Tag: Pomona (Page 1 of 2)

TAFC – POMONA

November 18, 2024 / Todd Veney

The final race of Annie Whiteley’s season ended just like literally 90 percent of her other NHRA national event starts this season: in the second round. The six-time winner didn’t lose in the first round once all year, but for the ninth time in 10 2024 nationals, she was gone after round two.

Whiteley, who went to the final round at the other one, Maple Grove, ran an outstanding 5.43 in the quarterfinals here but fell to Ray Martin’s nearly identical 5.44. “I’m trying to practice going in [staging] second,” she said, “but I’m not there yet. I’m still a little behind. Now that half the cars out here have a two-step, everybody wants to get in there first. So do I. Everybody’s doing it, and some of them are double-bulbing me, and I have to be ready for it.”

The J&A Service/YNot Racing team never made a bad run all weekend. Whiteley clocked a 5.47 at 266 mph right off the trailer and a 5.49/267 in what turned out to be Top Alcohol Funny Car’s only other qualifying session. A 5.42/268, her best run of the whole season, easily eliminated Christine Foster’s backpedaling 6.04/190 in a first-round clash between the only female drivers in the field, but a similar 5.43/268 wasn’t quite enough in the quarterfinals when Martin, driving the Miner Brothers car fielded by third-generation racer Greg Miner, made the best run of his career, a 5.44. (It was no fluke, either – he ran another .44 in the semi’s.)

“I need to get better at going in second, that’s all there is to it,” said Whiteley, who was anything but late with a .065 reaction time – it just wasn’t in the .020s, as Martin’s was, and as Whiteley has been numerous times since crew chief Mike Strasburg made the move to the two-step early this season. “I don’t want to have to race the other guy to get in to the pre-staged light first every time. I want to be good either way – staging first or staging last – and I’m getting my composure and getting my steps down, but Ray’s out there bracket racing when he’s not running Alcohol Funny Car and he’s really gotten good at it.”

PRO STOCK – POMONA

November 18, 2024 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed could’ve decided the 2024 NHRA Pro Stock championship. He didn’t – nobody was keeping Greg Anderson from his sixth title, not even teammate Dallas Glenn – but Reed was right there, shift-for-shift in the second round of one of the truly memorable races of the legend’s long, prolific career.

What Reed did do was kill the Tree all weekend with one .020 light after another; he never had one not in the .020s. “I’m starting to realize that I don’t have to get jacked up or be in some certain state of mind to cut a light,” he said. “I just need to see the light, let go of the pedal, and – bam: .020 light.”

In qualifying, which was reduced from the usual four sessions to just two by persistent rain Friday afternoon, Reed had .022 and .023 reaction times. His K-B/Titan-powered Camaro performed well, too, propelling him to the middle of the field with an aggregate best of 6.534 at 210.01 mph for the No. 9 spot.

Reed faced the Elite team’s Jerry Don Tucker in the first round, and, as he has every time they’ve ever raced, beat him. He was out first with another .022 light and won what would have been an exceptionally close race, 6.558 to 6.563, by a comfortable margin, snapping a nasty streak of first-round losses and setting up a David vs. Goliath quarterfinal matchup with Anderson, who was chasing history.

“Since about St. Louis [Sept. 27-29], I’ve been figuring this deal out – where I have my foot on the [clutch] pedal, how hard I push it, the whole mental side of it,” Reed said. “Ever since then, I think I’ve found a groove.”

It carried into the quarterfinals, but Anderson was not to be denied. With a .026 light Reed was off like a shot, but Anderson erased the lead by 3rd gear and tied Low E.T. of the Meet to that point in a 6.492/211.63 to 6.564/209.56 decision.

“When we took off, we were close,” Reed said. “I couldn’t really tell who left first [he did, .026 to .030], but by about half-track, I could see his nose and knew he was going to outrun me. He deserves this. He had the best car all weekend, right from the start. No way was he going to slow down that time, and whatever he’s figured out with that car should trickle down to the rest of us next year.”

