Tag: gainesville (Page 3 of 3)

TAFC – GAINESVILLE REGIONAL 2017

March 13, 2017 / Todd Veney

In her first outing of the 2017 season (but not her car’s first), perennial championship contender Annie Whiteley was unceremoniously upset in the first round of Top Alcohol Funny Car eliminations by veteran Kris Hool after qualifying way up in the No. 2 spot.

At the Eastern Regional in Gainesville, Fla., one week before she would win the prestigious Gatornationals at the same facility, Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro inexplicably blew the tires off in low gear, costing her the race. “We have no idea why,” she said. “It was running perfect in qualifying, then in the first round, ‘poof‘ – up in smoke.”

Until that point, Whiteley was perfectly positioned for another win. Qualified No. 2, behind only Sweden’s Ulf Leanders, she ran an outstanding 5.502, missing the .40s by a mere three-thousandths of a second. Weeks earlier in mineshaft conditions at the Western Regional event in Phoenix, substitute driver Greg Hunter reestablished his career best seemingly every time down the track in the YNot Camaro with one solid run after another, including his first 5.40s.

“We got back to the pits after first round, and Mike and the guys were all scratching their heads,” Whiteley said of crew chief Mike Strasburg, a former national event champion in Top Alcohol Dragster. “There was no way they were trying to do anything except what they’d already been doing. That’s OK, though – that’s why they have the next race, right?”

PRO MOD – GAINESVILLE 2016

March 22, 2016 / Todd Veney

Coming off a career-best stretch to close the 2015 NHRA J&A Service Pro Mod season and fresh off a big win at the RPM (Real Pro Mod) event earlier this month in West Palm Beach, Fla., Steven Whiteley was riding an all-time high entering the NHRA Gatornationals.

Driving the supercharged YNot Racing Cadillac, Whiteley was as high as 8th in the field at world-famous Gainesville Raceway but had the misfortune in the first round to line up opposite his nemesis, eventual winner Rickie Smith, who laid down low e.t. of the meet at the time, a 5.78 – the seventh-quickest run in Pro Mod history. “With a low-5.90 two years ago, when I debuted here, you’d be in the top three,” said Whiteley, who lost despite an otherwise excellent 5.90. “Now, that puts you in the slow half of the field. It’s not enough when guys are running .80s and even .70s. Everybody just keeps getting faster and faster and that’s cool, that’s how it should be. We should be running that too, and in certain conditions, we do.”

Whiteley shook and shut off on his opening qualifying attempt and stormed to a 5.92 at 246 mph in the second session, and it’s a good thing he did: He was pushed off the starting line in the final session. “The bolts on the back side of the ring gear came lose,” he explained. “I didn’t know exactly what it was, but it would roll freely and then lock up, roll freely and then lock up, so I knew it had to be something in the rear end. If that had been eliminations, I would’ve parked it in the beams and hoped the other guy made a mistake, but on a qualifying run there was nothing to do but shut it off.”

Whiteley made his best run of the weekend when it counted most, in the first round, but his 5.90 wasn’t enough against Smith’s 5.78 – even though the J&A driver drilled him on the Tree with a .053 reaction time. “I don’t know where Rickie came up with that, but we didn’t go for it and he did,” Whiteley said. “We’re better than that. Right now, what we struggle with is high-humidity conditions. It just kills the power and makes it shake the tires. When it does get down, it’s dead slow. When we have ‘Disneyland’ conditions, we’re tough, and we’re going to see those conditions again soon.”

PSM – GAINESVILLE 2016

March 21, 2016 / Todd Veney

In the first race of his first full season in NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle, Cory Reed just missed the cut at the prestigious Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla. Qualified 14th with one session to go, he ran 6.90s in three of four qualifying sessions only to get bumped in the final session by the guy in the other lane, perennial championship contender Hector Arana Jr.

“It was still a solid weekend, a great learning experience,” Reed said. “I like racing way better than just testing. It actually makes it a little easier, especially on the line – they put their first bulb on, you put yours on, you stage, they stage. It’s good just to get into the whole rhythm of having someone in the other lane.”

Astride the YNot Racing/Star Racing Buell EBR, Reed, who made his official debut last November at Las Vegas, took the early qualifying lead Friday afternoon with a career-best 6.933 at 191 mph only to have his time wiped off the board in the Friday evening session, when he spun off the line and slipped from 10th to 15th in the qualifying order – just below the crucial Top 12 line. In an NHRA rule enacted in 2008, all but the top 12 times are dropped heading into Saturday qualifying and everybody from 13 down starts all over. The final bump was 6.938, so if not for the controversial rule, Reed would have made an NHRA national event field in just his second attempt.

