Tag: Steven (Page 5 of 7)

PRO MOD – DENVER 2017

August 6, 2017 / Todd Veney

Steven Whiteley outdrove and outran the top drivers in the world to reach the final round of the World Series of Pro Mod, the highest-paying race in class history, where, for maybe the first time ever for an event of this magnitude, no E.T.s or speeds appeared on the scoreboard.

There was no qualifying – pairings were completely random, drawn out of a hat in the weeks before the event. Everybody knew what they were running the whole time, but nobody ever knew what anybody else was. When the final was run and the tire smoke literally had cleared, it was revealed that just five 5-second times were recorded in the unfriendly climes of Denver’s mile-high Bandimere Speedway. Whiteley accounted for three of them all by himself, in the first, second, and semifinal rounds of eliminations.

One more 5-second run – anything close to a 5, actually – and Whiteley would have claimed the biggest payout in Pro Mod history, $100,000, but this was one time it didn’t pay to finish second. The World Series of Pro Mod, more than any drag race ever, was truly winner-take-all. Not only did first- and second-round losers receive no paycheck, but neither did the semifinalists. And neither did the runner-up. This one was all or nothing.

“That was a tough round to lose,” admitted Whiteley, who whose car annihilated the tires about 100 feet off the line in the final round. Upstart Michael Bowman had to lift, too, but he didn’t shake as severely as Whiteley did and got back on the throttle for a winning 6.27 at 239 mph – the only numbers to appear on the scoreboards all weekend – and the biggest payday in Pro Mod history.

“The car was straight as can be until the tire kicked out,” said Whiteley, who was off the mark first with a clutch .029 reaction time. “I got back on it, and it pushed me to the centerline. You never want to lift, but it wasn’t worth wrecking. Michael’s a good guy. He’s humble. He probably needed the money more than we did, and I’m just happy with how our car ran.”

Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot team ran between 5.97 and 5.99 in all three preliminary rounds, against local driver Tommy Johanns, Canadian Eric Latino, and Steve Matusek. Between them, the other 15 teams accounted for just two 5-second laps and Whiteley’s dad, YNot team leader Jim Whiteley, ran one of them. Matusek ran the other, a 5.98 in the semifinals, but Steven, whose worst light all weekend was a .032, beat him on a holeshot with a 5.99.

“It was a good weekend,” Whiteley concluded. “Bandimere’s basically our home track. We got to the final and the car ran great all weekend. I’m encouraged about Indy and the rest of the season, and I haven’t had this much fun racing in a long time.”

PRO MOD – NORWALK 2017

June 27, 2017 / Todd Veney

Steven Whiteley came through under huge pressure in last-shot qualifying at the NHRA Summit Racing Nationals to make the cut and extend the longest active consecutive-race qualifying streak in Pro Mod. Twenty-fifth on the list with a shutoff best of 9.13 when the session began, Whiteley was the first one down the track in the left lane. Charging off the line and speeding through the mid-range, he clocked a strong 5.87 at 248 mph – his highest speed since a 249-mph blast at Charlotte – for the No. 10 spot on the grid.

In the opening round, Whiteley cut one of the best lights of the entire event, .033, only to fall to Jonathan Gray when the former Pro Stock racer was even quicker with a .023 reaction time and a 5.83 opposite Whiteley’s otherwise fine 5.93. Whiteley, who opened the season with a victory at the Gatornationals, remains in the Top 5 in the J&A Service Pro Mod Series despite a second straight early exit in eliminations.

“It’s been a little rough the last two weeks, but it’s still the best season we’ve ever had, by far,” said Whiteley, who currently stands fourth in the rankings. “[Crew chief] Jeff [Perley] and all the guys have worked their tails off to make this car consistent, and you can tell by the number of rounds we’ve won and the number of times we’ve beaten higher-qualified cars.”

After racing on back-to-back-to-back weekends in New Jersey, Tennessee, and Ohio, teams get a two-month reprieve before the series picks back up with the biggest race of the season, the U.S. Nationals, in Indianapolis over Labor Day weekend. “That’s a lot of time to work on the car, test, and make everything better,” Whiteley said. “If we can stay in the Top 5 all season, maybe even move back up a couple spots, that would be incredible. You start out in this deal and you just want to qualify. Then you want to win rounds, and then you want to win a race. We’ve done all that now. We just need to keep going in this direction.”