TAFC – POMONA

March 25, 2024 / Todd Veney

At the prestigious Winternationals at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Raceway, one of the few tracks at which she hasn’t already won, Annie Whiteley came through with one of her best reaction times ever to trounce one of biggest names in the business, feared leaver Shane Westerfield, in the first pair of the first round of eliminations.

With a near-perfect .007 light, Whiteley drilled Westerfield on the Tree and drove away with low E.T. of the meet to that point. Westerfield, driving for the RJM superteam owned by Kathy Jackson, wife of the late Rick Jackson, was on time with a respectable .059 reaction time, but Whiteley was out first and opened the lead from there with an outstanding 5.49 at 265.80 mph to cover Westerfield’s otherwise fine 5.54/264 by more than a car length.

“They handed me the ticket and I thought, ‘That .007 can’t be mine. It must be Shane’s,’ ” Whiteley said. “He’s the one who’s always cutting .00 lights, not me. But he said, ‘That’s not me, Annie. That’s all you.’ I couldn’t believe it.”

Whiteley’s “Shattered Glass” Camaro had come off the trailer with a decent 5.56 at 263.46 mph (just shy of top speed of the meet to that point) that left her No. 2 on the provisional grid behind only the surprising Hunter Jones, who would go on to enjoy the finest outing of his young Top Alcohol Funny Car career. After an aborted 7.52 on what turned out to be their only other attempt, Whiteley and the J&A Service/YNot Racing team entered eliminations fourth on the grid, set to face Westerfield, the 2017 national champion, who almost never qualifies in the slow half of the field.

In the lanes, readying for a crucial semifinal match with Jones, Whiteley and crew dove for cover when the skies opened, pummeling cars and drivers with golf-ball-sized hail, and an hour later the race was postponed. When it resumed three weeks later at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in conjunction with Four-Wide Nationals qualifying, Whiteley was upset, 5.59/262 to a shutoff 7.97/117, by the upstart Jones, who subsequently dropped a close final to Brian Hough.

PSM – POMONA 2023

November 13, 2023 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed and Joey Gladstone never made a run at the NHRA World Finals, where last year the team reached the final to lock up a second-place finish in the final Pro Stock Motorcycle standings. That was never the plan this time anyway – the team was at Pomona strictly to further rider Blaine Hale’s career, and they did.

“I don’t know why or what the deal is, but when I help somebody else reach a goal, the feeling of accomplishment is the same as if I’d done it myself,” Reed said. “Not riding would be harder if Joey or I really wanted to drive this weekend, but right now he has enough going on that doesn’t even care, and at this point neither do I. Blaine’s really coachable, and we just want to help him.”

With the 2023 championship long decided and Reed Motorsports’ focus squarely on 2024, the team concentrated on giving Hale, a former national event winner who made his team debut last month in Dallas, the best bike possible. Hale qualified 16th and drew the utterly unbeatable Gaige Herrera in an impossible first-round matchup in which the impossible nearly happened.

Herrera, who won the 2023 championship in a landslide with an incredible 50-4 win-loss record, qualifying No. 1 at 13 of 14 events and winning 11 of 12 finals, lurched off the line and was, for once, vulnerable. He stumbled to one of his worst runs of the season, a 10.89 at 77 mph that left him hundreds of feet behind Hale at the finish line, but Hale invalidated a sure win with a -.256 red-light.

“It’s too bad,” Reed said. “With his leathers on, Blaine’s probably 200 pounds, but it’s not like he’s lost out there. He’s not out of control or anything. Every time he gets off the bike, he’s like, ‘this happened here,’ or “the bike did this here.’ He knows what’s going on.”

As for his team rider, Gladstone, Reed said, “We’re both looking forward to next year. Joey’s my best friend in the world. Even last year, he was like, ‘Are you sure you’re OK with me doing so good when you can’t even walk around yet?’ I told him, ‘When you’re riding the bike, I feel like it’s me on there.’ I get that much enjoyment out of it. We’ve got big plans for next year. Joey’s a winner. He’s not out here just to be out here, to be sixth or seventh or tenth in points. He’s here to win races and championships.”

