Tag: pro mod (Page 4 of 9)

PRO MOD – INDY III 2020

August 10, 2020 / Todd Veney

PRO MOD – INDY III

The inaugural Dodge NHRA Indy Nationals, a pseudo-national event staged at half-speed in the heart of the Coronavirus panic, didn’t quite feel like a national event, and Jim Whiteley didn’t quite feel like himself behind the wheel of his ’63 Corvette. Whiteley, who almost never loses on a holeshot – or even gets left on, for that matter – lost on a holeshot.

“I just lost focus that time,” said the two-time world champ of by far the worst light of his entire career, an unimaginable .313 in the second round against 2018 series champ Mike Janis. A reaction time half that bad (.157) would’ve been easily the worst light Whiteley ever had, Pro Mod or otherwise, but he got caught off guard that time and Janis had it the instant he launched with a .035 light, advancing with a passable 5.97 at 240 mph. “I don’t know what the hell I was looking at up there,” Whiteley said, laughing. “All of a sudden I was staged, the Tree came on, and I thought, ‘I should probably leave now.’ “

Until the Tree flashed, everything had been going just fine. Whiteley wheeled the J&A Service/YNot Racing ‘Vette to a competitive 5.85 in the first pair of the first session of Pro Mod qualifying and wasted Pro Mod/Funny Car driver Chad Green in the first round of eliminations, leaving first and leading wire to wire, 5.88/241 to 7.14/138. With fields this tight there really are no underdogs, but both he and Janis technically “upset” higher-qualified drivers in the first round, Whiteley over No. 5 qualifier Green with a 5.88 and Janis over No. 4 Jeff Jones with a 5.94.

With no better option than to flush the whole forgettable weekend in this utterly forgettable year, Whiteley is shifting his focus to the Midwest Drag Racing Series’ Summer Speed Spectacular next weekend in St. Louis. He’ll jump into “Stevie Fast’s” world-famous “Shadow 2.0” and Jackson will test the viability of a torque-converter/automatic-transmission setup in Annie Whiteley’s record-holding Top Alcohol Funny Car.

PRO MOD – ORLANDO 2020

March 9, 2020 / Todd Veney

Always ready to race – anytime, anywhere – Jim Whiteley leaped at the chance to be part of the inaugural World Doorslammer Nationals at Orlando Speed World Dragway. Like Don Garlits’ revolutionary National Challenge ’72 in Tulsa or Drag Illustrated‘s World Series of Pro Mod events decades later in Denver, the groundbreaking event guaranteed the biggest payout in history. “No way I was going to miss this deal,” Whiteley said. “There were a lot of good cars here – a lot of good cars.”

In the end, more than $300,000 was divvied up among the absolute biggest names in drag racing’s premier door-car classes – Pro Mod legends Rickie Smith, “Stevie Fast” Jackson, Todd Tutterow, Jason Scruggs, and Mike Janis, and NHRA Pro Stock stars Jeg Coughlin, Greg Anderson, Erica Enders, Jason Line, and Alex Laughlin, the only driver to compete in both categories. Enough Pro Mod cars to fill two 16-car fields poured through the Orlando gates, and when all four qualifying sessions were complete, Justin Bond had run quicker than the incoming NHRA national record with a 5.623 for the pole position and veteran Steve Matusek established the record bump with a 5.739.

Whiteley’s show-stopping ’63 Corvette slipped to the 14th spot with a 5.73 in the opening session that had him, at the time, fourth-quickest of the 27 drivers who took the Tree that round. In all, 33 teams attempted to qualify, more than three-quarters of them ran 5s, and five ran 5.70s and still didn’t make the cut. Whiteley’s J&A Service team, led by crew chief “Stevie Fast,” drew Laughlin, the No. 3 qualifier and reigning NHRA U.S. Nationals Pro Stock champion, in the first round. Running one pair ahead of them opposite Michael Biehle, Jackson, the defending NHRA Pro Mod champ, crashed into the left wall beyond the finish line. (He was uninjured, and the car is repairable.)