PRO MOD – BRISTOL 2017

June 20, 2017 / Todd Veney

Knowing they were at a distinct disadvantage before they ever pulled through the Bristol Dragway gates, the father-and-son team of Jim and Steven Whiteley fought the good fight at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals. Both made the Pro Mod show, but when eliminations commenced, both got an unwanted reminder of something they already painfully aware of: supercharged cars like theirs will always be fighting with one hand tied behind their back when the altitude’s that high.

Jim’s immaculate ’69 Chevelle, tuned by supercharger authority Chuck Ford, ran a 5.96 to anchor the field, and son Steven Whiteley’s Cadillac CTS, tuned by Jeff Perley and already locked into the field before last-shot qualifying, improved to a 5.94 in that session to improve to the No. 12 spot. Jim, a huge underdog against No. 1 qualifier and eventual runner-up Shane Molinari, left first, as usual, but went up in smoke in low gear.

Steven, the second ranked driver in the J&A Pro Mod series, drew the toughest possible opponent in round one: reigning world champion Rickie Smith, who was undefeated in 2017, a winner in his only appearance since returning from back surgery. He cut a clutch a .047 light – the exact same light he had one week earlier in Englishtown in a must-win first-round matchup against the only driver ahead of him in the standings, Mike Castellana – but wily “Tricky Rickie” produced the second-quickest reaction time of the entire event, a .020, and outran Whiteley’s weekend-best 5.92 with a 5.86.

“Rickie can still pull out a light like that every once in a while,” Steven said. “That’s probably the quickest he’s ever staged against me – he’s not called ‘Tricky Rickie’ for nothing – but give him credit: he cut a great light. We could have beaten a lot of guys in that round with a .92 but not the guy we were racing.

“5.90s aren’t that great anymore,” Steven said, “but for a blown car at Bristol, they’re not too bad. You really can’t keep up with the nitrous cars and the turbo cars here on the mountain. That’s just the way it is. We get to Charlotte, we’re deadly. But here or Vegas – especially here – you know you’re at a disadvantage. To beat the turbo and nitrous cars, you have to outrace them. You have to be smarter than them, and that’s what we’ve tried to do all year: race smart.”

PRO MOD – ENGLISHTOWN 2017

June 12, 2017 / Todd Veney

Steven Whiteley stared down the pressure in a first-round matchup against the only driver ahead of him in the J&A Service Pro Mod standings, whipping feared Mike Castellana from one end of the track to the other in a must-win first-round showdown at the NHRA Summernationals.

“That round carried more weight than any round I’ve ever competed in,” Whiteley said. “The stakes were big – we all knew it going up there. I felt the pressure but I’ve also gotten to where it doesn’t matter what’s going on outside the car, because if you think about what’s at stake, you’re done. Once we rolled under the tower, I wasn’t thinking about anything but driving.”

At venerable Raceway Park in Englishtown, N.J., just 45 minutes from the heart of New York City, Whiteley drilled Castellana, usually one of the quickest-reacting drivers in Pro Mod, with a clutch .047 reaction time. Castellana was uncharacteristically late with a .103 and could only watch the J&A/YNot driver motor away for an easy 5.82 win that not only prevented Castellana from stretching his lead but cut into it. Castellana, a winner at Charlotte and Atlanta, nearly matched Whiteley’s e.t with a 5.85 but was never in the race.

“I never saw him, never heard him, nothing,” Whiteley said. “He’s a good dude, probably my favorite driver out there – good driver, doesn’t mess around on the starting line. That was a big race was big for us, no doubt about it. Mike was too far ahead for us to catch him this weekend, but there were a bunch of guys right behind us trying to take over second, and we held them all off.”

Cutting further into Castellana’s once seemingly insurmountable lead with a second-round decision over former Top Fuel driver Sidnei Frigo, Whiteley took the long way to a 5.91 victory. “The car moved around quite a bit that time,” he said. “I really had to do some driving on that one. We backed it down a little bit that time – maybe a little too much, actually – but it made it. For the semi’s, we had the tune-up a lot closer to where it would normally be, and the track said, ‘No way.’ It just kicked the tire off of it. I got back into it, but when I saw Rickie [Smith] off to my right, I knew I was done right there even if he blew up, and I lifted.”

Down 178 points coming into the Englishtown, Whiteley now trails the top-ranked Castellana by just seven rounds. “It’s going to take a while to catch him, but if we can keep cutting into the lead every time, we might just be OK,” he said.

