Tag: pro stock (Page 1 of 2)

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.”

PRO STOCK – LAS VEGAS

November 4, 2024 / Todd Veney

Qualified in the fast half for the first time since Sonoma, where he started a career-best 6th and made his first Pro Stock final, Cory Reed didn’t have to do anything special to go rounds here. He just needed to do his thing. But how was he supposed to know?

No one has any idea what kind of light the other driver is about to cut or how his or her car is going to run, and this would have been a perfect time to be late, short-shift, or shake the tires. Anything would’ve done – anything but a red-light, which, unfortunately, is exactly what happened. Gunning for a killer light, Reed came within thousandths of a second of a perfect one, but instead of a near-perfect .006 light it was an imperfect -.006 foul.

Camrie Caruso advanced with a 10-second run, coasting silently behind Reed while he blasted across the finish line at 204 mph thinking he’d won. “I was really trying to kill it that time,” he said. “.010, .012 – something like that. I figured if I went .010 all day long I could win the race. That double-0 red-light wasn’t a mistake. I wasn’t like, ‘How could I do that?’ It felt good. I’ve had enough good lights now to know a good one, and that really felt like one.”

Reed/Caruso shaped up to be a close matchup – the closest possible, actually. Not only was it the No. 8 qualifier against No. 9; both ran exactly the same e.t., right down to the thousandth of a second, at virtually identical speeds: 6.631s at 205 mph. (Reed got eighth and Caruso ninth on the speed tie-breaker, 205.57 mph to 205.38.)

The foul made it a moot point and Caruso’s shake-riddled shutoff pass made it that much harder a loss for the J&A Service/YNot Racing driver to take. “I knew going up there it was going to be the flip of the coin, .00 green or .00 red,” Reed said. “That’s how this game is played.”

PRO STOCK – DALLAS

October 14, 2024 / Todd Veney

Cut a good light, make just about your fastest run ever, and still get smoked in the first round … that’s what competing at drag racing’s highest level can be like, as Cory Reed learns on a weekly basis. He was off like a shot and still got sent home by the legend Jeg Coughlin the last way any driver would ever want: on a holeshot.

It’s just what happens when you face one of the truly great drivers in the history of sport. Reed cut a serviceable .035 light, nailed his shifts, and still barelylost in the first round of the Texas Fall Nationals. “I left pretty good – I knew it when I let the clutch out – but when I peeked over around half-track, there he was,” he said of the many-time world champion, who’s won NHRA national events in a record-tying seven different categories.

Mired in the back half of the field, as he’s been since the first two races of his burgeoning Pro Stock career, Reed made a run quick enough to beat Coughlin, who not only survived the round but went on to win the event, keeping alive his remote championship hopes. “I didn’t just see him, I saw him the all way through high gear,” Reed said. “Somewhere around the eighth-mile mark, I thought, ‘Get out of here, Jeg,’ but he never did.”

The Texas Motorplex scoreboards showed a 6.58 at just over 208 mph in Coughlin’s lane and a quicker 6.57 at more than 210 mph – the second-fastest speed of Reed’s young Pro Stock career – in the right. The margin of victory was an agonizingly close eight-thousandths of a second, which, at more than 200 mph, is less than two feet.

Reed’s run was the third-quickest of the round, better than those of championship contenders Dallas Glenn (6.582), Erica Enders (6.579), and a dozen other drivers and bettered only by the other two contenders for the 2024 title, Aaron Stanfield (6.559) and Greg Anderson (6.543). “I told Jeg at the top end he was one of my all-time heroes,” Reed said. “He told me, ‘You’re doing good, stay at it. You’ll get there.’ “

PRO STOCK – ST. LOUIS

September 30, 2024 / Todd Veney

Cory Reed’s disappointing first-round loss at the Midwest Nationals wasn’t the result of iffy conditions, a lack of power, or bad racing luck as much as it was a product of where he qualified: 14th, after being 12th at Indy, 14th at Maple Grove, and 10th at Charlotte.

“We have to stop qualifying like this,” said Reed, who, like everyone, got half as many attempts as usual (two) because Friday qualifying was washed out. “My team is really, really good at getting a car down the track. They’re smart. They always have a plan. But sometimes I’d rather not get down the track because we were trying to run great than get in near the bottom of the order again and not have lane choice first round.”

Reed made solid runs in both sessions Saturday, a 6.62 and a 6.61, both at 206 mph. Problem was, 13 other cars were faster than the J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro and he got stuck in the dreaded right lane first round while his opponent, K-B/Titan team leader and racing legend Greg Anderson, lined up on the smoother, much preferred left side. Vastly experienced, impervious to pressure, he had every advantage.