When the wreckage was cleared, Laughlin rolled into the staged beam immediately after Whiteley pre-staged, Whiteley quickly followed, and they left as one and charged side by side the length of the quarter-mile. The YNot team captain ran within mere thousandths of a second of his qualifying time, but Laughlin edged him out in a photo-finish that typified the entire event, 5.71/249 to Whiteley’s right-there 5.73/246. Laughlin ran just a 5.82 in the following round but went on to win the event, pocketing $50,000 – five times the winner’s share of an NHRA Pro Mod race – and Coughlin collected $75,000 for winning Pro Stock.

PRO MOD – LAS VEGAS 2019

November 4, 2019 / Todd Veney

Steven Whiteley’s final start as a Pro Mod driver (at least for now) and father Jim Whiteley’s last this season both went down as an unmitigated success: Jim wound up 2019 on an ascendant arc with his finest performance of the season, and Steven, runner-up the last time out with one teen light after another, reached the quarterfinals in easily the YNot/J&A Service team’s best overall 1-2 finish all year.

Both ran strong in qualifying at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Steven with a best of 5.76, the same E.T. he ran under vastly different conditions in Charlotte, and Jim with exactly the same time he ran in Charlotte, right down to the thousandth of a second – 5.805. In the opening round of eliminations, Jim took a hard-fought holeshot win over Norwalk winner Khalid alBalooshi, 5.81 to 5.80, and Steven blew out Doug Winters with one of the best runs of the entire round, a 5.77 at 249 mph.

Just how tough NHRA Pro Mod racing can be was readily apparent in the quarterfinals when Jim fell to championship runner-up Todd Tutterow by just 27-thousandths of a second, 5.81 to 5.83. Steven, facing recent U.S. Nationals winner Mike Castellana two minutes later in the same lane, ran better than six of the other seven drivers that round, another 5.77 at 249 mph that left him just short of Castellana’s sinister black Camaro, which moved on with a 5.75/249.

“I’m done,” said Steven, who, by going rounds for the second race in a row while former Bristol winner Bob Rahaim lost first round for the fourth straight, cracked the season-ending Top 10. “As of right now, spending time with my family and kicking ass at work means more to me than running all over the country racing a Pro Mod car. As much as I love it, Pro Mod has nothing on being with your family.”

PRO MOD – CHARLOTTE 2019

October 14, 2019 / Todd Veney

In the second-to-last start of his Pro Mod career, second-generation driver Steven Whiteley turned in his second-best outing ever, behind only his victory at the 2017 Gatornationals. Whiteley drilled everybody on the Tree and reached the final round of the penultimate event of the 2019 season, which “Stevie Fast” Jackson won to clinch the NHRA Pro Mod championship. “This was almost better than winning Gainesville,” he said, “just because of who we had to run. It was great to run with the big guys and not just run with them but beat them.”

With one round-win in 20 career head-to-head matchups against Steve Matusek, lifelong nemeses Rickie Smith and Todd Tutterow, and Jackson heading into the Carolina Nationals, Whiteley went 3-1 against them and started from the No. 5 spot, the highest he’s qualified all season. Matusek, like every driver Whiteley raced all weekend, cut an excellent light, and like the other three he still trailed the J&A Service/YNot Camaro off the line. He was the only one who didn’t make it close, falling well short of the first of Whiteley’s first of four consecutive runs between 5.756 and 5.762.

“Tricky Rickie,” who narrowly lost the U.S. Nationals final on a holeshot, outran Whiteley in the quarterfinals but came up seven feet short for another holeshot loss, 5.761 to 5.757. “He’s always had my number,” said Whiteley, who stood 0-8 against the many-time series champ until now. “Every time I ever lined up against him, he chewed me up and spit out the bones, but it’s different with this car. I just feel good in it. Always did, really. With the converter, I feel like I can cut a light.” That’s putting it mildly – he averaged a .019 reaction time for the event, with a worst of .024. He’s averaging a .029 for the season and leaving first 85 percent of the time.

