Tag: TAFC (Page 4 of 14)

TAFC – LAS VEGAS REGIONAL 2021

November 8, 2021 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley wound up probably the most difficult year of her career right where it all began a decade ago, The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, trending in a positive direction for maybe the first time since the first race of this long season. When qualifying was complete, she didn’t just have low e.t. of the meet, she had low e.t., the second-lowest e.t., and the fourth-lowest e.t. – two 5.50s and a 5.51.

Running as close to the .40s as possible without actually running one, Whiteley claimed the top spot with a time of exactly five and a half seconds – 5.500 at 266.27 mph. The speed ended up second behind only the 266.48-mph charge of eventual winner Sean Bellemeur and the Bartone Bros. team led by Steve Boggs.

“Doug Gordon’s team really helped us with the clutch,” Whiteley said, “and I mean really helped us. It’s pretty unbelievable for somebody like them, a team that won the championship last year and just about won it again this year, to do something like that for somebody else, but that’s exactly what they did.”

In the first round against Alaska’s Ray Martin, like her one of the very, very few ever to win their first Top Alcohol Funny Car start, Whiteley drilled him on the Tree. She was out first by more than half a tenth, .080 to .131, and, despite coasting across the finish line at barely 210 mph, emerged victorious. “The blower belt broke,” she explained after narrowly advancing with a 5.71/211 over Martin’s fast-closing 5.75/252.

Sunday afternoon in the first pair of the semi’s, Whiteley’s luck ran out. Gordon put away No. 2 qualifier Terry Ruckman, 5.56/265 to 5.68/252, in the other pair, and she outran both of them – but, unfortunately for her, not the only one that mattered. She and Bellemeur, who locked up the national championship here last weekend, pre-staged simultaneously and staged almost at the same time, but the now three-time champ pulled steadily ahead of her for a 5.51/265 to 5.54/264 victory.

Whiteley’s final scorecard for the 2021 season: a win (Belle Rose), a runner-up (Martin on the Mid-West Drag Racing Series tour), three semifinal finishes (this weekend in Las Vegas and the Ferris and Tulsa MWDRS events), 11th place in the NHRA standings, fourth in the MWDRS, and a positively un-Whiteleylike overall win-loss record of 10-14.

TAFC – LAS VEGAS NATIONAL 2021

November 1, 2021 / Todd Veney

With a promising performance at the penultimate race of a largely forgettable 2021 season, Annie Whiteley might just have turned the corner heading into the 2022 campaign. Plagued by one thing after another from the time she left Belle Rose, La., with a victory in the season opener, 2021 was the very definition of a down year. This second-to-last weekend of the season was anything but.

From a decent 5.60 at 263 mph on her opening hit, Whiteley got only quicker every trip back under The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway arch. She posted a significantly better 5.54/264 Friday afternoon and an incrementally quicker and faster 5.53/265 in last-shot qualifying Saturday morning for the No. 6 spot in the 16-car Top Alcohol Funny Car field.

That afternoon in the first round of eliminations, as she had on almost every other run, Whiteley laid down her best pass all weekend, leaving on former national event winner Kris Hool and outrunning him to boot. Her right-down-the-groove 5.52/265 wasted his aborted 9.65 at 113 mph and improved her all-time head-to-head record against the Wyoming veteran to a tidy 6-3. It wasn’t just her quickest run of the event; it was all 16 drivers’ quickest run of the first round, including championship contenders Sean Bellemeur (5.58) and Doug Gordon (5.66).

That night, immediately after the nitro cars wrapped up qualifying for Sunday’s race, Whiteley faced quarterfinal opponent Chris Marshall, who, like her, split his time this year between the NHRA and MWDRS circuits. They left, and her car, as if pulled by some giant magnet buried under the centerline, strayed inexorably to the right until she finally relented somewhere in high gear.

“It pulled me over toward the centerline, and I had to pull it back,” Whiteley said. “Then it did it again, and I pulled it back again, but when it tried to pull me over there again in high gear I thought, ‘Nahhhh … that’s enough,’ and shut it off.” Marshall collected the round-win with a 5.56/264, while Whiteley, despite clicking it early and coasting across the stripe at only 222 mph, still recorded a 5.64.

TAFC – FERRIS 2021

October 25, 2021 / Todd Veney

The only good thing about Annie’s 2021 Mid-West Drag Racing Series season is that it’s over. A solid reaction time and a competitive run at the Xtreme Texas World Finals only got her another first-round loss, her third straight in what’s turned out to be the most disappointing year of her long, successful 10-year driving career.

