Tag: Dallas (Page 2 of 3)

TAFC – DALLAS 2019

October 21, 2019 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley, half of the quickest side-by-side race (5.37-5.38) in Top Alcohol Funny Car history here in 2017 and victimized by the only crash of her career here last year, experienced no such drama in 2019. She ended up No. 2 on the final grid and established top speed of the meet (271.19 mph) in qualifying but, foiled by a lousy first-round draw, didn’t last long in eliminations.

After blowing the tires off immediately in first-shot qualifying Friday afternoon, Whiteley rebounded with an outstanding 5.45/271 that evening that earned the YNot Racing/J&A Service team the provisional pole. The near-perfect run (.945 in 60 feet, 2.47 to the 330-foot mark, and 3.64 at 213.81 mph at half-track) eventually was good for the No. 2 spot, which is exactly where you want to land on an 11-car ladder – usually.

Not this time. “In an 11-car field, No. 1 gets a bye run in the first round but No. 2 gets one in the semifinals, which is when you really want it because by then you’re probably running a much faster car,” Whiteley explained. Only this time, the 11th and last driver in the lineup was one of the last people she’d want to face: Brian Hough, who led the national standings for much of 2019. Overnight rains pushed back the entire schedule and cancelled last-shot qualifying Saturday morning, denying Hough and crew chief Jonnie Lindberg one last chance to atone for their aborted runs in the first two sessions.

Instead, Lindberg and Hough got their act together in the first round of eliminations – right when Whiteley was in the other lane. He got off the line first and managed a 5.56 to hold off Whiteley’s quicker 5.51 by the almost invisible margin of 16-thousandths of a second. “I was mad at myself when they told me it was a holeshot,” she said. “He kinda left me sitting there for a while, but I still should have cut a better light – it didn’t actually feel that bad. We’re going to work on the clutch pedal before Vegas – hopefully that’ll help.”

TAFC – DALLAS 2019

April 10, 2019 / Todd Veney

After sitting around staring at each other for days, Annie Whiteley and the J&A Service/YNot team sprang into action when the call to the lanes for the first qualifying session, finally, mercifully, went out and ended up winning the race with a dominant performance. Half of the quickest side-by-side race in Top Alcohol Funny Car history at this track a year and a half ago – 5.37-5.38 opposite Doug Gordon in the 2017 Fallnationals final – Whiteley qualified No. 1 with a 5.52 at 269.40 mph, top speed of the meet by more than 5 mph to that point.

“We all knew going in that the weather was going to be a problem this weekend,” said Whiteley, who had to jet back to Colorado in the interim to help keep J&A Service running smoothly. “They kept moving the schedule around because the weather kept changing. Originally, we were going to qualify on Friday and race on Saturday, but, naturally, everything changed, so our first qualifying run was Thursday night at 7:00, which meant that we had to be there on Wednesday to test. Then we sat and sat and sat and it would rain just enough to keep us from running. [Top Alcohol Dragster team owner] Randy [Meyer] was kind of running everything, and he’d stop at every pit when the weather let up run and ask, ‘You guys ready?’ and we’d wait till everybody was ready to run and then go up to the lanes. We all just wanted to get this done.”

When former Division 2 champion Mark Billington was unable to show for the first round of eliminations three days later for the rare Monday race day start, Whiteley singled to a 5.54/268 that almost certainly would have advanced whether the veteran Billington or anybody else had been lined up in the next lane. Qualifying No. 1 in a six-car field meant that when three cars were still around for the semifinals, she’d the one with the bye into the final. Again, she pounded out a run that nobody could’ve handled anyway, a 5.49/268 (low e.t. of the meet) that afforded the team lane choice for the final against one of the more prolific drivers in alcohol racing history – Jay Payne, who’s racked up nearly 100 national and divisional/regional wins in a career that dates back to the 1960s.

For the event title, Whiteley left on Payne and screamed down the track with the second-quickest and second-fastest run of the entire weekend, behind only her semifinal numbers. Payne, after reeling off back-to-back-to-back times of 5.54, 5.54, and 5.55, pushed too hard and smoked the hoops to a nine-second time and settled for runner-up. With a 5.497 at 269.13 mph that trailed only her own 5.495 from the semifinals and 269.40-mph qualifying charge for low E.T. and top speed of the meet, Whiteley picked up her first win of the season and the 14th divisional/regional victory of her eight-year career.

PSM – DALLAS 2018

October 8, 2018 / Todd Veney

YNot Racing’s newest driver, Joey Gladstone, qualified solidly in the middle of the pack at the NHRA Fallnationals in Dallas but bowed out early with a tough first-round loss at the hands of 2016 NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Jerry Savoie. Negotiating the notoriously narrow groove at the all-concrete Texas Motorplex in the first pair of the first round, Gladstone slipped to a 7.02 at 191.13 mph – 2 mph and about a tenth of a second slower than he ran in qualifying, where he was just a tick behind Savoie.

“There’s not one thing we could point a finger at on that run,” Gladstone said. “I short-shifted 2nd gear a little – that probably knocked a couple hundredths off of it – but it just fell off from qualifying. I think the motor was hurt little when we got up there. The air/fuel ratio was good, the EGTs [exhaust-gas temperatures] were good; it just wasn’t pulling as hard as it had been earlier in the weekend.”

