Tag: Jim (Page 3 of 7)

PRO MOD – INDY 2021

September 6, 2021 / Todd Veney

At the 67th annual NHRA U.S. Nationals, the seventh and by far the most prestigious event on the 11-race 2021 NHRA Pro Mod tour, versatile Jim Whiteley powered into the quarterfinals for the third race in a row. He made it into the field on just a single qualifying attempt – everybody did.

For the first time in the history of the sport’s biggest race, qualifying consisted of exactly one session – not just for Pro Mod, but also for Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, and Pro Stock Motorcycle. Whiteley made the most of the rain-shortened format and did it under particularly difficult circumstances: not a single car ahead of him had made it downtrack under power, and one of them, supercharged door-car veteran Rick Hord, crashed hard into both walls right in front of him.

Putting it out of his mind, Whiteley cruised to a smooth 5.90 at 243 mph that propelled him straight to the top of the provisional grid and eventually settled him into the sixth spot on the ladder. That pitted him against perennial contender Khalid alBalooshi, the third third-ranked driver of 2020, whom he absolutely drilled on a first-round holeshot in Denver and who qualified 11th here with a 6.25/236 mph.

Whiteley, focused this year on the burgeoning Mid-West Drag Racing Series, where he’s led the Pro Mod standings for much of the season, was making just his fourth NHRA start of 2021, having skipped Atlanta, Charlotte, and Brainerd. Again, he overwhelmed Balooshi in a lopsided wire-to-wire first-round win. Balooshi was more or less on time with a respectable .068 light, but Whiteley had a decided edge with a .038 and moved on with his best run all weekend, 5.89/240, trailing smoke across the finish line.

Docked 5 points for an oildown infraction even though what little oil spilled was confined to the return road, Whiteley faced teammate and reigning series champ Steve Jackson, who seems to race him every other weekend, in the quarterfinals. There, a promising outing ended with a whimper when Whiteley’s beautiful Yenko/SC Camaro sat motionless as the Tree came down.

Handcuffed by mechanical problems before he ever staged, Whiteley rolled into the beams in the unlikely event that experienced “Stevie Fast,” the defending U.S. Nationals champ, red-lighted or crossed the centerline. He didn’t, of course, advancing uncontested with a 5.81 at 246 mph. “I knew we were done before we rolled up there,” Whiteley said. “The whole solenoid popped off, and there was no way I was going to try to make a run like that. It sucked – especially after everybody had worked their asses off all weekend.”

PRO MOD – GREAT BEND 2021

August 22, 2021 / Todd Veney

Stopped short of the breakthrough first Mid-West Drag Racing Series victory that remains just outside his grasp, incoming MWDRS points leader Jim Whiteley still fared well at the Great Bend National, well enough to maintain his nearly yearlong points lead. He led all qualifiers, advanced to the semifinals, and left the Kansas plains in first place – right where he was when he pulled through the SRCA Drag Strip gates.

Whiteley, who made it to the final at Ferris and the semi’s at Tulsa, towered over all Pro Mod qualifiers with a 3.71 on the eighth-mile course, just ahead of No. 2 qualifier Jon Stouffer, who survived a violent crash into both walls in eliminations, and No. 3 Joey Oksas, who would go on to collect his first major event title. Whiteley pounded James Roberts in the first round of eliminations and 2019 series champ Aaron Wells in the quarterfinals before falling in the semi’s to series MWDRS founder Keith Haney.

In the opening round, Whiteley drilled Roberts on the Tree, .051 to .138, and charged to a winning 3.76 at more than 200 mph to easily advance. In the quarters, Wells provided much more resistance with a competitive 3.80 at 199 mph, but the J&A/YNot Racing driver had him all the way with a decidedly better reaction time and nearly duplicated his qualifying time with a 3.72/201.

Whiteley’s best shot at his first MWDRS crown evaporated in the semifinals when he came out on the wrong end of a holeshot decision opposite the nitrous-powered “Black Mamba” Camaro of Mr. “You Know Who I Am” himself, Haney, 3.72/202 to 3.71/201. “I went in early – earlier than I probably should have – and it messed me up,” Whiteley said. “I knew it was over when I left.”