Things got off to a promising enough start at Xtreme Raceway Park in tiny Ferris, Texas, just outside Dallas, when Whiteley clocked a 3.71 at 210.58 mph in the second Funny Car session and a steady 3.72/209.89 in the third. Both speeds held up as the fastest of the entire session, but her 3.71 E.T. was good for only the No. 6 spot overall – not bad, usually, but, in this case, not that great: there were just six Funny Cars in attendance.

Instead of No. 1 vs No. 6, 2 vs. 5 and 3 vs. 4 in the first round as with a traditional six-car NHRA ladder, No. 1 qualifier Sean Bellemeur and No. 2 qualifier Chris Marshall soloed in the first round under the MWDRS’ unconventional format, and the semifinals featured a full complement of four cars. Unfortunately for Whiteley, her J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro wasn’t one of them.

She charged off the line with her best reaction time of the race, a more than respectable .070, and dipped into the 3.60s with her quickest run all weekend, a 3.69, but Bill Bernard, clinging to an outside shot at the championship, nipped her in the lights in a rematch of last month’s U.S. 131 Nationals final. He clocked a 3.67 to win, then lost in the semifinals to Sean Bellemeur, who clinched the title and subsequently topped second-place Marshall in the final to win a second crown going away.

TAFC – DALLAS 2021

October 11, 2021 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley was doing fine at the NHRA Fall Nationals, right up until she wasn’t. Half of the quickest side-by-side race in history at the Texas Motorplex in 2017, still the fastest Top Alcohol Funny Car driver of all time (276.18 mph) in 2018, and survivor of a nasty sand-trap crash here later that year, she was gone early this time.

Heading into final qualifying, Whiteley was No. 2 on the provisional grid with a 5.51, second only to the 5.47 of eventual winner Doug Gordon. But one good run gets you only so far, and when she failed to improve in the pivotal third and final qualifying session, other teams did step up – way up.

With invaluable assistance from Sean Bellemeur’s crew chief, mechanical genius Steve Boggs, Aryan Rochon ran a career-best 5.47 for the No. 2 spot; 2017 world champ Shane Westerfield made his best run all season, another 5.47, for No. 3; and Matt Gill, who joined the ranks of national event champions earlier this year in Atlanta, slipped ahead of the J&A Service/YNot Racing team’s 5.516 and into the No. 4 position with a 5.510.

It just served to push Whiteley from No. 2 down to No. 5 and made surviving the first round of eliminations that much more unlikely a proposition. There wasn’t a single pushover in the entire field (every team in attendance ran at least a 5.50-something), but drawing perennial top-three driver Brian Hough first round called to mind what happened here two years ago: Whiteley qualified in the top half of the field, got stuck running Hough first round, and lost.

This was different – neither one of them ran any good. Hough’s crew chief, multi-talented Jonnie Lindberg, acutely aware of just how fast Whiteley’s car might run, had his car way too hopped up, and Hough stumbled downtrack to a backpedaling, off-pace 5.88. Problem was, Whiteley’s car leaped off the ground the instant she swapped feet and swung a hard left, leaving her no choice but to lift. With plenty of time to think about what might have been, she was left to idle downtrack to a 12-second time with “5.88” and the win-light shining on the scoreboard in the other lane.

TAFC – TULSA 2021

October 4, 2021 / Todd Veney

From the beginning, Annie Whiteley seemed destined to finish fourth in the 2021 Mid-West Drag Racing Series Funny Car standings. Right in the middle of it race after race but somehow always a half-step behind, she hit Tulsa, her childhood home, dead-set on nabbing that elusive first career MWDRS event title.

It didn’t happen. Bill Bernard arrived with a four-point lead over incoming favorite Sean Bellemeur, who’d earned more points per race than anyone all year but skipped the U.S. 131 Nationals to run the NHRA event at Maple Grove. Whiteley and Chris Marshall were right behind both, but at the conclusion of back-to-back events over three days of the epic Throwdown in T-Town doubleheader, her YNot Racing/J&A Service team was officially out of title contention.

It wasn’t that Whiteley didn’t have an opportunity to stay in the points race or that she just didn’t run hard. She did. The six-time NHRA national event champion qualified fifth for the Thursday/Friday event and powered into the semifinals, where she was upended by eventual winner Bellemeur, 3.72 to a shutoff 9.52. Marshall ran quicker in the final, but Bellemeur, who’s forged a reputation as one of the finest drivers ever to strap into an Alcohol Funny Car, got him on a holeshot.