The numbers bear that out: after opening with a strong 6.94 at 193 mph Friday afternoon, the Buell-powered YNot machine’s performance steadily but gradually diminished, from a 7.04/192 Friday evening to a 7.05/191 Saturday afternoon to a 7.03/192 in the fourth and final qualifying session. “Something internally is wrong with the engine – we don’t know what it is,” said Gladstone, who eventually finished in the No. 10 qualifying slot with a 6.94, just a hundredth of a second behind Savoie’s seventh-best 6.93. “Whatever it is, it’ll be right by the time we get to Charlotte.”

PRO MOD – DALLAS 2018

October 8, 2018 / Todd Veney

In his first official appearance at the Texas Motorplex, which immediately rocketed to the top of his all-time personal least-favorite-tracks list, Steven Whiteley, who qualified No. 1 in Bristol and No. 2 with a brand-new car in Topeka, landed in the No. 4 spot with an excellent 5.80-flat at more than 251 mph. Not bad – especially for a field that, like all J&A Service Pro Mod Series fields, attracted nearly 30 cars.

Didn’t matter. “I still hate it this place,” said Whiteley, who’s never voiced his opinion about any other track on the NHRA tour. “I hate dragging our stuff through the pits here.” Texas has always been kind to the father-and-son YNot Racing team of Jim and Steven Whiteley, but most of that good fortune has taken place to the southeast of Dallas at Houston Raceway Park, where Jim has gone the distance two of the past three years. Here Jim DNQed, missing the 5.852 bump by a mere 18-thousandths of a second with a 5.870, but Steven, despite his distaste for the entire facility, managed to go rounds.

The second-generation driver left unheralded Jader Krolow sitting on the starting line Sunday morning in the first round, winning a 5.79-5.89 race that wasn’t nearly as close as the E.T.s would indicate. Whiteley got off the line ahead of his inexperienced and obviously distracted opponent by the unimaginable margin of three-tenths of a second, and was reaching for second gear about the time Krolow left.

The wheels came off in the second round when Whiteley was eliminated by teammate Jeremy Ray. He again took a huge holeshot lead of more than a tenth of a second but had to lift when tire shake set in and was driven around by the eventual winner’s consistent 5.79. “It wasn’t a bad weekend,” Whiteley said. “But I don’t ever want to run here again. We won’t be back next year.”

TAFC – DALLAS 2018

October 8, 2018 / Todd Veney

Throwing the chutes at nearly 270 mph like she has a million times before, national record holder Annie Whiteley had no idea she was seconds away from a terrifying trip off the end of the track. Whiteley, who narrowly lost the Fallnationals Top Alcohol Funny Car final to Doug Gordon last year, barely lost to him again in 2018, this time in the second round, but another narrow loss was the least of her problems.

The YNot/J&A Service Camaro’s parachutes never blossoming and instead becoming entangled and flailing behind the car as Whiteley careened through the shutdown area and the sand trap grew closer and closer by the second – that was the problem. “I’ve never been through anything like that before,” she said. “The end of that track really comes up at you fast. It’s hard to make yourself let go of the brake handle, but that’s what you have to do or the brakes will lock up and the car will just start bouncing.”

The onboard data recorder revealed just how fast Whiteley was still going when she first went for the brakes: 250 mph. “I didn’t know if I won or lost; I just knew I didn’t want to get into the sand and tear up the car,” said Whiteley, who crossed the finish line at 269 mph just 34-thousandths of a second behind Gordon. “At some point I knew I was going into the sand, and I just wanted to get stopped before I hit the net, but I was still going so fast when I hit the sand there was no way I was going to miss it.”

“When I saw her come out of the [roof] hatch, I knew she was OK,” a relieved Jim Whiteley said. “The body is junk and the chassis is going to have to be front-halved, but most of the running gear can be swapped straight into the new car and we should be ready by the first Vegas race [Oct. 26-28].” Annie, currently third in the NHRA national standings and clearly in line for yet another Top 5 finish, will wrap up the season at the Toyota Nationals in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas regional a week later, and the NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif., the week after that.

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.

TAFC – DALLAS 2017

October 16, 2017 / Todd Veney

All Annie Whiteley did at the Fall Nationals was make the fastest run of all time – 275.00 mph – in the final round in what was also the quickest side-by-side race in Top Alcohol Funny Car history, 5.37 to 5.38. “That’s the ups and downs of drag racing, right there,” said Whiteley, whose 5.38 came up just a few feet short of winner Doug Gordon’s 5.37. His run was the second-quickest of all time, hers the fifth-quickest.

Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing team, which dominated the Gatornationals and the Belle Rose, La., regional event earlier this year, has never run better than it did at Dallas. Each run down the all-concrete Texas Motorplex quarter-mile was faster than the last – 269.24 mph in the first round, then 274.27, 274.33, and the shot-heard-’round-the-world 275-flat in the final. “Two-hundred-seventy-five point zero zero – a nice, round number isn’t it?” she said. “Too bad the 5.38 wasn’t just a little quicker.”