“It’s not like these guys would throw a race to make sure Greg wins because he’s running for a championship,” Reed said. “We’d never do that. And it’s not like I don’t have great equipment – I do. But that’s a hard guy to beat. Nobody is more dedicated than Greg is, and nobody spends more time at the track.”

It showed on the scoreboards. Reed made his best run all weekend, just missing the 6.50s with a 6.600, but with a 6.567, low e.t. of eliminations, Anderson would not be denied. “We made a decent run, but against him, what are you going to do?” Reed asked. “We always work our way up, taking it easy to make sure we get down the track, sneaking up on it and getting faster all weekend. Four or five runs in, we’re hauling ass. But here, we only got two shots. I’d rather be aggressive the entire time instead of building up a baseline of usable, successful laps. If we don’t qualify sometime because the car is spinning or shaking, I won’t care.”

PRO STOCK – CHARLOTTE

September 23, 2024 / Todd Veney

Pro Stock rookie Cory Reed got quicker and quicker on the Tree in qualifying, culminating in a perfect .000 reaction time, but ultimately took himself out of the Carolina Nationals with his first red-light in years.

“I’m not discouraged,” he insisted. “Disappointed, sure, but not discouraged. The thing is, after you get to the final at your second race ever [Sonoma], your perspective changes because now you know you can win. I didn’t think I’d feel this way until next year. When I started this deal, I was like, ‘Pro Stock? Yeah, that might be fun. Let’s do it.’ No expectations, no pressure. But then you get out there and do well right away, and you’re like, ‘Hey, I can win one of these things…’ “

Reed had a .057 light on his first qualifying run, a .025 on his second, and a perfect trip-zip .000 on his third. In the first round, the car lurched through the beams when he decked the throttle and opponent Cristian Cuadra inherited an easy win. “My foot got kicked off the pedal,” Reed said. “I was floating the clutch, cheating the pedal a little. We were on our third different engine, so I didn’t know if the car was going to run good or not. I figured the least I could do was give us a chance with a .010 light.”

Cuadra, another young driver with quick reflexes on the cusp of his first major victory, scooted to a winning 6.67 while Reed clicked it early and still coasted to a 6.76 at 178 mph. “I moved my foot to a different place on the pedal that time,” Reed said. “The pressure point was right on the tip of my toes, so the pedal was barely pushing back on my foot. I did it in qualifying and it worked great, so I tried it again first round. I thought I’d found something.”

Instead, Reed got a red-light, which, until this weekend, he’d never had in Pro Stock – even in qualifying. “As soon as the car started to move, I knew I was screwed,” he said. “I thought, ‘You dumbass, what was that?’ and stayed in it just to see what it’d run, and I was all over the place. In 5th gear, I was like, ‘What the hell are you doing? You red-lighted – why are you still on it?’ I just drove the hell out of it for no reason. That would’ve been a good run, too, because I lifted before the 1,000-foot mark and still went a .70-something. He only went a .67, so if I would’ve just cut my normal light, I would’ve won.”

PRO STOCK – MAPLE GROVE

September 16, 2024 / Todd Veney

FFor a minute there, it looked like Cory Reed might just get his first DNQ as a Pro Stock driver.

In the first qualifying session, Reed’s car made a hard move toward the wall and he had to lift, and a subsequent 6.59 Friday evening got him in for the moment but left him just outside the field when qualifying resumed Saturday morning. “I wasn’t that worried,” said Reed, who reached his first NHRA final here as a Pro Stock Motorcycle rookie in 2016. “It wouldn’t have upset me that bad if we didn’t qualify. Spinning and shaking doesn’t upset me, either – that’s going to happen from time to time. This team has a qualifying game in place. You just don’t want to make a soft run, and we didn’t. When it got right down to it, I knew we’d squeak in there.”

With a clutch 6.57 at 208.62 mph early Saturday, he did, and after a 6.60 at 208.49 mph in last-ditch qualifying Reed found himself stuck racing the driver he always looked up to as a kid in the first round: K-B/Titan team leader Greg Anderson, the winningest Pro Stock driver of all time.

“First round is so much easier when you’re in the top half,” said Reed, who was eighth in Seattle in his Pro Stock debut and sixth in Sonoma, where he made it all the way to the final. “Greg and [KB/Titan teammate] Dallas [Glenn, the early season points leader] probably have half a tenth on me right now, so I knew it was going to be tough, but I honestly I thought if Greg went a .52 I could go a .55.”

