Tag: cory (Page 8 of 10)

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.”

PSM – LAS VEGAS 2017

October 30, 2017 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed and Team Liberty’s 2017 season came to an unexpected and abrupt end at the penultimate event of the 16-race NHRA season, the Toyota Nationals in Las Vegas, where, for the first time all year, Reed failed to qualify for Pro Stock Motorcycle.

After sitting out a couple races to regroup, Reed, who had made the cut at 16 races in a row dating back to Sonoma in June 2016, was off his usual pace at the high-altitude Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, missing the 6-second zone and even the 7.0s. He opened with a 7.173 at 184.04 mph in the first qualifying session Friday afternoon, and picked up slightly to a 7.130/184.80 that evening that wound up being his best run all weekend.

“Changing cams was just too aggressive for what we were trying to do,” said Reed, the 2016 NHRA Rookie of the Year. “It just wore out the intake valve springs on the first two runs.” Saturday dawned clear and slightly cooler but the improved conditions weren’t enough to help the weakened engine in Reed’s Team Liberty machine, which fell off to disappointing times of 7.172/182.35 and 7.233/181.59

“This definitely isn’t the way we wanted to end the year, but in that situation, there wasn’t much we could do,” Reed said. “We’ll skip the Finals at Pomona – there’s really no reason to go out there – and be back better than ever next year. We knew it was going to be tough to start a brand-new team from the ground up, and it has been, but we’ve got some big things coming this off-season.”

PSM – INDY 2017

September 5, 2017 / Todd Veney

Forced to sit out qualifying sessions at the biggest race of the year for fear of destroying the only engine he had left, second-year pro Cory Reed hung on to make the U.S. Nationals Pro Stock Motorcycle field and just missed going rounds for the second race in a row.

After a tire-rattling 7.01 under the lights Friday night, Reed laid down a 6.94 early Saturday afternoon, then sat out the next three sessions at the only race on the NHRA tour with five qualifying sessions. “It was weird not running, but we saved parts and it got us to race day,” he said. “If we’d run every session we probably could have gone a .90-flat, but it wasn’t worth trying to blow it up.”

When everybody else got three more shots at the track, Reed eventually slid down to the No. 14 position, setting up a first-round match with No. 3 qualifier Hector Arana Jr., who had reached the Indy final last year. Reed, who broke through for his first round-win of the season two weeks earlier in Brainerd, got a huge jump on Arana with a clutch .018 reaction time, held it until well past half-track, but eventually was overtaken on the big end for a 6.89/194 to 6.97/190 loss.

“I knew I was ahead of him,” said Reed, who maintained the lead to the 1,000-foot mark. “It wasn’t like when I raced Scotty Pollacheck at Brainerd, where I was so far ahead I actually had to turn around to see where he was. I heard him – it’s not hard when there’s a V-twin in the other lane – and I knew he was coming.”

Well aware that Team Liberty might be forced to sit out more qualifying sessions as the season winds down, Reed and crew made the difficult decision to skip the next four races – Charlotte, Maple Grove, St. Louis, and Dallas – and come back with a vengeance at Las Vegas and Pomona. “We’re not in the Countdown and we don’t need to blow up any more motors,” he said. “It’s better to spend more time in the shop, show up at the last two races, maybe shake up the points standings a little, and remind everyone what we can really do when we have all our power.”

PSM – BRAINERD 2017

August 20, 2017 / Todd Veney

With their backs to the wall after blowing up an engine on the first qualifying run and skipping the second one, Cory Reed and Team Liberty rebounded Saturday morning with a 6.97 to move into the Lucas Oil Nationals Pro Stock Motorcycle field for good.

At Brainerd International Raceway, where the quickest runs in Top Fuel and Funny Car history were recorded Friday night, Reed wheeled his Team Liberty machine to a decent 6.97 at 187 mph Saturday morning and a consistent 6.98 at 186 that afternoon to solidify his position in the final lineup.

Pitted against Top 10 rider and No. 4 qualifier Scotty Pollacheck in the first round, Reed left Pollacheck at the line and sped away for his first round-win of the season and the first ever for Team Liberty, 6.94 to 6.96. “I looked over somewhere in high gear and nobody was there,” he said. “I had to look behind me to find him. That was the best feeling ever: we’re going to win. Actually, I felt that way even before I ran him, when I woke up Sunday morning. That’s the first time I can say I honestly felt that way all year.”

Reed fell in the next round to year-long nemesis and eventual runner-up L.E. Tonglet, the runaway points leader, who has won as many races this year as all other riders combined – but not before getting another holeshot head start. Reed opened up a huge early advantage, but Tonglet drove around him with, naturally, his strongest run of the weekend, a 6.85. Reed trailed with a 6.96, but at that point, it almost didn’t matter.

