 at 265.12 mph right off the trailer. She followed with an unerringly consistent 5.52/264 and a steady 5.519/263.87 in last-shot qualifying that left her No. 6 on the grid.

A huge favorite in the first round against No. 11 qualifier Doug Schneider, Whiteley didn’t disappoint, trouncing Schneider, who competes infrequently and qualified with a career-best 5.59, by almost two tenths of a second on the leave, .059 to .252. She pulled steadily away for a runaway win with a pass almost identical to her qualifying efforts, a 5.52/262, while Schneider trailed with a distant 6.81/239.

It was in the quarterfinals that misleading clutch readings doomed the J&A Service/YNot team. It wasn’t that the car smoked the tires out of nowhere; it’s that crew chief Mike Strasburg didn’t have as much clutch in the car as he otherwise would have, so it didn’t run as quick as it could have. Whiteley got opponent Bob McCosh, who’s rumored to be moving to the fuel ranks next season, at the Tree with an excellent .039 light, but he outran her, 5.49/262 to 5.54/263, to win by about a car length.

“Mike will say, ‘I think I know what’s wrong,’ and then we’ll make a run and he’ll say, ‘Well, that wasn’t it. That didn’t fix it,’ ” Whiteley said. “It’s bitten us several times this year, and it’s driving him nuts. It doesn’t make any sense.”

TAFC – DALLAS

October 14, 2024 / Todd Veney

With both engines screaming at 7,000 rpm, one car staged and the other about to be, the table was set for Annie Whiteley. Then she rolled in, the Tree flashed, opponent Shane Westerfield streaked for the finish line in the left lane, and she sat there flat-footed at a dead idle in the right.

“All four lights were on, and … I have no idea why … it just didn’t register that I was staged,” Whiteley said. “I thought, What the hell’s going on here? Why isn’t your foot going down on the throttle?’ Shane was seven cars out ahead of me and I hadn’t even left yet. I thought, ‘Come on [Westerfield’s] blower belt – break. Please break.’ It didn’t. Of course. I took off after him, but eventually it got to where even if it broke I was never going to catch him.”

Until then, everything was going according to schedule for Whiteley’s J&A/YNot Racing team. She’d qualified in the top four at the original supertrack, the Texas Motorplex, as she has in 80 percent of her starts this year. She’d knocked off one of Top Alcohol Funny Car’s top young drivers, Hunter Jones, despite his great light (.027) and solid run (5.54), outperforming him with a perfectly fine .061 light of her own and a superior 5.47 that just missed Low E.T. of the Meet at a booming 268.29 mph that fell just short of Top Speed.

“The car was running good,” Whiteley said. “We ran a .49 in qualifying, which just shows that [crew chief] Mike [Strasburg] and the guys are onto a tune-up for places like this. We got back after that run and Mike said, ‘We might’ve just figured something out. I think I know how to get down these hot tracks.’ “

Then came the quarterfinals and an abrupt, bizarre end to what had been a great weekend. “This sucks,” Whiteley said. “We were doing so well. Then Shane was so far out there that I was like, ‘Why are you so far ahead of me? And why the hell am I still on the throttle?’ “

TAFC – CHARLOTTE

September 23, 2024 / Todd Veney

After perhaps the most consistent three runs any Alcohol Funny Car driver ever made anywhere and an even better one in the first round, Annie Whiteley inexplicably blew the tires off in round two. And it wasn’t just a barrage metronomically consistent E.T.s; it was all the progressive times, too. Thousands of horsepower to control and varying, ever-changing track and weather conditions to account for, yet every run looked exactly like the last: smooth.

“I knew the car was consistent,” Whiteley said, “but I didn’t realize it was that consistent – I never pay attention to the little numbers [the thousandths of a second]. But you look back on it, and it’s like, ‘How did we do that?’ “

As the race wore on, Whiteley’s times grew infinitesimally quicker and faster at each increment down the zMax Dragway quarter-mile: 2.497, 2.491, and 2.490 to the 330-foot mark; 3.679, 3.673, and 3.668 to the eighth-mile; 209.98, 210.64, and 210.97 mph half-track speeds; and 1000-foot times of 4.683, 4.676, and 4.671 led to increasingly quicker E.T.s of 5.530, 5.522, and 5.520, the last of which left her No. 3 in the final lineup.

After progressively better reaction times of .077, .054, and .033 in qualifying, Whiteley left on first-round opponent Chris Foster, the former U.S. Nationals winner, by more than a tenth and got the best of a 5.50/266.58 (top speed of the meet) to 5.575/261.83 decision not nearly as close as the E.T.s alone would indicate. In the quarterfinals, Whiteley, who last scored here in 2018, faced three-time national event winner D.J. Cox, who won this race in 2016.