Instead, Reed ran another 6.60-flat that left him no chance when Anderson moved first and laid down low e.t. of the meet, 6.52. “A .020 light is my goal every time I go up there,” he said. “.060? That’s never going to win. So that was my fault. I got too much sleep. Sounds stupid, but it’s true. You know why? I was too relaxed up there. I’m never gonna let that happen again.”

PRO STOCK – INDY

September 3, 2024 / Todd Veney

Pro Stock rookie Cory Reed hit the prestigious U.S. Nationals with a winning career record in his short time on four wheels and maintained it with a hard-fought quarterfinal finish at the biggest race of the season. Runner-up in just his second start in Pro Stock, he won another round on a holeshot, won another round over Jerry Don Tucker, and, much to his dismay, lost a third straight time to 2024 championship favorite Aaron Stanfield.

“I really want to beat that dude,” said Reed, who broke on his second-round burnout and never got a chance. “That was depressing. I was so ready to get some revenge. I always want to race the big guys – I never want to be on the easy side of the ladder. That’s the only way you’re going to win a race – beat the best guys out there.”

Having strung together one .030 light after another in qualifying, Reed, who beat Tucker in the Sonoma semifinals and the Brainerd Mission Challenge semi’s, got him again in the first round. They were locked together the length of the quarter-mile: .982 to .987 at the 60-foot mark, 2.739 to 2.744 at 330 feet, 4.210 at 167.18 mph to 4.213 at 167.16 mph at half-track, and 5.480 to 5.482 at 1,000 feet.

Tucker and Reed crossed the finish line with identical 6.553s and the win-light flashed in Reed’s lane because of his quicker reaction time, .048 to .051. “It’s pretty crazy that a .048 light was good enough to win on a holeshot,” he said, “but if I keep cutting .040s, I’m not going to win this race.”

In the end, there were no more .040 lights, or any lights at all for that matter. Reed never made it to the line for round two. “It stuck the tire on the burnout,” he said. “I went to give it a little more gas, heard something pop, and thought, ‘What the hell just broke?’ It didn’t sound like a rod slapping around – it was more like a hammer hitting the firewall. I was like, ‘Is it something in the clutch, maybe something in the tranny?’ I didn’t know what it was, but the engine was backfiring and sounded like crap.”

It was a broken coil. Reed got pushed silently off the line and Stanfield got the best of him again, this time without a fight. “My guys wanted to drag it up there and try to make a run,” Reed said, “but I was like, ‘That’s it, man. It’s broke.’ “

PRO STOCK – BRAINERD

August 19, 2024 / Todd Veney

At the Lucas Oil Nationals in the remote resort lakes region of northern Minnesota, Cory Reed suffered his first real setback as a Pro Stock driver, losing the last way any driver would ever choose: on a holeshot.

Qualified in the back half of the field for the first time in his new career, Reed drew the toughest possible opponent right now – Aaron Stanfield, the hottest driver in drag racing with the possible exception of Funny Car sensation Austin Prock. With the second-quickest run of the entire event to that point, a 6.60 that would have put him on the pole had he run it during qualifying, he fell to Stanfield’s slower 6.61.

“I still make mistakes sometimes,” Reed allowed. “I mean, really I haven’t been doing this that long. For some reason, I wasn’t totally sure I had it in 3rd gear when I went to do the burnout. I stopped, went back through the gears, and I was in 3rd. I didn’t even need to do that, and all of a sudden it was like, ‘Get going – don’t make him wait.’ I swapped feet really quick – no line-loc. Then Joey [Gladstone] dropped his radio and I started laughing in the car. Then, I’m like, ‘You just screwed yourself, this is taking too long, but it’s still not too late. Get it together. Drive the car right.’ “

He did – after the launch. Reed’s reaction time came up .093, and Stanfield got him on a holeshot with an unspectacular .040, well below his season average (and, for that matter Reed’s). The rookie kept the car right down the center of the groove and nailed every shift but couldn’t overcome Stanfield’s head start or the behind-the-line shenanigans that ultimately proved his undoing.

“After all that, most people would stage wrong or red-light or drive the car like an idiot,” Reed said. “I was like, ‘OK dude, just relax. Think logically. Don’t try too hard on the light, and make sure you get a good run no matter what.’ And I did. My focus wasn’t totally on cutting a light or winning the round like it normally would be. I just concentrated on hitting my shift points and keeping the car perfectly straight.

“Down the track, that was probably the best I’ve ever driven, but I was pressing down so hard on the clutch pedal on the line that no matter what, I was going to be late,” he said. “That was probably a .040 or .050 light, actually – not great, but not terrible. But when you press down that hard, you’re screwed, especially against somebody like Stanfield. That guy’s not going to leave you a chance.”