PRO MOD – DENVER 2021

July 19, 2021 / Todd Veney

Any Pro Mod fan could’ve predicted exactly what was going to happen when the Tree flashed green for Jim Whiteley and Khalid AlBalooshi in the first round of the Mile-High Nationals: Whiteley would move first.

He did. By a lot. Whiteley, who’s been winning on holeshots all year, left on AlBalooshi, who’s been losing on holeshots since he started driving, by a full tenth (.030 to .137), stayed off the centerline without overcorrecting when things got a little hairy downtrack, and hung on for a huge holeshot win, 6.11 to 6.03. Both passed the 330-foot mark with 2.62-second times, and though AlBalooshi was going 3 mph faster by the time they hit half-track, 186 mph to 183, Whiteley was never headed in a satisfying if not particularly close (.033- second margin of victory) decision.

Back in the same lane 90 minutes later for the quarterfinals, Whiteley, who always performs well at his home track (including six straight Top Alcohol Dragster victories in the 2010s), fell to teammate “Stevie Fast” Jackson the same way he’d taken out AlBalooshi: on the starting line. With a .041 reaction time, the YNot driver was anything but late, but Jackson, winner of the past two NHRA Pro Mod championships, nipped him, 6.08/233 to 6.07/230, in a doubly important match – it was for a bye to the final. Whiteley, who ousted Jackson on a holeshot three weeks ago at Norwalk, came up short this time by 12-thousandths of a second – about two feet at the stripe.

Two-thirds of the way through qualifying, Whiteley’s immaculate YNot/J&A Service Camaro was still mired in the 6-teens. Just over the hill from the world-famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre, he charged down the Bandimere Speedway course Friday evening in the first qualifying session to a 6.14 at 229 mph and delivered a nearly identical 6.15 the next afternoon. It was Saturday evening in last-shot qualifying that the prospect of going rounds in eliminations Sunday got much more realistic when Whiteley took a quantum leap forward with a 6.06 for the No. 7 spot.

PRO MOD – NORWALK 2021

June 28, 2021 / Todd Veney

In the first round of the Summit Nationals, in one of the biggest rounds of his career, two-time NHRA Pro Mod winner Jim Whiteley outdrove the toughest possible opponent: his own crew chief, reigning NHRA world champion Stevie Jackson. Whiteley qualified just 12th and “Stevie Fast” was seven spots ahead in the No. 5 position, but Whiteley had this one all the way – just as Jackson feared he would.

“Stevie said before we went up there, ‘I tuned this thing to run as good as my car,’ ” Whiteley said. “He told [his crew chief] Billy [Stocklin], ‘This thing better run good, because my driver [Whiteley] is better than your driver [himself]. I hollered at Stevie’s crew in the lanes, ‘Look that thing over really good because this is the last time you’re gonna be up here this weekend.’ “

It was. Jackson and Whiteley staged almost simultaneously, Jackson was on time with a .043 reaction time, but Whiteley, one of the few Pro Mod drivers who doesn’t have a losing record against “Stevie Fast,” left him sitting there with a .029. “We left, and I didn’t see him,” said Whiteley, who won Pro Mod at Houston in 2016 and 2018. “Second gear, third gear … I still didn’t see him, and I started to think, ‘We might just have a shot at this deal…’ ” He got him on a holeshot, 5.85-5.84, and as they flashed across the finish line at nearly 250 mph, the cars were separated by a mere two-thousandths of a second.

In the quarterfinals, mechanical difficulties dragged Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing ’69 Camaro quarter-mile car through the beams opposite veteran Doug Winters, bringing to an end a solid showing highlighted by full pulls in all three qualifying sessions (5.93-5.87-5.87) and perhaps his biggest round-win since the Houston final in April 2018.

“We aren’t running all the NHRA races this year,” said Whiteley, who was making just his second appearance on the NHRA tour this season. “We’re not in the hunt – we’re just here to play. But from now on, this car is going to be as quick as Stevie’s and Brandon [Snider]’s cars. It better be.”

TAFC – DALLAS 2021

May 16, 2021 / Todd Veney

Jim Whiteley’s never feared any driver, but of all the ones he could’ve faced in his first official round in Top Alcohol Funny Car, he drew the only one he didn’t want to race: his wife. Jim, who’s won multiple national events in a Pro Mod and multiple national championships in a Top Alcohol Dragster, prevailed. Reluctantly.