PRO MOD – TOPEKA 2017

May 23, 2017 / Todd Veney

Steven Whiteley persevered through tornadoes that touched down across the Kansas plains early in the weekend, off-and-on rain that plagued qualifying, and horrendous mechanical carnage in eliminations to maintain second place in the Pro Mod standings.

In contention for the points lead all year with one consistent outing after another, Whiteley’s YNot Racing team bowed out in the Heartland Nationals quarterfinals after posting a strong 5.85 that positioned him 5th of more than 20 drivers in the first qualifying session. He slipped to 15th when a banzai attempt in the only other session ended in severe tire shake and found himself a huge underdog in the first round against Khalid Balooshi.

The former Pro Mod world champ and Top Fuel winner cut a perfectly fine .057 light but Whitely drilled him with a clutch .028 reaction time to win on a holeshot. With its tongue hanging out, his powerful Cadillac CTS, which easily would have run in the 5.70s on all eight cylinders, made it across the finish line first, but at just 244 mph. Balooshi’s turbocharged ’17 Camaro blew past him at 249, but only after they’d crossed the stripe in a 5.81 to 5.81 loss.

“That was a cool run,” Whiteley said. “We got lucky – he had a good light too – but we got the win. I used to cut .00s in my bracket car, but your leg is never going to be as quick as you hand is. I’ve worked at this for a long time, and I think it’s starting to come around. A deal like that, it’s pressure, and that actually helps – when you’re No. 15 and the other guy’s No. 2, you’ve got to cut a light.”

With no idea why the cylinder went out, the team, led by crew chief Jeff Perley, played it safe and changed everything for Sunday – new wire set, new coil, new cap. The power was there against second-round opponent Steven Matusek, but after leaving first Whiteley was left fighting for control when his car tried to shake itself apart.

“It destroyed basically everything,” he said. “The drive shaft, a couple 4-link bars, the wishbone, a rocker panel, a tire, the main hoop. The yoke was half-gone. The carbon driveshaft tunnel: destroyed. Looking at everything, you can’t really tell what happened first. The car will be fixed and heading back to North Carolina by Tuesday night, and then we’ll test the wheels off it, maybe at GALOT [Motorsports Park], where we’ve never run before. When Englishtown gets here, we’ll be ready.”

PRO MOD – ATLANTA 2017

May 9, 2017 / Todd Veney

After reaching the semifinals for the second time in a row and the third time in four races this season, Pro Mod star Steven Whiteley finds himself second in the J&A Service standings. Whiteley, who won the season opener in Gainesville, knocked off former national record holder Jonathan Gray in the first round of the NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway and former world champ Khalid Balooshi in the semifinals before losing to eventual winner Mike Castellana, the only driver ahead of him in the standings, in a photo-finish semifinal matchup.

“I should’ve had a better light that time, that’s all there is to it,” said Whiteley, who was anything but late with a solid .060 reaction time that gave him an imperceptible early lead on Castellana’s similar .065. They were locked side by side until the end of the quarter-mile, where Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Cadillac CTS came up five-thousandths of a second short, 5.77 to 5.78. The margin at the stripe was just 22 inches.

“If I would’ve pulled a .030 light or even a .040 that, we would’ve won,” said Whiteley, who actually just needed anything quicker than a .055. He was consistent throughout eliminations, with reaction times of .064, .058, and .060, E.T.s of 5.83, 5.82, and 5.78, and speeds of 248, 249, and 250 mph.

“Things are definitely going in the right direction, and ever since Gainesville there’s just been a new motivation around the team that we’ve never experienced before,” Whiteley said. “There’s a lot of pressure on our shoulders – the good kind, the kind you put on yourself. The way all these cars are running now, you really have to go for it every single time. If you don’t, you’re not going anywhere. I felt pretty good coming into Atlanta, but now, I feel better about this team than I’ve ever felt before – even better than when we won Gainesville.”

PRO MOD – CHARLOTTE 2017

May 2, 2017 / Todd Veney

Jim and son Steven Whiteley both reached the semifinals in Pro Mod’s highly anticipated debut at the unpredictable 4-Wide Nationals, which fans love and drivers in other classes have come to dread. “I know what the pros have said in the past, but I loved it,” said Jim, whose sentiments were echoed by not just Steven but 85 percent of the dozens of Pro Mod drivers who descended upon zMax Dragway for the first time.