In the semi’s, Whiteley and Tutterow, who led the early season standings before veering across the centerline in Topeka and T-boning Whiteley’s car, both ran 5.75s. The veteran was more than on time with a .021 light, but Whiteley had him all the way with a .016 to win by 8-thousandths of a second. “It felt really good to put that guy’s ass on the trailer, I can tell you that,” he said. “After all the times I’ve run him – especially Topeka – that had to be the round of my career.”

The final ended in a loss to “Stevie Fast,” who clinched the NHRA championship when Whiteley took out Tutterow, but it wasn’t much of a disappointment. “This was a great weekend,” Whiteley said. “We’ve always run well in Charlotte, probably because we test there more than we do anywhere else. Yes, Stevie has been helping us for a while – that’s no secret – but not to the degree that he’s been helping my dad’s team. This weekend was all about [crew chief] Jeff Perley. He really showed his colors here.”

PRO MOD – ST. LOUIS 2019

September 30, 2019 / Todd Veney

0-2 in Friday qualifying and 2-for-2 Saturday, former Gatornationals winner Steven Whiteley was on the upswing entering NHRA Midwest Nationals eliminations. Following a shut-off 6.33 at 167 mph on his initial attempt Friday afternoon with his completely rebuilt ’18 Camaro and a shake-plagued 10.21 that evening, Whiteley, the only Pro Mod driver not to put up a clean run Friday, unloaded a 5.84 at 247 mph in Saturday morning in Q3 to shoot from dead last to the fast half of the field.

In the fourth and final qualifying session, opponent Mike Castellana, coming off a victory at the biggest race of the season, the U.S. Nationals, did the same thing: catapulted himself from 19th and last all the way to the top half. Whiteley wasn’t far behind with his quickest run of the weekend, a competitive 5.81/246 that moved from 14th to 13th and pitted him against quick-leaving Brandon Snider in the first round of eliminations.

Snider was on time with a .052 reaction time, but Whiteley, who leaves first 78% of the time, was literally twice as quick with a killer .026. The lead didn’t last long when he shook immediately and Snider got by him not far past the Tree for a 5.77/247 win. The YNot/J&A Service driver could have won on a holeshot with anything better than a 5.797 but had to lift long before reaction times came into play.

“It wasn’t moving fast enough when the power came in – it already had a weak shake to begin with,” Whiteley said. “I don’t like pedalfests. That’s not my thing – that’s when you wreck. Maybe I could’ve stayed in it, maybe not. It made a big move and I didn’t like it, I know that. When that happened, I was like ‘Yeah, I’m done.’ “

PRO MOD – NORWALK 2019

June 23, 2019 / Todd Veney

Forced back into his old Cadillac CTS-V after championship contender Todd Tutterow smashed into his Camaro right after the finish line at Topeka, shoving him into the wall and destroying that side of the car too, Steven Whiteley returned to the NHRA Pro Mod tour at the Summit Racing Equipment Nationals in Norwalk. “We’ll just see,” he said before qualifying got under way. “We don’t really have any information for running a torque converter/automatic transmission setup in this old thing. When we ran the Cadillac, it always had a clutch.”

First time out with the unfamiliar combination couldn’t have gone much worse. Whiteley, ranked as high as fifth in the NHRA Pro Mod standings this season and long accustomed to qualifying high and going rounds, didn’t make it into 2nd gear all weekend. Most of the time, he didn’t make it to the Tree. The teams’ first crack at the shotgun wedding marriage of an automatic transmission and the old Cadillac yielded an uninspiring 17-second shutoff Friday afternoon, and this was no time to start from scratch with a converter setup; after just one qualifying session, the bump was already down to 5.88.

Instant shake deep-sixed the Friday night session, too, though Whiteley came within a thousand of a second of a perfect .000 reaction time. Early Saturday afternoon in Q3, it was the same story: off the throttle by the 60-foot mark. The only Cadillac to ever win an NHRA national event left hard in last-shot qualifying, charging hard with the wheels up, but it was all over before the 1-2 shift, and Whiteley coasted silently across the finish line 18 seconds later at 47 mph.