“I don’t want to beat her,” he said of wife Annie Whiteley before they lined up for the first round of the Central Regional at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas. “I don’t even want us to race each other.”

“I do,” Annie said. “I want to beat him.” She almost did. Driving the J&A Service/YNot Racing Yenko blue Camaro, she had the upper hand going in, qualifying third in a very tough eight-car field with a 5.53 at 269.36 mph (top speed of the event). Jim, who’d barely made a full quarter-mile in a Funny Car before this race, wasn’t far behind with a 5.60/258.68, good for the No. 6 spot on the ladder. He actually tied Bryan Brown right down to the thousandth of a second for the No. 5 spot, 5.607 to 5.607, but Brown won the tiebreaker with a slightly better speed, 259 mph to his 258.

Annie got off the starting line first but ran into tire-shake in low gear and Jim, driving an identical mount (one of her old cars), shot into a lead he would never relinquish. Annie continued to reel him in the length of the quarter-mile, but the lost momentum was too great to overcome and he advanced, 5.59/257 to 5.65/262.

“I kept waiting for her to come around me,” said Jim, who fell in the following round to Kyle Smith, who’d won the Funny Car Chaos event here over fuel Funny Car star Del Worsham. “I peeked over there, and she never came by. I didn’t really want to win, but I wasn’t going to just give it to her. Annie would never want that anyway.”

PRO MOD – TULSA 2021

May 9, 2021 / Todd Veney

Last time, it was six. This time, it was just two – the total thousandths a second from the time Jim Whiteley blasted off the starting line until the green light came on to signal the start of the race.

Red-lighting at the Xtreme Texas Nationals in Ferris, Texas was probably worse – that one was a final. This weekend, at the Throw Down at T-Town in Tulsa, the foul that disqualified Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing team came in the semifinals – not that that made losing any less painless.

“It was dark, I was amped up, I left, and it came up red,” Whiteley explained. “It’s not like I just took off – I saw yellow.” Based on his reaction times in the first two rounds, there’s no doubt.

In contention for the Mid-West Drag Racing Series Pro Mod championship since the start of the season, Whiteley qualified 3rd of 25 entrants at Tulsa Raceway Park with a 3.71 at 203.65 mph on the eighth-mile course, right behind No. 1 Joey Oksas and former series champion Aaron Wells. With door-car superstar “Stevie Fast” Jackson on hand to tune, he then proceeded to battle his way through first- and second-round wins over Brian Lewis, 3.78/197 to 3.93/192, and Tommy Cunningham, who red-lighted, 3.76/199 to 3.79/194.

“Driving this car is the most fun you could ever have,” Whiteley said. “It leaves like a Top Fuel car – it carries the front end, you’re looking at the sky, and it doesn’t come down for a long, long time. You hit 2nd gear, hit 3rd, and before you know it, the front end is setting down and there went the finish line.”

It all came apart in the semifinals against Jon Stouffer, when Whiteley barely, barely came up red, invalidating a potentially winning run. Both drivers ran 3.74s, and with a reaction time anywhere on the green side of the Tree, he’d have been in another final. “All this car needs is a delay box,” Whiteley concluded. “I mean, it’s not like they’re illegal – other guys have been running them for years. And the next time I run this car at night, trust me, it’ll have one.”

PRO MOD – FERRIS 2021

March 21, 2021 / Todd Veney

By just six-thousandths of a second, Jim Whiteley was denied his third major Pro Mod victory and first in Mid-West Drag Racing Series competition. The long-established leaver was a little too quick for his own good in the final round of the Xtreme Texas Nationals, barely red-lighting and handing the title to young Tommy Cunningham, who scored with a career-best 3.66/200.

Fully aware of just how easy it would be to red-light in the upcoming after-dark final, Whiteley still did just that, bringing an abrupt, unceremonious end to what had been his best weekend since his last Houston win. With a slight adjustment to the trans-brake throw, instead of being six-thousandths of a second too quick, his -.006 red-light would’ve been a heroic .006 or a .016 holeshot leave and a 3.67/205 win – not a runner-up, an indignity he’s suffered in comparatively few of his career finals.