That’s when the J&A Service/YNot team’s unerring consistency vanished, tire smoke billowed from behind the car, and the weekend ground to an unceremonious, premature halt. “This car has kicked our ass a couple times now, hasn’t it?” Whiteley asked. “They don’t tell me what they’re doing – it’s more like, ‘Get in it and drive.’ But it’s been taking the tire off every once in a while, and we’ll think, ‘Why did that happen? There’s no way it should have smoked the tires that time.’ “

TAFC – MAPLE GROVE

September 16, 2024 / Todd Veney

When you’ve been running 5.40s all weekend and leave on a final-round opponent who just blew the tires off in the semi’s and is about to run a 5.50-something, you’re probably going to win, and at Maple Grove Annie Whiteley absolutely was – for about 5 feet.

Then she found the cockpit enveloped in a cloud of tire smoke and could only look on helplessly as Phil Esz shot ahead for an easy win. “I left pretty low [6,400 rpm] and it still took the tire off,” she lamented. “Instantly. The 60-foot time was 1.23. [Crew chief] Mike [Strasburg] lowered the leave 100 rpm because I was already leaving so low, but maybe we should’ve lowered it 500. Who knows? All we were looking to do was repeat. Anything from .47 to .49 would’ve been fine…”

In her first appearance at historic Maple Grove Raceway in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania Amish country, Whiteley was locked in the 5.40s on two of three qualifying attempts and all three preliminary rounds of eliminations. Nestled into the No. 3 spot with an aggregate best of 5.46 at 268.92 mph (top speed of the meet), she faced returning veteran Kris Hool, who hadn’t been seen at an NHRA event in years, in the first round. She left first by a mile with a .061 reaction time that was, by far, her slowest all weekend, and went on to a lopsided win with another 5.4s, a 5.49 at 266.85 mph.

“Annie’s gotten really good on the lights since we went to this two-step,” Strasburg said, “.030s and .040s all the time and .020s when she really needs one.” Brainerd winner Bob McCosh learned that firsthand under the lights Saturday night when Whiteley beat him in round two, 5.49/266 to 5.46/265, with a .022 holeshot leave. Then Phil Burkart, making his only national event start this season for Jay Blake’s Follow A Dream team, narrowly fouled in the semi’s, sending the YNot team to its first national event final of 2024 with another great light (.025) and great run (5.47).

“That’s got to be the first time I’ve ever noticed the scoreboard when the other driver red-lighted,” said Whiteley, who moved up to fifth in the NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car standings. “It hit me – ‘Oh, hey, I just won.’ Then the motor hit the [rev-limiter] chip and I thought, ‘What the hell are you looking at? Shift!’ “

TAFC – MARTIN

September 8, 2024 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley qualified last and got beat first round at the Mid-West Drag Racing Series’ Funny Car Nationals yet walked away from historic U.S. 131 Dragway upbeat, and rightfully so.

The J&A Service/YNot Racing driver was fifth of five on the qualifying grid despite a more than competitive 3.69, then lost by just about the smallest possible margin, which, after the dismal weekend she’d endured, didn’t seem too bad. “This is probably the most excited I’ve ever been to barely lose,” she said of her narrow loss to family friend Steve Macklyn. “After the way this weekend was going, I almost didn’t care. But then I started thinking, ‘Wait a minute … point-zero-zero-eight of a second … damn, I could have won.”

Both drivers cut uncharacteristic .100 lights and both ran 3.58s, but Macklyn, who went on to make the final, where he was trounced by Annie’s husband, event winner and team leader Jim Whiteley, was slightly quicker at both ends of the track. Had either she or Macklyn cut any kind of a normal light, they’d have won on a holeshot.

“The whole way down the track, I never saw him,” Whiteley said. “We looked at our E.T. slips and were both like, ‘Nice light.’ I mean, .104 and .109 – neither one of us was too happy. We both thought the same thing: that was the quickest Tree ever. The second we staged, the Tree was on. Normally, you’re up there on the chip for a second, but not that time… Neither one of us was ready.

“We struggled and struggled and struggled to get the car down the track all weekend,” said Whiteley, who barely squeaked into the 3.60s on the perfectly manicured U.S. 131 surface with a 3.697. “Then, first round, bam, 3.58. We never thought the car would run that good. We moved some weight around, changed a few things, and the car picked up the front end and carried it out there. And kept right on carrying it. And I thought, ‘Oh, yeah – that’s why I love doing this.’ “

TAFC – INDY

September 3, 2024 / Todd Veney

Jim and Annie Whiteley both reached the quarterfinals at the U.S. Nationals with hard-fought first-round wins, middling qualifying performances, and disappointing second-round defeats. Annie, a three-time Indy finalist, trounced Christine Foster to win an all-female first-round match for the second race in a row, and Jim, the 2013 Alcohol Dragster champion, upended No. 2 qualifier Bob McCosh in a weird one.

Well before Jim approached the starting line, McCosh unintentionally double-bulbed when a teammate inadvertently stepped into the beams, leaving him fully staged and totally defenseless at a dead idle. “I thought, ‘You’re in trouble now, Bob,’ when I saw both lights come on, but I left him plenty of time to back out and start over,” Jim said. “When he didn’t, I still waited a minute before I rolled up there. On the top end, he apologized, but, obviously, that was the last thing he was trying to do.”