By the time the J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod season resumes over Labor Day weekend at the biggest event in drag racing, the U.S. Nationals, everything will be different. Whiteley will be back in his trusty Camaro, and by then countless test runs with the completely rebuilt machine will be in the logbook. More important, team leader Jim Whiteley will be there with his all-new split-window ’63 Corvette and Pro Mod points leader “Stevie Fast” Jackson calling the shots.

PRO MOD – BRISTOL 2019

June 16, 2019 / Todd Veney

Jim Whiteley’s had it with his ’69 Chevelle. “This thing is officially parked,” he said at Thunder Valley Dragway in the rolling hills of Bristol, Tenn., after another disappointing DNQ. “Bigfoot can drive over this thing and crush it, as far as I’m concerned – that actually would be worth more to me than whatever I could sell it for. People come up at every race and say how much they love it, but it just won’t run.”

Whiteley wheeled the Yenko Blue Chevelle, one of the most popular cars – if not the most – on the entire NHRA Pro Mod tour, to 5-second times in three of four qualifying sessions, but even “Stevie Fast” Jackson, who’s led the standings all season and who recently joined the J&A Service/YNot team to lend his tuning expertise, hasn’t been able to get much out of it. Whiteley ran a 5.98 Friday afternoon for the early qualifying lead and picked up to a 5.92 at just 232 mph that evening to enter Saturday qualifying 17th on the grid, one spot out of the field. A tire-shaking, shutoff 8.90 in Q3 and a 5.97 late Saturday afternoon in last-shot qualifying rendered him a non-qualifier for the sixth time in six 2019 starts.

“We put more [transmission] ratio in for that last one,” Whiteley said. “Didn’t matter. It was already way leaner than you’d ever think you could get away with. Same thing – didn’t matter. I don’t know what it is. It’ll stay with anybody early, but from half-track on it doesn’t go anywhere. This car has a mind of its own. People ask if I’m discouraged, but I’m really not. I’m done with this thing – it’s time – but I’m excited about where Stevie has this program going. He just does not quit. He’s already found things, he has good things coming, and the new car [a Tommy Mauney-built ’63 Corvette the team will take delivery of this week] is going to haul ass.”

“I’ve never failed at anything like I have with this car,” said Jackson, as transparent and no-nonsense as ever. ” I’ve taken parts straight off my car and put them on this one and it still won’t run. I’ve had it so lean that if it was my car it would have blown up at 400 feet and the plugs still have all the cad on them. You know what I want to do? Take this thing up on that giant hill at the other end of the track and push it off the cliff. They can even leave me in it if they want. I’ll just say this: When we get the new car, it’s going to run. Jim’s going to be on the pole, I guarantee you.”

PRO MOD – TOPEKA 2019

June 10, 2019 / Todd Veney

Steven Whiteley was minding his own business, charging down the right lane at nearly 250 mph in the first round of the Heartland Nationals, when opponent Todd Tutterow slammed into his car just past the finish line. Sliding sideways out of control across the stripe at 223 mph with a 5.80-flat, one of the quickest Pro Mod runs all weekend, Tutterow, the second-ranked driver of 2019, actually got the win.

But things got ugly fast after the finish line for the grizzled old pro. Tutterow, who won the season-opening Gatornationals and who’s made countless runs under every conceivable track and weather condition, took it a little too far this time, and when he made a correction farther down the quarter-mile than he likely ever has, his ’68 Camaro shot across the track and rammed Whiteley’s car. It trashed the left side of the once pristine ’18 Camaro and shoved it into the other wall, crunching the right side and more or less totaled the car.

“I never saw him until he got close,” Whiteley said. “By then, there’s wasn’t much I could do before he pancaked my car into the wall. He told me, ‘It sucks to tear up your stuff, but it sucks even more when somebody else’s gets torn up, too,’ and I thought, ‘Yeah, no kidding.’ It’s tough knowing your wife, your mom – basically your whole family – is watching. The weird part is that it was exactly one year ago that we debuted this car here at Topeka.”

