Tag: pro mod (Page 3 of 9)

PRO MOD – GREAT BEND 2021

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 – NORWALK 2021

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.”

PRO MOD – TULSA 2021

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

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

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

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

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.

PRO MOD – DALLAS 2020

Two-time world champion Jim Whiteley, who claimed both of his Pro Mod victories in the Lone Star State and also scored here four times in his Alcohol Dragsters, rolled off the trailer at the NHRA Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex with a 5.73 at 248 mph for the No. 6 spot on the provisional grid. He followed with a 5.80-flat and a consistent 5.82 and went into race day solidly in the top half of the field for the second race in a row. He got stuck racing Rickie Smith anyway.

“Trickie Rickie,” winner of multiple NHRA Pro Mod championships and 11 series titles overall, managed to knock out Whiteley’s YNot/J&A Service Corvette again, this time by a closer margin than ever. In a replay of their second-round clash in Gainesville, where Whitely got off the line first, .030 to .060, he drilled Smith’s otherwise respectable .060 reaction time with a clutch .029. He led almost the entire quarter-mile, but Smith inched ahead at the end to prevail by the invisible margin of 1/500th of a second.

“I thought I had him,” Whiteley said. So did everybody not wearing Rickie Smith colors. Factoring in their reaction times, the grizzled old vet got there first by less than a foot, 5.79 to 5.82. Both cars blew through the speed traps at well over 240 mph, but Smith’s sleek 2020 Camaro had every advantage downtrack and steadily, incrementally stretched the lead over the last few hundred feet, 250 mph to 244. “It seems like I run him every weekend,” said Whiteley, who fell to Smith for the third race in a row, including the U.S. Nationals, where he went down in the first round, and Gainesville, where he lost in the quarterfinals.

Without question, Smith’s superior top end speed – 250.78 mph to Whiteley’s 244.74 in his unaerodynamic ’63 Vette – was the deciding factor in an otherwise dead-even contest. “Rickie’s Rickie,” Whiteley said. “He does what he does. He’s tough. He’ll even tell you, ‘Don’t start your car till I do my burnout,’ but it doesn’t matter. Running this car probably costs me 2 miles per hour and 2-3 hundredths every time I go down the track, but no way am I getting rid of it. Hot rods like this are what Pro Mod’s all about to me.”

PRO MOD – GAINESVILLE 2020

At the only Gatornationals ever contested in the Fall and the only one that likely ever will be, two-time NHRA Pro Mod winner Jim Whiteley sailed through qualifying with back-to-back 5.8s, advanced to the middle rounds of eliminations solely on his reflexes, and finally bowed out against career-long nemesis “Trickie Rickie” Smith, the eventual winner, in the quarterfinals.

Whiteley, whose son, Steven, won this race in 2017 on the biggest day of his racing career, cut a killer .026 light and streaked down the track straight and true to a 5.89 at 243.85 mph in the Friday evening session. Saturday afternoon in teams’ only attempt to qualify, he picked up to a 5.86/244 that carried him to the No. 5 position in the final order, his highest all year.

The YNot/J&A Service driver faced Aeromotive owner Steve Matusek, a national event winner himself, in the opening round in Matusek’s first start in a ’20 Mustang that replaced the spectacular turbocharged Tequila Comisario Mustang he destroyed in the first round at Indy in that car’s debut. With a .068 reaction time, Matusek wasn’t exactly late, but Whiteley, reminiscent of his glory days as a Top Alcohol champion, had him all the way with a superior .032 reaction time for a holeshot win.

Matusek’s 5.850 in the unfamiliar new machine was only marginally quicker than Whiteley’s 5.856 in his ’63 ‘Vette, and their reaction times made for a margin of victory of just 11 feet in the traps. For Whiteley, the weekend came to an end in the quarterfinals, when Smith, the former IHRA star and many-time NHRA Pro Mod champ, rumbled to a 5.79/249. Whiteley got loose in low gear, got back in the gas just in case Smith encountered difficulties downtrack, and coasted silently across the finish line four and a half seconds later with a 10.30 at 83 mph.

PRO MOD – INDY 2020

Without making a bad run all weekend, 2013 Indy winner Jim Whiteley still left the 2020 U.S. Nationals empty-handed. Despite turning in easily the most consistent qualifying performance of his seven-year Pro Mod career, leaving on time in the first round of eliminations, and pounding out a fourth straight competitive run, he left town stinging from a dispiriting first-round defeat.

The 2013 Indy Top Alcohol Dragster champ ran hard right off the trailer, laying down an excellent 5.806 in the first of three scheduled qualifying sessions, backing it up with a slightly quicker 5.802 in Q2 and a consistent 5.811 in last-shot qualifying Saturday afternoon, yet entered eliminations mired in the bottom half of the field, 11th on the final grid with an aggregate best of 5.802 at 246.75 mph.

Under threatening skies on a rare raceday Sunday at Indy (other than the rained-out 2003 U.S. Nationals, the race has been contested on Labor Day Mondays for half a century), Whiteley strapped in for the first round of eliminations three different times. He first climbed out when Kris Thorne, who had just upset No. 1 qualifier Jason Scruggs, crashed in the shutdown area, plowing into the wall on his side of the track, then sliding upside-down in a shower of sparks through the shutdown area until he hit the sand trap, flipped again, and softly landed right-side up in a cloud of dust.

Three pairs after the track was cleared and the sand trap swept, Steve Matusek destroyed his immaculate one-week-old Tequila Comisario Mustang, handing the win to 2019 championship runner-up Todd Tutterow. It soon began raining, the track was down for hours, and when racing resumed, Whiteley’s weekend came to an unceremonious end when his respectable 5.85 wasn’t enough against nemesis “Tricky Rickie” Smith’s 5.76.

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