TAFC – POMONA 2023

April 3, 2023 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley pounded out some of her best runs in years en route to a respectable quarterfinal finish at the NHRA Winternationals, which, this year, wasn’t actually run in the winter. At would more accurately have been termed the “Springnationals,” the six-time national event champion laid down a 5.45 in qualifying, improved to a 5.44, and knocked off Nick Januik before falling in the quarterfinals to eventual runner-up Shane Westerfield.

Whiteley, whose lone final-round appearance at Pomona came at the 2017 World Finals, where she was runner-up to John Lombardo, began eliminations from the lofty No. 2 qualifying position, behind only world champ Doug Gordon, who ran a mere two-thousandths of a second quicker than her 5.441 with a 5.439.

Pitted against former national event winner Januik in the first pair of the first round, Whiteley advanced easily with one of the quickest and fastest runs of the entire weekend, a 5.460 at 267.27 mph. Januik blew the tires off early and was left in the dust with a shut-off 11-second time.

Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro launched just as hard in the quarterfinals against the notoriously quick-leaving Westerfield, who was driving the late Rick Jackson’s car for possibly the final time. She left right with the 2017 world champ, but in the middle of the course the car hunted around, straying perilously close to the centerline and stubbornly camping out there until she finally lifted.

“It shook the tires, I pedaled, and here came the centerline,” Whiteley said. “I pedaled it again, but it went right back over there. I kept bringing it back but it just kept going to the right, and finally I just said, ‘Nope, that’s enough,’ and shut off. It’s too bad, too – the car was trying to run good all weekend.” It was doubly bad, actually: the winner of that round had a bye to the final.

PSM – POMONA 2022

November 14, 2022 / Todd Veney

Joey Gladstone and team owner Cory Reed finished the Auto Club Finals just like they wound up the year: number 2. Which is a lot better than they possibly could have imagined when the season began. “If anybody had told me a year ago that we’d be in a battle for the championship right down to the last day of the season … who wouldn’t take that?” he asked. “Matt [Smith] was a shoo-in to win the championship – everybody knew that. He’s been doing this a long time. He’s the best. So just to have a mathematical shot at it on the last day of the season is amazing.”

Gladstone personally knocked Smith out in the semifinals, and in the most gratifying possible manner: on a holeshot. Had he not, he’d have finished third, because the rider best positioned to overtake him for second in the final standings, Matt’s wife Angie, won the event. She edged Gladstone in a tight final-round race, 6.74/199 to 6.73/199, but not before Gladstone had locked up second place by upsetting Matt on a holeshot in the semifinals, where they ran identical e.t.s right to the thousandth of a second, 6.757 to 6.757. “That’s right up there with biggest rounds of my life,” he said. “Beating the world champ? That’s a hard thing to do to.”

Mired at the bottom of the qualifying order after a pair of shut-off efforts Friday, Gladstone wasn’t even in the field going into the final day of qualifying. “The team kept me from being depressed for very long,” he said, “and I really have to thank Vance & Hines for giving us the power to win. Anyone who doesn’t believe they give you everything … I don’t know what to tell you. They do.”

That was evident when Gladstone wheeled Reed’s Diamond W/Fatheadz Suzuki Hayabusa to the No. 3 spot with a career-best 6.72 Saturday morning. He kept his dwindling title hopes alive with a 6.76/198 to 6.97/197 first-round win over Hector Arana Jr., who was infinitely harder to beat than most No. 14 qualifiers. He’d just won the last two races, Dallas and Las Vegas. Three pairs later, Matt Smith put the championship mathematically out of reach with an uneventful 6.77/200 to 7.03/187 first-round decision over drag bike godfather Michael Phillips, who was instrumental in Gladstone and Reed’s success all season.

Maintaining focus and finishing strong, Gladstone defeated national record holder Karen Stoffer in the second round and Smith in the semi’s. “That might have been a little redemption,” said Gladstone, who amassed six final-round appearances, three wins, and a career-best 31-12 win-loss record over the course of the 2022 season. “To have a shot at the championship on the last day of the season was dream come true.”