Back in the familiar confines of his ’63 Corvette (the ’69 Camaro he ran at Gainesville will sit idle until the next quarter-mile NHRA event), Whiteley qualified No. 2, ahead of 19 other Pro Mod entrants and behind only Todd Martin. He then plowed through one formidable foe after another on race day, staring with former Pro Stock and Pro Stuck star Taylor Lastor, whom he dispatched with a better leave and a better run in a one-sided 3.67/204 to 3.74/202 decision.

Past MWDRS series champion Aaron Wells was the next to go, carrying the front end, drifting right, and sliding across the center line on what could have been a competitive run had he kept it on his own side. Oblivious to Wells’ difficulties in the left lane, Whiteley sped down the right with metronomic consistency, recording another 3.67 at 204 mph. Semifinal opponent Mike Labbate, who probably had the best shot at taking him out, red-lighted, advancing Whiteley, who got loose well downtrack and had to lift beyond the 330-foot mark, coasting to a winning 3.91 at just 148 mph – his only non-3.67 of eliminations.

Next up for Whiteley’s vaunted ‘Vette is the rescheduled MWDRS event at newly refurbished I-30 Dragway in Caddo Mills, Texas, and the Camaro’s next outing should be Apr. 30-May 2 at the final NHRA Southern Nationals in Atlanta.

PRO MOD – GAINESVILLE 2021

March 15, 2021 / Todd Veney

Down to his last shot to get in, two-time NHRA world champion Jim Whiteley deftly guided his new ’69 Camaro down Gainesville Raceway’s treacherous left lane and into the Gatornationals Pro Mod field under the lights Saturday night. Minutes later, others wouldn’t fare so well: Whiteley’s crew chief, 2019-20 NHRA world champ Stevie Jackson, failed to qualify by two-thousandths of a second, and Brandon Pesz had it much worse, veering across the track at 200+ mph and careening into Dustin Nesloney in a fiery crash that destroyed both cars.

Under pressure, Whiteley drove his J&A/YNot Racing team into eliminations at the first race of the 2021 NHRA season with a 5.826 at 246.17 mph. He barely made it, 16th in the 16-car qualified field and just ahead of “Stevie Fast’s” indistinguishable 5.828/246.84. But had Whiteley gone the distance from the bump, it wouldn’t have been unprecedented – for him. The former Top Alcohol Dragster champ won Pro Mod at Houston five years ago from the No. 18 spot, slipping into the field as an alternate for Sidnei Frigo, who survived a horrifying high-speed qualifying crash that ended upside-down in a muddy ditch.

At Gainesville, Whiteley motored to a competitive 5.88 at 243 mph on his first qualifying attempt and picked up to a quicker and faster but ultimately disappointing 5.87/243 Saturday morning that left him just outside the field. The sun was down and darkness had long set in when he came through with the 5.82, then looked on helplessly as others pushed it to the limit – and, in Pesz’s case, over the limit – trying in vain to bump him out.

Race day ended early Sunday morning when Whiteley, victimized by his own intensity, disqualified himself as he never had before. He staged first, and, when it was time to leave, reacted to a corner of the Tree that had nothing to do with him: opponent Justin Bond’s staged light. When it came on, Whiteley took off. Bond, who’d qualified No. 1 with a national record 5.638, cruised unopposed to a 5.72 win, and one pair later eventual winner Jose Gonzalez swiped his record with a new all-time best of 5.621.

PRO MOD – LAS VEGAS 2020

November 2, 2020 / Todd Veney

At the Dodge NHRA Finals, the end of the line for Pro Mod drivers every year but this year for all the pros, too, Jim Whiteley lined up against theoretically the toughest possible opponent and definitely the last one he wanted to see lose, YNot teammate Steve Jackson. But with absolutely everything on the line for defending NHRA Pro Mod champion “Stevie Fast,” locked in a down-to-the-wire battle with incoming points leader Brandon Snider for the 2020 championship, Jackson is exactly who Whiteley got first round.

To intensify what already would’ve been an epic showdown, Whiteley, the No. 8 qualifier (5.836) in a short but stout field, and Jackson, surprisingly just fifth in the order with a 5.788, had a couple friendly side bets going: $100 for the best reaction time head-to-head, and another $50 for supertuner “Philbilly” Shuler if Whiteley’s car got into the .70s. In the end, everybody won.

