Tag: LODRS

TAFC – WOODBURN 1

July 13, 2024 / Todd Veney

Facing oppressive, draining heat and a touchy track surface, Annie Whiteley and the J&A Service/YNot Racing team hit Woodburn Dragstrip, that race rare track with the best kind of owners: racers. The venerable family-owned facility hosted a huge contingent of Top Alcohol Dragsters and a small but fierce assortment of four Top Alcohol Funny Cars in a “double” – back-to-back Western Regionals over a single weekend.

After an up-and-down day of testing, Whiteley had to shut off on both qualifying attempts, eventually settling into the fourth spot with a disappointing aggregate best of 9.72 at just over 100 mph. “It was hot as hell and the track was really tricky,” she said. “Even the Top Dragsters were struggling to get down there. At one point, the track was 146 degrees and the temperature gauge on the car read 156.”

Whiteley’s “Shattered Glass” Camaro took the tire off on the first test pass, setting off a troubling trend that would persist all weekend. “The only thing we could think to do is change to our two-run tires,” she said. “The guys backed it down, worked their magic, and the car ran a 5.61, so, naturally, we thought, ‘We’re good – now we know what the car wants.’ But on the first qualifying run it was a weak shake – the clutch showed that we actually didn’t give it enough.”

Well aware that the conditions were only going to get hotter, crew chief Mike Strasburg tweaked the tune-up for Q2, but the car smoked the tires anyway and a setup for Whiteley’s first-round opponent, No. 1 qualifier Brian Hough, was anyone’s guess. “We figured, ‘OK, let’s just go halfway in between,’ ” Whiteley said. “Nope. Smoked the tires anyway. I pedaled it, and for a minute there, I didn’t see him and thought I had chance. Then he blew by me. I hit the bump, and he was gone.

“Driving back down the return road, I yelled, ‘Hey, it’s the tires – that’s the only thing we haven’t changed back.’ The same thing happened in Mission a few years ago. Something wasn’t right, so we put on a set with 56 runs on them and set the track record. So for Race 2, we changed the tires and kept the same tune-up and things worked out a lot better.”

TAFC – DALLAS

May 21, 2024 / Todd Veney

A semifinalist, at least, at every race this year, Annie Whiteley plowed forward at the Central Regional at Dallas with yet another final-four performance. At the original supertrack, the world-famous Texas Motorplex, she just missed low E.T. in qualifying and just missed her second final-round appearance of the season, which, had she gotten that far, would have, without question, resulted in a second straight win.

There was no final-round opponent, and, thus, no chance of a runner-up finish – Whiteley was either going to lose in the semifinals or win the event. Unfortunately for her, she lost in the semifinals to Kyle Smith, whose reaction time just missed costing him the race.

Three-thousandths of a second quicker than his near-perfect .002, and Smith would’ve red-lighted, handing Whiteley a final-round berth and, ultimately, a final-round win because Bryan Brown, who needed only to stage in the other semi to secure a berth in the title round, was sidelined by a broken crank. “It was doubly bad,” said Whiteley, who blew the tires off immediately and coasted silently across the finish line at 96 mph while Smith shot ahead with a beatable 5.57.

“We all knew Bryan wasn’t going to be there for the final,” Whiteley said. “He’d already come by and told us. People offered to help him put something together so he could run, but he just said, ‘We’re done,’ so the semifinal was basically the final.”

Whiteley had driven the “Shattered Glass” Camaro to the No. 2 spot in qualifying, behind only Bob McCosh (5.52 to 5.53), and had strapped a huge holeshot on returning veteran Mark Billington in the first round, .014 to .102, for a lopsided 5.55/264 win. He lost traction immediately and coasted through the traps with an E.T. and speed both in the 20s.

“This two-step really helps,” Whiteley said of her telepathic .014 light. “The funny part is, I don’t know why. I never wanted it. They put it on the car right after they were made legal, and I wanted no part of it. I postponed it and postponed it and postponed it. I just didn’t like it – to me, it takes away from the integrity of the class – but Jim said, ‘Just try it. I know you see the light and leave better than what your reaction times say. If it doesn’t work, we’ll take it off, so let’s see if it helps.’ It does, but if I can react like this now, why couldn’t I cut decent lights the old way?”