“It’s hardest for the guys in the inside lanes,” Steven said. “It’s not just that there are four stage lights to keep track of instead of just two; it’s that if you’re in lane 2 or lane 3, you’re not looking at the Tree the way you have at every other track you’ve ever been to. That’s what messes everybody up. You’ve really got to train yourself ahead of time.”

Just qualifying, as is the case at every event on the J&A Service Pro Mod tour, where 30 drivers are vying for a spot in the field every weekend, is an accomplishment. Jim made the top half of the field with a 5.83 at 247 mph for the No. 7 spot and Steven, despite running just two-hundredths slower than his dad, a 5.85 at 249, was six spots behind him in 13th.

In the first round of eliminations, Jim left on everybody in his quad and advanced easily with a 5.836, matching his qualifying time right to the thousandth of a second. He finished second to eventual winner Mike Castellana and well ahead of former Pro Stock great Larry Morgan, who’s in his first season of Pro Mod, and veteran Danny Rowe. (In 4-wide competition, the top two drivers from each quad move on to the next round.)

Coming from the bottom half of the field, Steven beat everybody with by far his best run of the weekend, an outstanding 5.79 at 251 mph. Jonathan Gray survived with a 5.85, Michael Bowman lost on a holeshot with a 5.81, and Pete Farber, who outqualified them all, shook hard and shut off early.

Steven had his pick of the four lanes for his semifinal matchup, but violent shake did him in not far off the line. “I could see the guy on the same track as me way ahead and knew I was never going to catch him,” he said. “I might have tried to get back on it because you never know what the guys on the other track are doing, but I could actually see Troy [Coughlin] over the wall when he passed me, and there was no way I was going to beat them both.”

Jim suffered a similar fate, coasting to a 12.05 at 99 mph, but once again he left on all the other drivers. Both Whiteleys walked away with a smile on their faces. “This whole thing was awesome,” Steven said. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be, and it was actually a lot of fun. I can’t wait to get back here next year.”

PRO MOD – HOUSTON 2017

April 23, 2017 / Todd Veney

Jim Whiteley entered the NHRA SpringNationals in Houston as the defending event champ and son Steven did so as top-ranked driver on the J&A Service Pro Mod tour, winner of the season-opening Gatornationals. It ended in disappointment for both drivers, Jim in qualifying when he surprisingly failed to make the cut and Steven in the first round of eliminations.

“This was a big letdown after everything that happened in Gainesville,” said Steven, who fell in the first round to eventual winner Steve Matusek. “Winning Gainesville took a little bit of pressure off, just getting that first win, but it added some too because now everybody wants to take you out.”

Steven, twice a No. 1 qualifier already in his young career, entered last-shot qualifying just 25th in the field with a shutoff best of 6.35. Under immense pressure, he pounded out a 5.85 at 247 mph to make the program in the No. 12 position. Jim, whose earlier 5.93 had him comfortably in the field at the time, slipped to 21st by the time he staged in the final session and missed the race with a tire-shaking shutoff run.

In the first round, after lengthy delays for oildowns and the cleanup from Bob Rahaim’s scary double-wallbanger crash, Steven bolted off the line with a .053 reaction and was well on his way to a run well into the fives when the car got loose beyond half-track. He stayed with it until the very end, getting right on the edge of disaster without crossing it before finally relenting and reluctantly stepping off the gas. Matusek charged ahead and took the win with a 5.81, matching his qualifying time.

“This was the last thing I wanted after how well everything went in Gainesville,” Steven said. “These cars are so hard to keep consistent and you don’t want to let yourself fall into ‘Here we go again’ after a weekend like this, so we’ll just pick up from here and move on. I know what this team is capable of doing – we just did it in Gainesville.”