TAFC – POMONA 2022

November 14, 2022 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley wrapped up her 11th season as a Top Alcohol Funny Car driver at the NHRA Finals with her best run of the year on what turned out to be her last run of the year. Whiteley, who won the rescheduled Memphis Mid-West Drag Racing Series event, runner-upped at four other MWDRS events, and made her first final-round appearance in NHRA competition in three years, reached the semifinals at one of her least favorite tracks in either, fabled Pomona Raceway.

Led by crew chief Mike Strasburg, the team came off the trailer Thursday morning with an outstanding 5.49 at 269 mph, backed it up with a super-consistent 5.50, also at 269 mph, and locked up the No. 5 position Friday in last-shot qualifying with a stellar 5.46 at 270.00 mph flat. When eliminations began, the J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro got only faster, with another 5.46/270 that, combined with a noticeable holeshot head start, made quick work of Alaskan Ray Martin’s best run of the year, 5.51/264.

In the quarterfinals, Whiteley clinched the 2022 NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car championship for Doug Gordon by beating rival Shane Westerfield, who had led the national standings almost all season. He threw away a 5.44/268 on a red-light start but Whiteley would have been tough to handle regardless with yet another 5.4, a 5.47/268. The race and the season came to an end Sunday afternoon in the quarterfinals when Whiteley’s unbelievable 5.42/271 was held off by Gordon’s slightly slower 5.45/268 on a small holeshot.

It was a disappointing end to what’s been a particularly strong season, the YNot team’s best in years. Whiteley winds up 2022 with at least a semifinal finish in seven of her last eight starts, a victory, six final-round appearances, a 20-15 (.571) win-loss record, and a career record of 113-90 (.557) in NHRA national event competition.

PSM – POMONA 2021

August 2, 2021 / Todd Veney

After a soaring semifinal finish last weekend at the Sonoma Nationals, easily one of the finest outings of his six-year Pro Stock Motorcycle career, Cory Reed plummeted back to earth at the world-famous Los Angeles County Fairplex.

Competing at Pomona for the first time since his 2016 Rookie of the Year campaign and just the second time ever, Reed struggled all weekend with the facility’s notoriously uneven surface. “This place is too bumpy,” he said. “I know it’s Pomona and everything, but they only run here once or twice a year, it’s got a bad crown, and there’s just not enough rubber. It sucks.”

Side by side early against teammate and best bud Joey Gladstone in Friday’s lone qualifying session, Reed slowed to an off-pace 7.16 at 182 mph when the track seemed to drag him toward the centerline. He found himself in that same barren portion of the course Saturday afternoon and drifted as close to the line as possible without crossing it on a coasting 7.33/157. Then in Q3, his last chance to improve, Reed’s powerful Suzuki Hayabusa porpoised off the line, spun, finally grabbed hold of the track, and sprinted to a 7.03/193, good for the No. 13 spot, the second-worst he’s qualified all season, ahead of only Charlotte, where he was 14th.

In the first round against No. 4 qualifier Scotty Pollacheck, who he just beat at Denver, Reed was off like a shot with a .012 reaction time, but again he had to lift downtrack when his bike seemed to take on a mind of its own and lost, 6.88/198 to 7.12/178. “When it spins the tire on the leave like that, the bike always wants to go left,” he said. “The shift light’s already on, but you know you can’t hit the button. It’s hard to ignore it – it’s right there in your face – but you’ve got to at least make it 60 feet before you hit 2nd gear. This 4-valve makes a lot of power but no torque, so when the RPM drops, it doesn’t just roll out of it like a Buell does – you really have to pay attention and keep the motor up there.”

TAFC – POMONA 2018

November 12, 2018 / Todd Veney

With three straight runs in the mid-to-low 5.40s, Annie Whiteley wrapped up her seventh season as a Top Alcohol Funny Car driver with a another solid showing at the NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif. Whiteley, who ran .40s in all four rounds of eliminations last year, put together three runs from 5.45 to 5.43 for a semifinal finish to complete a four-win campaign third in the final standings, tying the career-high she established in 2015.