A distracted .197 reaction time squandered McCosh’s fine 5.54 and allowed Jim to advance with a much slower 5.63. Meanwhile, Annie claimed a more conventional win over Ms. Foster, one half of Top Alcohol Funny Car’s otherhusband/wife team, drilling the Tree for a .029 reaction and driving away with her best run of the weekend to that point, a 5.51 that easily covered Foster’s distant 5.74.

It was in the second round that things fell apart for both YNot drivers. Right after Jim fell to Christine’s husband, 2012 Indy winner Chris Foster, 5.49 to 5.56, Annie found herself a car-length behind returning veteran Stan Sipos right off the line. What seemed an instant after Sipos’ pre-staged light flickered, all four staged lights were on, the Tree came down, and Annie was caught flat-footed. “I thought, ‘Oh no,’ as soon as I left,” she said. “Whenever the other car’s that far out ahead of you that soon, you know you’re in trouble.”

Annie set sail after Sipos and made her quickest and fastest run all weekend but couldn’t run him down. “I was thinking, ‘Come on, just smoke the tires,’ but he never did,” she said. “We upped my launch rpm, and the clutch pedal pushed my foot back when I went down on the throttle, and it really messed me up. I went right back down on it so I wouldn’t roll the beams, and, naturally, that’s right when the light came on. Maybe I didn’t have the pedal all the way down and maybe the air gap wasn’t enough for the increased rpm, but when I had to go back down on the pedal, I knew I was screwed.”

TAFC – BRAINERD

August 19, 2024 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley put together another solid if unspectacular weekend at the Lucas Oil Nationals, one not unlike several others this season: she didn’t the race but went rounds, knocked off a top contender, and walked away rightfully encouraged about her team’s immediate future.

For the 13-year veteran, who reached her first national final here as a rookie in 2012, the clear-cut highlight was a huge first-round win over drag racing’s fastest-rising new star, Maddi Gordon, who, in her young career, already has established herself as a leaver. Gordon, who won her first major Top Alcohol Funny Car title at the Northwest Nationals three weeks ago, was more or less on time with a respectable .070 reaction time, but Whiteley had her all the way with an outstanding .027 light for a 5.51 to 5.50 holeshot win.

“I almost felt bad about it,” Whiteley said later. “I’d never want to see Maddi lose like that. I didn’t want to race her in the first place. I love her – her whole family, really. Who doesn’t?”

Neither team had much to go off of heading into the first round of eliminations. Nobody did. Delayed by repeated oil downs from the fuel cars, Top Alcohol Funny Car and Dragster racers sat around all day Friday and never did get to run. Saturday, when teams got what turned out to their only qualifying attempt, Whiteley laid down a 5.56 at 264.91 mph. Then the first round got pushed back to Sunday morning.

Momentum from winning that huge all-female first-round match ebbed a round later when Whiteley’s promising weekend was cut short by tire shake against eventual winner Bob McCosh. Again, she was off the line first with a clutch reaction time (.030), but this lead was short-lived. She went up in smoke almost immediately.

“I wonder if NHRA is prepping the track the same on Sunday as they do earlier in the weekend,” Whiteley said. “No way did we think the car was going to do that. It’s weird – sometimes my brain says, ‘pedal it,’ and other times I just hold the throttle down like it’s somehow going clean itself up. It never does. I guess that time my brain just didn’t compute.”

TAFC – SEATTLE

July 22, 2024 / Todd Veney

It was one 5.46 after another for Annie Whiteley at the NHRA Northwest Nationals, where she won in 2015 and nearly did again last year. The first one, a 5.469, came right off the trailer Friday morning, and she got only quicker from there with an even better 5.465, her quickest run all year, at 270.05 mph (top speed of the meet) that afternoon.

Following a shut-off 10.48 at 114 mph on an aborted shoot-for-the-moon blast Saturday morning in last-ditch qualifying, Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing team was right back in the 5.40s with another 5.46 that evening in the first round – right when it didn’t matter. It came on a bye she earned by qualifying No. 1, so any ol’ run would have been enough.

Sunday in the semifinals, where all four cars ran in the 5.40s, Whiteley missed what would’ve been a fourth 5.46 by the closest possible margin, one-thousandth of a second, with a 5.470 that left her just short of Brian Hough’s nearly identical 5.48. Nine-thousandths of a second quicker at the Tree or on the quarter-mile and Whiteley, who finished second to outgoing world champion Doug Gordon here last year, would’ve been part of the first all-female final round in Top Alcohol Funny Car history. (Gordon’s daughter, rookie phenom Maddi Gordon, went on to beat Hough in the final and became the 100th different woman to win an NHRA national event.)

With an .088, light Whiteley wasn’t exactly late, but if she’d had another .077 like she did on her first-round single, or Hough had had another .121 like the one he had last weekend at Woodburn, where she left on him and beat him in the first round, and she’d have been in her 22nd career national event final. “With this two-step, you really want to get in there first,” she said. “Hough always used to want to stage last, but now he always wants to go in first – everybody with a two-step does. This is a crappy way to lose, but the guys really have this car running good.”