PRO MOD – GAINESVILLE 2017

March 21, 2017 / Todd Veney

With the quickest, fastest, most consistent runs of his Pro Mod career – a barrage of 5.70s and low 5.80s at more than 250 mph – Steven Whiteley stopped many-time winner Mike Castellana and crew chief Frank Manzo in the Gatornationals final for his biggest victory to date. “It’s just an unbelievable feeling,” said Whiteley, who watched his mom, Annie Whiteley, win Top Alcohol Funny Car one pair ahead of him. “When she won, it really sent the pressure on me through the roof. I thought, ‘Now, I have to win this thing.’ ”

With his best reaction time and best E.T. of the weekend and the fastest speed of his career, he did. For father Jim Whiteley, who also qualified for the Pro Mod field in Gainesville, the dual wins surpassed anything he ever personally accomplished on the quarter-mile. “I’m overwhelmed,” said Jim, who won dozens of races and multiple NHRA championships as a Top Alcohol Dragster driver. “This means more than any race I ever won. If none of us ever wins again, this weekend makes my whole drag racing career worthwhile.”

Steven, a two-time No. 1 qualifier in NHRA competition (in Charlotte in 2014 and in St. Louis last year), started at the top, leading a giant field of qualifiers after the first session with a 5.80-flat. He eventually dipped to the No. 5 spot with that e.t., but when others faltered in eliminations, Whiteley got only stronger, cutting better lights as the day wore on and never losing his consistency.

“The car was perfect all weekend, and I owe it all to my team,” Whiteley said of the J&A Service/YNot team, led by crew chief Jeff Perley. “I could not be more appreciative of what they do, day after day, week after week. Testing at Bradenton went really well, the whole team has been working well together, and I just had a good feeling coming into this race.”

Whiteley topped one major event winner after another in eliminations, starting with door-car legend Todd Tutterow in the opening round, 5.79/252 to 5.86/247. Former series champion Mike Janis slipped into Whiteley’s lane in the quarterfinals, but the second-generation driver was long gone for a 5.80/251 win that set up a titanic semifinal clash with two-time NHRA Pro Mod champ Troy Coughlin, who had beaten Brazilian Sidnei Frigo in the semifinals in the quickest race in Pro Mod history, 5.75 to 5.72.

“Now, that was nerve-wracking,” Whiteley said of the Coughlin matchup. “It’s not just that he was coming off a 5.75 – he was coming off a .00 light, too.” Coughlin, runner-up for the 2016 championship, just missed another .00 reaction time with a telepathic .012, but Whiteley had him covered by several car lengths at the finish line, 5.82/251 to Coughlin’s 6.21/197.

The final was over early. Castellana blew the tires off early, and Whiteley was home free. Anything would have done, but he punctuated the victory with his quickest and fastest run ever in NHRA trim, a 5.791 at 253.52 mph. “The best part of it was the way Castellana was to me,” Whiteley said of the many-time NHRA winner. “He could not have been any cooler, and that’s something I’ll always remember.”

PRO MOD – LAS VEGAS 2016

November 1, 2016 / Todd Veney

In his probably his best outing since he beat world champ Rickie Smith in the Houston final early this season, Jim Whiteley capped off a successful 2016 campaign with his third semifinal showing in the 10-race J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod Series.

Whiteley catapulted from the bubble to the final four at the NHRA Toyota Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with increasingly quicker runs in his J&A Service/YNot Racing ’69 Chevelle. He made the cut with a pair of five-second runs in qualifying, including a 5.959 at 242.23 mph, then picked up the pace in eliminations.

Against former Top Fuel racer Sidnei Frigo, whose qualifying crash at Houston enabled Whiteley to go from the first alternate spot to the winner’s circle, Whiteley picked up dramatically to a 5.92 but didn’t need it when Frigo blatantly red-lighted with a -.246 light. Frigo, winless against Whiteley in three career meetings, nearly duplicated his 5.82 No. 1 qualifying time with a wasted 5.83.

In the second round, Whiteley met Clint Hairston, who prevented a father-son matchup by defeating son Steven Whiteley in the first round despite Steven’s outstanding .026 reaction time. Jim also had a .026 light against Hairston and parlayed it into another round-win with his quickest run of the weekend, a 5.90 at 243 mph. Hairston trailed with a solid .056 light and a right-there 5.93.

The show came to an end in the semifinals when Whiteley, who almost never gets left on, even in qualifying, was too quick for his own good. He red-lighted by 0.25-second, sending door-car legend Todd Tutterow to his first career final, where he lost to championship runner-up Troy Coughlin.

Smith edged Coughlin for the 2016 J&A Service NHRA Pro Mod Series championship by an even points, 794 to 744. Steven and Jim Whiteley barely missed the Top 10, finishing 11th and 12th, respectively, with 340 and 307 points, just behind second-generation star Billy Glidden, who anchored the Top 10 with 380.