“It was a really good year,” said Whiteley, who scored in Belle Rose, Charlotte, Denver, and Brainerd and also made it to the final in Gainesville and Dallas. She qualified No. 1 six times, including five in a row to open the season, had an average qualifying position of 2.9 with an average e.t. and speed of 5.522 at 269.10 mph, and made the fast half of the field in 15 of 16 starts – all but the race before this one, the Las Vegas regional.

The electronic gremlins that hamstrung the YNot team in Vegas persisted in the first qualifying session at Pomona, where the car shut itself off and had to be pushed off the line. Whiteley roared back with a 5.45 at 272 mph for the No. 2 spot and wiped out Northamptonshire, England’s Robert Turner in the first round with a better 5.44/268 and Wyoming’s Kris Hool in the second round with an even better 5.43/272.56 (top speed of the meet). Banished to the left lane for the semifinals, she came out on the wrong end of a pedalfest with Sweden’s Ulf Leanders, who earned lane choice with a career-best 5.38 (low e.t.) in the previous round.

Neither driver cracked the six-second mark in the semi’s – Whiteley shook hard off the line, pedaled, recovered, and charged for the top end until it was clear that there was no overtaking Leanders, who had made it farther downtrack before tire-shake set it. “That was a one-lane race track,” Whiteley said. “If I was in my car, I’d have tried a little harder to pedal it earlier, but when it’s somebody else’s stuff, there’s always one thing in the back of your mind: Don’t tear up their car. The steering box was going bad. It felt loose, like the front end wasn’t planted, and it kept getting worse. You’d just barely touch the wheel and the car would be turning and I didn’t want to push it. It’s OK, though. Four wins, third place in the points – that’s a pretty good year.”

TAFC – POMONA 2017

November 13, 2017 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley’s 2017 season didn’t turn out to be the one she’s always dreamed of, but in the end it was one that almost any driver in the ultra-competitive world of Top Alcohol Funny Car racing would be glad to have: multiple finals, multiple wins, and yet another Top 5 finish in the national standings.

At the season-ending AAA Finals in Pomona, Whiteley, who won two of her first three starts of 2017 and obliterated the national record with the fastest run in Top Alcohol Funny Car history (275.00 mph) along the way, finished second to John Lombardo, who was the championship runner-up again. Whiteley, who came out on the wrong end of a 5.37-5.38 showdown with Doug Gordon in the Dallas final, had the misfortune to do so again in the Pomona finale opposite Lombardo in another all-time matchup. Lombardo’s NAPA Camaro edged her J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro in by far the best race of the entire weekend, 5.42 to her slightly quicker 5.41.

“I’ve just got to get a little better on the lights,” she said. “I worked on my practice tree all weekend, had it all set up, but it didn’t help. It’s just not the same as being in the car, on the starting line, with somebody in the other lane. On Sunday, I just forgot all about it and did a lot better.”

Whiteley was No. 1 after the first of three qualifying sessions with a tremendous 5.439 at 272.61 and again after the second session with an even better 5.414 at 273.27 mph that held up all weekend for top speed of the meet. Bumped to No. 2 by Lombardo’s 5.409 in the second-to-last pair of the final session, she mowed down one veteran after another in eliminations, beginning with Bret Williamson in the first round.

Whiteley’s 5.410/273.05 (one-thousandth of a second from low e.t.) took out Williamson’s 5.669/255.43. A 5.453/271.13 covered Jegs Allstars runner-up Chris Marshall in the quarterfinals, and a similar 5.478/270.70 in the semi’s dispatched two-time 2016 national event winner Terry Ruckman and set up the titanic final-round clash with Lombardo. “It sucked to lose the final, but you can’t feel too bad about a weekend like this,” she said. “This is the best we’ve ever done at Pomona. I don’t know what it is about this place, but it’s never liked us, but this time the car ran good all weekend.”