“I felt like I won the whole race when we won the first round,” Reed said. “I didn’t even need to make another run after that. It’s tough, starting a new team like this. We knew it was going to be, and it has been. But after a weekend like this, I can finally see what’s ahead of us down the road.”

PSM – SONOMA 2017

July 31, 2017 / Todd Veney

At the Sonoma Nationals just north of San Francisco in Sonoma, Calif., second-year sensation Cory Reed came within a thousandth of a second of his best run all year. Reed, crowned Rookie of the Year after his incredible 2016 campaign, picked up more than a tenth of a second from his opening qualifying run to record a 6.889 – just one-thousandth of a second from the season-best he established at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla.

Reed ran an out-of-the-box 6.99, picked up dramatically in the second session to a 6.92, and, after a 7-flat in the third session, inched to the line in the final session riding the bubble with the 6.92. Under intense pressure, the Team Liberty rider dropped the hammer for a 6.88 at 191.46 that surprisingly landed him on just the 14th rung on the qualifying ladder.

That set up a first-round match with the No. 3 qualifier, perennial championship contender Hector Arana Jr. For once, Reed actually didn’t tree his opponent, and against one of the fastest bikes in the country, he was out of contention early in the race. Reed recorded a respectable 6.97 at 186 mph, but Arana’s Lucas Oil-backed bike was long gone with a 6.74 at the sixth-fastest speed in Pro Stock Motorcycle history, 199.52 mph.

“This wasn’t a good weekend for us,” Reed admitted. “We’re a new team, and this is going to happen sometimes, but when we get our dyno done and get to try all the stuff [crew chief] Ken [Johnson] has in mind, we’ll be fine.”

PSM – DENVER 2017

July 24, 2017 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed and his Team Liberty crew paid the dues at the Mile-High Nationals in Denver that all new drag race teams must before it all pays off in the end. At mile-high Bandimere Speedway, as at every track on tour this year, Reed and teammate Angelle Sampey continued their quest to meet the lofty goal they established before the season got underway in Gainesville: qualify both bikes at every race all year.

“It’s a lot to ask – especially for a brand-new team – but we’re capable of doing it and so far we doing it,” Reed said. What’s proved much more elusive is racking up round-wins, but, in easily the most competitive class in professional drag racing today, that’s to be expected.

Reed opened rain-shortened qualifying with a solid 7.27 at 181 mph that afforded him the early qualifying lead. As he has so often this year, Reed backed up his early success with rock-solid runs in the ensuing sessions, recording similar times of 7.31/179 and 7.30/181

Qualified a solid 10th in the field – the second-highest he’s qualified all year, behind only Norwalk, where he was ninth – Reed had a first-round matchup against the toughest possible opponent: reigning world champ Jerry Savoie. Reed charged off the line with a holeshot head start, as usual, but Savoie’s White Alligator Racing Suzuki surged into the lead before half-track and pulled away for the win, 7.23/183 to Reed’s competitive 7.30/181.

Despite fighting to keep the bike in the groove for much of the race, Reed fell short by just 56-thousandths of a second. “It was close, but not close enough,” he said. “It make take a while, but we’re going to get there – trust me.”

PSM – CHICAGO 2017

July 10, 2017 / Todd Veney

2016 NHRA Rookie of the Year Cory Reed paced the field early in qualifying for the Route 66 Nationals in Chicago before ultimately bowing out in the first round of eliminations. Reed, teammate of three-time Pro Stock Motorcycle world champ Angelle Sampey, wheeled his Team Liberty Victory machine to a speedy 6.96 at just short of 190 mph off the trailer to assume the top spot.

Reed and crew chiefs Ken Johnson and Chris Rivas maintained their consistency in the second session with a similar 6.97 at just 185 mph. Under different atmospheric conditions Saturday afternoon in the third of four qualifying sessions, Reed managed an incredibly consistent 6.97 at his best speed of the weekend, 190.62 mph, and followed with a steady 7-flat at 189 that evening.

Eliminations ended early when Reed, one of the quickest-reacting drivers in drag racing, was too quick for his own good. By less than one-hundredth of a second he fouled in the opening round of eliminations against recent nemesis L.E. Tonglet, who absolutely dominated the first half of the season, winning more races than all other riders combined.

“It didn’t even matter – no way I could have beaten him that time no matter what my reaction time,” said Reed of his -.009 red-light start. Tonglet, who also won the Chicago event in 2010, when he won the NHRA championship, and again in 2011, marched to a 6.830 at 196.36, crossing the finish line ahead of Reed even despite Reed’s ill-gotten early lead. “We’ll keep working at it and working at it and one of these days I won’t need to try to cut it so close on the Tree.”

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.”

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.”

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.”