“It was hard not to think about that, but I’m more focused on getting used to the acceleration off the line and watching the shift light,” Reed said. “That first shift comes up fast – just past the 60-foot clocks – and you really have to be patient and wait on it. I short-shifted 1-2 and 2-3 really bad or that first run absolutely would’ve been in the .80s.”

Reed made two more strong runs Saturday – a 6.95 that got him back into the show in the third session and a 6.97 in last shot qualifying – but ended up 18th on the final qualifying grid, right between former world champ Matt Smith and many time national event winner Shawn Gann.

“It was awesome being right in there with all the big guys, especially Jerry [Savoie, who was in contention for the 2015 NHRA championship right down to the final day of the season],” Reed said. “Just rolling up next to Jerry was pretty sweet. It made me feel good to be a part of this team. [Star Racing teammate] Angelle [Sampey] qualified fifth [with a career-best 6.84], which just gives you even more confidence. These fields are tight, tight, tight every time, but we’re gonna figure everything out and I’m going to get this shift light figured out. We’ve definitely got the power, that’s for sure.”

PRO MOD – GAINESVILLE 2015

March 17, 2015 / Todd Veney

Steven Whiteley barely missed the cut at the NHRA Gatornationals in the official unveiling of his spectacular new ’14 Cadillac CTS. With an aggregate best of 6.00 at 244.92 mph at the J&A Service Pro Mod season opener, he wound up just outside the field, tied with former Top Fuel driver Khalid Balooshi.

Whiteley overcame early tire-spin in the first qualifying session for a solid 6.03 at 244 mph that seeded him seventh in the field at the time. Mechanical problems in Friday’s second session prevented him from making it to the line, but father Jim Whiteley, the two-time Top Alcohol Dragster world champ, charged to a 6.02 at 242 for the 12th spot on the provisional grid.

With one session remaining, both Steven and Jim were in the field – Steven on the bubble with his off-the-trailer 6.03 and Jim in the No. 14 spot with his 6.02 – but both got pushed out in Saturday’s last-ditch session. Jim’s immaculate ’69 Chevelle ran a consistent 6.06 and Steven matched the 6.00 bump time on the scoreboard but missed the 6.005 necessary to make the program by the invisible margin of two-thousandths of a second with a 6.007.

“We had 6.0 cars at a 5.90 race,” Jim said. “We’re right on the edge of making it in there, but everywhere we go, these Pro Mod fields are just unbelievable. When you’ve got nearly 30 cars trying to qualify for 16 spots, everything has to be perfect to get in.”

The next stop for the J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod tour is the Spring Nationals April 24-26 at Royal Purple Raceway in Houston.

TAFC – GAINESVILLE 2014

March 19, 2014 / Todd Veney

After an enormous thrash that most teams wouldn’t even have attempted, Annie Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing Top Alcohol Funny Car team was right back at the top at the Amalie Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., Whiteley’s first national event appearance of the season. Just days before Whiteley and crew pulled into Gainesville, the entire left rear of her Mustang body was obliterated by a tire explosion at the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series regional event in Houston.

The YNot team, led by veteran crew chief Roger Bateman, got Whiteley’s old car from Topeka to the East Coast, where the body from her 2012 car was grafted onto her current chassis. Right out of the box, the car showed its potential when Whiteley stormed to a 5.59 in the first qualifying session, followed by a 5.54 in last-shot qualifying that positioned her No. 4 in the 16-car field. “I still can’t believe they got all that work done in such a short amount of time,” she said. “It was as good as new, right from the start.”

In the opening round of eliminations Saturday evening, Whiteley put away Canadian Paul Noakes, who won the 2013 Auto-Plus NHRA Nationals in Reading, Pa., in his most recent appearance. Whiteley stormed to a 5.54, the second-quickest run of the round, to cover Noakes’ 5.66. Everything came to a screeching halt in the quarterfinals Sunday afternoon against Australian Steve Harker when her engine was silenced by, of all things, a broke throttle linkage.

“We left, and I was heading out toward the wall a little,” Whiteley said. “I was about to shift, and it just quit. For a second, you’re not sure what’s going because all of a sudden everything just stops. It’s a bad way to lose but it’s not like I absolutely had him covered. He ran a 5.58, low e.t. of the round.”

The highlight of the weekend for the YNot team came in Pro Mod, where son Steven advanced to the quarterfinals in his NHRA national event debut. He qualified sixth of nearly 30 entries with a career-best 5.900, just missing the 5.80s, then took out veteran Mike Knowles in the opening round of eliminations before falling to eventual winner Mike Castellana in the quarterfinals despite an outstanding 5.91.