Whiteley and Jackson staged almost simultaneously, the Tree flashed, both were way more than on time, and “Stevie Fast,” who would have lost it all with anything slower than a 5.773, stayed alive with a 5.770. Staring down the most pressure imaginable, he came through with a clutch .011 reaction time, but Whiteley outdid him with a near-perfect .005 only to be edged out in the lights by four-thousandths of a second, 5.770 to 5.780. Anything less than a .015 reaction time, and “Stevie Fast” would have been done. “I wasn’t messing around up there,” he said.

“Neither was I,” joked Whiteley, who matched Jackson stride for stride and shift for shift the length of the quarter-mile: 2.53-2.53 to the 330-foot mark, 3.79 at 196 mph to 3.79 at 196 mph at the eighth-mile, and 4.86 to 4.86 to 1000 feet. At the top end, the superior aerodynamic characteristics of Jackson’s late-model Camaro trumped the early ’60s “aero package” of Whiteley’s split-window Corvette. With equal power under the hood, Whiteley could only look on helplessly as Jackson crept incrementally ahead in the final quarter of the course, 248.48 mph to 246.71.

From there, Jackson got the best of a winner-take-all second-round match with Snider and went on to the event win, his third this season, and a second consecutive NHRA championship. Whiteley locked up his first Top 10 finish as a Pro Mod driver and first since he retired from Top Alcohol Dragster with seven in a row, from 2007-13 – and not just Top 10s. All seven were Top 5s, including back-to-back championships in 2012-13. “Next year, that car’s gonna run better than ever,” Jackson said of Whiteley’s’ old-school hot rod. “You just wait.”

PRO MOD – ST. LOUIS/HOUSTON 2020

October 26, 2020 / Todd Veney

As the carnage piled up from crashed and blown-up Top Fuel dragsters, Funny Cars, and Pro Stockers at St. Louis, the Pro Mod contingent ultimately decided that it wasn’t safe to complete the NHRA Midwest Nationals – or, really, to even start. Rain-shortened qualifying was finalized Saturday solely on the basis of the Friday night session, and despite cars being called to the lanes for first round twice Sunday, eliminations never happened.

The lone session Friday went off in mineshaft conditions, but after a completely washed out Saturday slate, the air was downright crisp and the track so cold Sunday that most Pro Mod teams deemed it unsafe, especially after Pro Stock veteran Kenny Delco crashed in the first round of Pro Stock and retiring former champ Jeg Coughlin nearly did in the second round before deftly regaining control. Rather than tempt fate, Jim Whiteley’s YNot/J&A Service team came to the same conclusion the other Pro Mod teams ultimately did: punt.

“If it came right down to it, I would’ve run,” Whiteley said. “If it was, ‘Run now, or you’re out of the race,’ I would have run, but I didn’t want to. Nobody did. All we would’ve done is torn up a bunch more cars.” Based off just that one session, top cars were in the 5.60s and Whiteley was right in the middle of it all, ninth with a 5.78, set to race No. 8 qualifier Kris Thorne (5.77) first round Sunday morning.

Then people started running into things, and, after heading to the staging lanes intending to run first round a couple times only to be turned back or pull out of their own accord, the whole event was pushed back Houston, where the Pro Mods always used to run but weren’t scheduled to this year. Every run from St. Louis counted, teams that didn’t make the trip to Texas were wiped off the qualifying sheets as if they’d never been there, and everybody got two shots. Whiteley was in the .70s on all three qualifying runs and ended up in the No. 7 spot for the second race in a row, with a 5.735, almost identical to the 5.737 he ran to qualify seventh last week at Dallas.

Under cloudy skies in the first round, Whiteley, whose two career Pro Mod victories (in 2016 and 2018) both came at Houston, leapt off the line with a killer .018 light and had opponent Jeff Jones covered all the way in a lopsided 5.77/247 to 6.20/228 win. Another nice light and a steady 5.75/247 left him just short of the wheelstanding 5.72/249 by underrated Brandon Snider, who a week earlier had never won an NHRA race but found himself in the points lead, riding a six-round winning streak with one race, Las Vegas, to go.