PRO STOCK – SONOMA

July 29, 2024 / Todd Veney

Already a national event finalist in one professional category, Cory Reed reached the Sonoma final in just his second start ever in Pro Stock. Reed, who came within a round of winning Maple Grove in 2016, his first season astride a 200-mph Pro Stock Motorcycle, came within a whisker of his first major title, falling 6.54 to 6.55 to Aaron Stanfield, who’s won more races this year than Greg Anderson or Erica Enders or anyone in Pro Stock.

“The car ran good and I was driving pretty decent,” Reed said. “It was just one of those days when everything goes your way. Between Joey [Gladstone] and me, we’ve always had good luck at Sonoma. Joey won his first NHRA national event here [in 2022], and I guess it’s just one of those tracks that seems to like us.”

Powered by a KB-Titan 500-inch big-block and crewed by trusted allies from his two-wheel glory days, Gladstone and Dave Kuschke, Reed claimed his first Pro Stock round-win when veteran Deric Kramer’s car went silent right off the line, sending the sleek, immaculate J&A Service Camaro to a runaway 6.53 win. Teammate Eric Latino was the next to go, falling on a second-round holeshot, 6.58/208 to 6.56/208.

“It’s not like I was cutting .020 lights or anything,” Reed modestly said. “It was more like .040s and .050s, actually, but I wasn’t floating the pedal or trying too hard and upsetting the chassis. I had that pedal slammed to the floor and wasn’t trying to squeeze it and cheat, making it push back and release too soon and upsetting the car. You’ve got to be right on that threshold, where it’s not kicking back.”

Superior starting line driving carried Reed through the semifinals, too, when Jerry Don Tucker turned it red – right when Reed really could have used a break. “I didn’t know he red-lighted,” Reed said. “It didn’t feel like I was late, but when you see the other guy out there that early, you think he Tree’d you and start cussing yourself. Then I looked up and saw the scoreboard, and it’s a good thing he went red because after I got behind I short-shifted and only ran a .64.”

Reed picked right back up to a 6.55 in the final but fell to Stanfield’s slightly quicker 6.54. “I just wanted to prove to myself that Seattle wasn’t fake, that I can really do this,” he said. “Stanfield’s hard to beat. He’s a savage. If he ends up doing this long enough, he’ll be one of the best to ever do it. To be honest, I was already a fan of his before I started doing this. He’s a badass – that whole family is.”

PRO STOCK – SEATTLE

July 22, 2024 / Todd Veney

With a just handful of burnouts and a few runs to draw from, Cory Reed, already an accomplished racer in one category, made his debut in another and looked like a pro doing it. At the Northwest Nationals at picturesque Pacific Raceways, the former Pro Stock Motorcycle racer shot to No. 1 on the Pro Stock grid with an outstanding 6.53 on his first full run ever.

In the first round, Reed might have been even more impressive – in a losing effort. An in-the-bag win over two-time 2024 tour winner Troy Coughlin Jr. dissolved in the last few hundred feet when the loose, dicey conditions forced him to lift. A lesser driver might have crashed.

“You hate to get out of it when you don’t see the other guy, but I didn’t want to wad this thing up in my first round in Pro Stock,” Reed said. “Troy was like, ‘Man, you had me,’ but the car was spinning the tires hard, and I really didn’t want to crash.”

Delayed hours by repeated rain delays and two crashes in the first round of Funny Car, Reed/Coughlin was the first pair down the track in Pro Stock. After Reed’s brush with disaster, the other 14 Pro Stock teams returned to the pits, NHRA officials immediately went to work on the track, and the remaining seven pairs were run way later under drastically different (and better) conditions.

Utterly inexperienced but encouraged after licensing, Reed and the J&A Service team made their official debut at the furthest track from K-B/Titan headquarters in faraway North Carolina. “It shook on the first qualifying run – I may have done a few bone-headed things because I’m still learning – and that 6.53 in Q2 was the first full pass I ever made in a Pro Stock car,” he said.

“Before we went to Seattle, I did six burnouts in the burnout car, wore the transmission out, then did a few more burnouts in Darlington. The first test pass at Rockingham, I destroyed the transmission, and for a minute there I was thinking, ‘Do I really want to do this? What are these guys thinking about me?’ But after running a 6.59 without even taking it all the way to the finish line, I felt a lot better about it.”

All things considered, Seattle was a successful, rewarding debut. “I was about over the bikes anyway,” Reed said. “We were going to start all over with our own engine program with K-B Titan, but you get to thinking about it and it’s like, ‘This could take a while.’ I was talking to my dad, and he said, ‘What about Pro Stock?’ We’re already right there with K-B and it was like, ‘Hey, why not?’ And here we are.”