From the No. 6 qualifying spot, Whiteley improved from a 5.53 qualifying best to a 5.49 in the first round to send home Kris Hool, the first of four straight former national event champions she had to deal with in eliminations. In the quarterfinals, the YNot team unloaded a then-career-best 5.39 at 274.27 mph to take out Sweden’s Ulf Leanders and set up a semifinal showdown with former Las Vegas winner Nick Januik. A consistent 5.40 at 274.33 in that round was enough to catapult Whiteley to the historic final-round showdown with Gordon that she barely lost.

“You hate to lose a deal like that, but when you’re the first to 275 mph, set the national record, and are in the quickest side-by-side race of all time, you really can’t complain,” Whiteley said. “This weekend was way more good than bad.”

PSM – DALLAS 2016

October 18, 2016 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed’s dream season got a brief jolt when the rookie sensation, a semifinalist (at least) at three of the past four races, came out on the wrong end of a tight first-round match with former world champ Matt Smith at the NHRA Fall Nationals in Dallas.

Reed negotiated the infamous narrow groove at the Texas Motorplex for one of his better runs all year, a 6.872, to make the top half of the Pro Stock Motorcycle program for the fourth time in six races. He ran another 6.87 off the trailer and 6.89 later in qualifying but slipped to a 6.92 opposite Smith’s 6.89 for a close loss.

Reed, who’s been living in the teens all year, had another teen reaction time (.013) but actually was edged off the line by the usually more cautious Smith’s perfect .000 – one-thousandth of a second from a red-light disqualification. “I couldn’t really see him because I have blinders on my helmet but I could definitely hear him, so I knew it was going to be close at the finish line,” said Reed, whose Star Racing/YNot Buell crossed .046-second behind Smith’s Victory Gunner. “That’s not we were looking for, obviously, but it’s OK. Overall, the team did good.”

Reed’s Star Racing/YNot teammate, Angelle Sampey, who will be part of his all-new YNot team for 2017, reached the semifinals and now stands third in the Top 10 standings with two races left to go in the six-race Countdown to the Championship.

TAFC – DALLAS 2016

October 17, 2016 / Todd Veney

Coming off a No. 1 at their last stop, Annie Whiteley and the J&A Service/YNot team qualified just seventh at the NHRA Fall Nationals despite a 5.50 and bowed out with a disappointing first-round loss.

Typically dynamite conditions at the Texas Motorplex meant the entire field was fast, and the bump ended up being the second-quickest in Top Alcohol Funny Car history (5.635), anchored by Bryan Brown, the same driver who was No. 16 at the only faster race, Dallas last year (5.621). Though teams got just two qualifying sessions instead of the usual three, four of them made it into the 5.40s and another three ran 5.50-flats, including Whiteley, who was right behind second-ranked John Lombardo’s 5.506 and third-ranked Doug Gordon’s 5.508 with a 5.509.

For Whiteley, ranked fifth in the national standings before and after this race, a sometimes frustrating season of near-misses and could’ve-beens continued in the first round when she met recent nemesis Steve Gasparrelli. He qualified 10th with a 5.57 but stepped up to a 5.55 to edge Whiteley’s 5.59.

“I short-shifted,” she said. “I have no idea why I did that – sometimes, it just happens. The car wasn’t shaking hard or anything, but in the back of your mind the only thing that’s going get to you down there faster is hitting the next gear and sometimes your thumb just pushes the button. Sometimes you get away with it and sometimes you don’t, and I knew what happened as soon as I did it.”

TAFC – DALLAS 2015

October 19, 2015 / Todd Veney

On the all-concrete quarter-mile at the Texas Motorplex, Annie Whiteley pounded out the quickest run of her four-year career to qualify high in the fastest field in Top Alcohol Funny Car history. A 5.45 at nearly 267 mph positioned her fifth in the Fall Nationals lineup, but an up-in-smoke 10.95 in the first round of eliminations knocked her out of the race. “I don’t know what it is, but Scott McVey is my kryptonite,” Whiteley said of the disappointing early exit. “That guy’s always had my number.”

Up till then, the incoming national points leader was headed for yet another late-round finish, maybe even an eighth final and fifth victory of 2015. Whiteley guided her YNot Racing/J&A Service Camaro to an off-the trailer 5.58/263 Friday that had her fourth on the provisional grid, then stepped way up to a 5.52/264 later that afternoon for No. 6. When conditions improved Saturday morning, she made an even bigger gain to a career-best 5.453/266.90, one of three 5.453s in that round.

When eliminations kicked off Saturday afternoon, Whiteley blasted off the line with one of the best 60-foot times any Alcohol Funny Car driver ever had, .920, but with the front end in the air and the car headed straight for the wall, she had no choice but to lift. “I left too high that time – that’s why the 60-foot time was so good – but there’s no way the car’s going to make it with that kind of wheel speed that early,” she said.

With three races left, including two at her best track on the tour, the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Whiteley remains first in the national standings, where she’s been since July 19. Swede Jonnie Lindberg, who closed the gap slightly with a semifinal appearance at this race, is now 10 points back.