It was an unfortunate but somehow fitting conclusion to the clash of past Gatornationals champions – Whiteley in 2017 and Tutterow, who’s lived through countless dangerous runs down every backwoods track in the South across all eras of big-time door-car racing, three months ago. In the same round, four cars were destroyed – the 1st Gen and 6th Gen Camaros of Tutterow and Whiteley, the late-model Camaro of Pro Stock/Pro Mod racer Alex Laughlin, who smashed up the left side of his car when he lost vision but pressed on anyway, and the split-window ’63 Corvette of past national event champ Jeremy Ray, who just missed collecting superstar Erica Enders in a frightening crash that opened the single most eventful round in NHRA Pro Mod history.

It marked the end one of the finest-looking Pro Mods to ever grace the J&A Service Pro Mod series but shouldn’t keep Whiteley down for long. The second-generation star will be at Bristol this weekend supporting father Jim Whiteley and back in action next weekend at Norwalk with his old Cadillac. “I’m not sure when the Camaro will be back,” he said. “Maybe Indy.”

PRO MOD – ATLANTA 2019

May 5, 2019 / Todd Veney

The 2019 Southern Nationals is one race that won’t make the jam-packed highlight reel of the YNot team’s many successes in drag racing. Two-time Top Alcohol Dragster world champion and multiple Pro Mod event winner Jim Whiteley wasn’t around for the first round of Pro Mod eliminations and son Steven was but didn’t last long.

Jim ran a 5.99 off the trailer Friday but had to shut off in the second of four qualifying sessions that evening, and son Steven was off the gas early both times on the unforgiving Atlanta Dragway surface, where in Friday night qualifying three years ago he had the only crash of his career but actually qualified on that run.

Come Saturday morning, Jim picked up half a tenth to a 5.95 but still found himself on the bubble and Steven went from unqualified to the top half of the field with a 5.87, but when Jim ran even quicker (5.94) in last-shot qualifying Saturday afternoon, he still ended up on the outside looking in. Steven did make the cut with the 5.87, but the wheels came off when eliminations commenced and he lost losing to reigning world champion Mike Janis’ backpedaling 6.27 after cutting one of the best lights of his or anyone’s career, .010. Steven’s YNot Camaro went into violent tire-shake early in the run and he had to lift, helpless as Janis drifted toward the center line, eventually lifted, and still advanced with a 6.27 at just 200 mph.

PRO MOD – CHARLOTTE 2019

April 28, 2019 / Todd Veney

Steven Whiteley was riding high coming into Charlotte for the Four-Wide Nationals, a Top 5 driver in the standings and one of the odds-on favorites to win the race. Three days later he pulled out of ZMax Dragway a non-qualifier, clearly aggravated and dead set on turning things around after his first first-round loss all year.

Friday was a complete disaster for the young driver, one of the more consistent qualifiers on the J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod circuit year after year. Rain and 41-mph winds killed one qualifying session, and he was timed out on the line in the other one. After a shake-plagued shutoff blast Saturday morning, things weren’t looking good for the YNot team heading into last-shot qualifying, but as it has many times before, they came through under pressure with a 5.78 at nearly 253 mph to make the show.

Anything close to that Sunday morning in the first round and Whiteley would’ve been in the semifinals because only one car in his quad made it to the finish line under power. Whiteley was second off the line, trailing only Sidnei Frigo’s telepathic .015 reaction time with an outstanding .033, and they all crossed the finish line in the inverse order of how they left the starting line. Rickie Smith cut just a .090 light but laid down a 5.77 to finish first, and Chad Green’s 8.27 at 120 mph was enough to advance, literally hundreds of feet ahead of Whiteley’s aborted 10.19 at 87 mph and Frigo’s distant 13.95 at 47 mph. In one of the more unusual heats in the anything-but-orderly history of four-wide competition, nobody was within two seconds or 30 mph of anyone else.