In the semifinal/final, Whiteley was right on time with a solid .064 light, but reaction times proved immaterial when she went up in smoke at the hit. “It spun the tires instantly [60-foot time: 1.16], which probably hurt my reaction time too, and when it blows the tires off that early, there’s nothing you can do. The car kicked sideways a little, and I saw Smith out the window and thought, ‘Damn, he’s really hauling ass, isn’t he? This is over.’ “

TAFC – LAS VEGAS REGIONAL 2023

November 6, 2023 / Todd Veney

It’s hard not to qualify for an eight-car show when only nine cars show up, and it’s really hard when you were No. 1 at the last two national events, including one just days earlier at the same track. But that’s the fate that befell Annie Whiteley’s luckless team at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of some of the truly great days of her 12-year Top Alcohol Funny Car career.

It wasn’t the tune-up – the car just ran mid-5.40s three times in a row here last week at the Nevada Nationals. And it was nothing mechanical, nothing that could be easily diagnosed through a routine parts inspection. It was the ignition, that invisible, delicate system whose complexities can be understood only through a piece-by-piece replacement of every component from the magneto to the coil to the spark plugs to every last connection.

“We never really did figure it out,” said Whiteley, who blew the tires off at the hit Friday afternoon in the first qualifying session. Three hours later in Q2, it was all systems go … until it wasn’t. Charging downtrack on an otherwise fine run until about half-track, the power suddenly cut out and she coasted to a harmless 5.87 at just 195 mph that kept her in the field (barely, in the No. 8 spot) until the next driver down the left lane three minutes behind her, Ray Martin, recorded a 5.73 and knocked her out of the field.

Martin blew the engine on that run and never returned, which gave Whiteley and crew chief Mike Strasburg one last chance. An aborted 6.31 at 164 mph left the “Shattered Glass”/YNot Racing/J&A Service entry on the outside looking in, but when Martin was unable to return for eliminations, Whiteley got a much-needed reprieve. It wasn’t a clear path to victory because she’d be paired with the No. 1 qualifier in the first round, but it at least it was one more chance to track down the mysterious electrical gremlin before Pomona.

It didn’t matter. Hamstrung by the same ignition problems that plagued the team all weekend, Whiteley was out of it early against Marshall, who, with a 5.47, would have been hard to get around anyway. “What the hell?” she said. “Sometimes, it just doesn’t go your way.”

TAFC – BOWLING GREEN 2017

August 28, 2017 / Todd Veney

In her first appearance ever at Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, Ky., host of the first all-sportsman national event in drag racing history in 1974, Annie Whiteley obliterated the Top Alcohol Funny Car track record with a speed almost 100 mph faster than alcohol cars were running in the ’70s: 272.72 mph.

Whiteley made one flawless run after another in testing, struggled in the first qualifying session, then, facing an unthinkable DNQ with just one attempt remaining, ran a blistering 5.51 that put her in the No. 1 spot at the time. She settled for No. 2 when another driver racing for the first time in Bowling Green, perennial title contender Doug Gordon, hit a 5.49.

The track was completely different by the time eliminations kicked off Sunday afternoon, and Gordon was upset by the slowest qualifier in the field, Phil Esz. Whiteley nearly was, too, but, facing Chris Foster, whom she had beaten a week earlier in Brainerd, Minn., in a wild, all-over-the-track first-round match, came out on top in another weird first-rounder she easily could have lost.

“I have no idea what happened to the track between Saturday and Sunday – neither do a lot of other people, based on what they ran – but it was nothing like the track we thought we had,” she said. She left on Foster and survived with a backpedaling 6.26 at 243 mph but wasn’t as lucky opposite eventual winner Ray Drew in the semifinals, pedaling to a 6.03/233 that was no match for his consistent 5.61/260.

“[Crew chief] Mike [Strasburg] and the guys aren’t sure why the car wouldn’t go down the track in eliminations, but we know it’s making a lot of power,” Whiteley said. “These cars are hard to figure out sometimes, but if we can run as hard next week as we did on that one qualifying run here, maybe we’ll win the big one next week at Indy.”