Tag: regional (Page 2 of 2)

TAFC – LAS VEGAS REGIONAL 2015

November 9, 2015 / Todd Veney

It won’t count toward the national championship because she’s already run the maximum number of regional events – five – but Annie Whiteley pounded out one good run after another at her favorite track, The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, at the final regional event of the season. As always, it was the toughest regional event of the entire season; 17 cars attempted to qualify for one of just eight spots, and the bump was one of the quickest of all time, 5.63.

Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro held down the No. 1 spot in Top Alcohol Funny Car until the final pair of the final session with a 5.49. No. 2 in the field when eliminations began, she ripped of a consistent 5.51 to take out defending event champ Ulf Leanders, then slipped to a tire-shaking 5.79 in the semifinals and fell to friend and Grand Junction, Colo., neighbor Terry Ruckman, the former Division 7 champ.

“It shook pretty hard that time, and there wasn’t much I could do,” Whiteley said. “It didn’t hurt us points-wise, but you never want to lose – ever. It was still a good weekend, though. We learned a lot about running the car in cold conditions, and that’s going to do nothing but help us down the road.”

Now the YNot team’s focus shifts to this weekend’s NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif. One point out of the lead – 626 to 625 – with one race to go, she’ll overtake Sweden’s Jonnie Lindberg by winning just one round of eliminations. “It’s all right there for us,” she said. “I don’t want to think about points or anything like that. I’m just going to try to make each run like it’s a qualifying run and take it one round at a time. We’ve run good all year. Now we just need to do it one more time.”

TAFC – LAS VEGAS REGIONAL 2015

April 21, 2015 / Todd Veney

Hot off a convincing victory at the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last week, Annie Whiteley continued her mastery of the sprawling desert facility with her second straight and sixth career Vegas title.

For her third triumph at the West Regional, which she also won in 2012 (in just the fourth race of her Top Alcohol Funny Car career) and again in 2013, Whiteley wheeled the J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro to a final-round win over neighbor and friend Terry Ruckman, whom she defeated in the national event semifinals seven days earlier. Whiteley charged to a third straight run in the 5.60s at more than 260 mph, a 5.66 at 260.11, to score easily while Ruckman lost traction and coasted to a 7.18 at just 139.

After qualifying No. 2 behind John Lombardo with a 5.62/262.23, Whiteley stopped Doug Gordon in the first round of eliminations in a rematch of the SummitRacing.com Nationals final, 5.64/261 to 5.78/256. Then came the race that no one who saw it will ever forget.

While Whiteley was speeding to a consistent 5.64 and another Vegas final, Payne’s car got completely sideways in the first 50 feet, slammed into the Christmas Tree, flipped on its side, pitched the body off the chassis, and pointed itself back toward the starting line before the veteran driver was able to shut it off and avert further disaster.

With her second win in just three starts this season, Whiteley has shot all the way up to third in the national Top Alcohol Funny Car standings, behind only Jonnie Lindberg and Brian Hough. She’ll go for her eighth round-win and third event title in a row this weekend at the Spring Nationals in Houston, where last year she was runner-up.

TAFC – LAS VEGAS REGIONAL 2014

November 10, 2014 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley still hasn’t been beaten at the final regional event of the 24-race Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, but instead of going 3-0 for another win at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, she went 0-0 this time – she didn’t qualify.

Whiteley, who won the event in both 2012 and 2013 (and swept the spring regionals there both years, too) missed the cut for just the second time in her entire career and the first time anywhere in nearly two years. Whiteley, whose only previous DNQ had come at the 2012 NHRA Finals at Pomona, was one of 20 drivers – including two from Sweden and one from Australia – who attempted to qualify at what annually is the toughest regional event in the country.

With a respectable 5.700, she was in the field with one qualifying session to go, but an up-in-smoke leave in that third session left her on the outside looking in when four other drivers bumped into the field. “It was just too much for the track,” said Whiteley, who smoked the tires and coasted to a 14.33. “We have an all-new clutch [designed by the Leanders Brothers, who eventually won the race], and when you change something as big as that, it takes a little time to get everything sorted out like the old setup was. Eventually, this new clutch is going to be better, and this is just something we have to go through to get where we want to be.”