Marshall then led all qualifiers for the other race with an outstanding 3.60, just ahead of Bellemeur’s 3.62 and Whiteley’s 3.66. He’d go on to claim a crucial final-round win when Bellemeur’s crankshaft snapped in half around the half-track mark, setting in motion one of the more violent explosions in the history of alcohol racing and more or less destroying his whole car. By then, Whiteley had already been eliminated, victimized by second-generation driver Bryan Brown, 3.69/207 to her shutoff 4.20/133.

All in all, the YNot team displayed remarkable consistency throughout the 2021 campaign, scoring 69 points in Ferris, 66 at the rescheduled I-30 race in Tulsa, 69 in Tulsa, 67 in Great Bend, and 70 in Martin, but this 48-point effort knocked them out of the championship. With one race left, the title’s now officially out of reach – a win is worth 110 points, and Whiteley trails Bellemeur by 118.

TAFC – MARTIN 2021

September 13, 2021 / Todd Veney

Numerous forces conspired to deplete the car count at the Mid-West Drag Racing Series’ U.S. 131 Nationals: the ongoing war for the 2021 NHRA Top Funny Car championship at Maple Grove between Sean Bellemeur and Doug Gordon for one, and a vital Central Regional in Earlville for another. But what the MWDRS field may have lacked in quantity it more than made up for, as they say, in quality: all three teams in attendance ran 3.60s, and two of them just missed the .50s.

At completely renovated U.S. 131 Dragway, host of the Popular Hot Rodding Championships, the biggest independent Funny Car race of the ’70s and early ’80s, no one was quicker or faster than Annie Whiteley, who reached her second final of 2021. Hunting down her first event title ever in this series, Whiteley, who reached the semi’s at Ferris in her only other MWDRS start this year, came out on the wrong end of a classic final-round matchup with the converter-equipped car of Bill Bernard.

With just three Funny Cars in attendance in tiny Martin, Mich., halfway between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, qualifying No. 1 meant a bye to the final, and Whiteley got it by just three-thousandths of a second over No. 2 Chris Marshall, 3.606 to 3.609. In the first round, which, in the unusual three-car format, doubled as the semi’s, Whiteley moved into her first final since the Belle Rose season opener with a smooth 3.69 single and Bernard upset Marshall on a holeshot in the other semi in a great race, 3.67 to 3.65.

Then, in the exciting under-the-lights final, Bernard’s Mustang and Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro were locked side by side right to the eighth-mile mark, where Bernard’s 3.670 at 204.17 mph barley held off Whiteley’s fast-closing 3.679 at 211.47. With the victory, Bernard assumed the points lead, but, with three races to go, it’s still a wide-open affair between him, Bellemeur, Whiteley, and Marshall for the 2021 MWDRS Funny Car championship.

TAFC – INDY 2021

September 6, 2021 / Todd Veney

On the strength of two absolutely killer qualifying runs at the NHRA U.S. Nationals, Annie Whiteley, who’s always performed well there but had never quite gone all the way, surged into the quarterfinals again this year. The J&A Service/YNot Racing driver, who’s staged for the Indy Top Alcohol Funny Car final three times (2013-15-16), the semi’s six times, and has never failed to win at least one first round, again went rounds on drag racing’s grandest stage.

The lengthy weekend got off to a promising start Thursday afternoon when Whiteley’s team, led by veteran crew chief Mike Strasburg, posted back-to-back 5.48s, both at exactly 268.92 mph, which ended up standing, for the second year in a row, for top speed of the entire event, including Jegs Allstars competition. After an aborted 11.43 on a final attempt cut short by low-gear shake, Whiteley still clearly held the upper hand entering eliminations.

Her first-round opponent: surprise 2020 Winternationals winner Aryan Rochon, who, after spending a couple weeks with the Sean Bellemeur/Steve Boggs/Tony Bartone juggernaut learning the ins and outs of running a top-flight Alcohol Funny Car team, presented a far greater threat than he would have just a month ago. Qualified 13 spots behind Whiteley, Rochon, who refused to lift in the first round at Atlanta and slammed into the wall at half-track, backed off this time when his car made a move around half-track and slowed to a 6.39 at just 166 mph. Going exactly 100 mph faster, Whiteley crossed the finish line well ahead of him for a smooth 5.52/266 win.

Opposite Andy Bohl in the delayed quarterfinals, in a rematch of the 2015 final, Whiteley was undone by traction problems and ultimately had to click it off to a disappointing 8.69 at 105 mph. Bohl had ignition problems but still moved on with a 5.64/263, shooting ducks all the way through low gear.

“We were all set up to run that round at 9:30 in the morning – that’s when they told us it was going to be,” Whiteley said. “The conditions were a lot better then than when we finally ran, and we kind of hem-hawed around about changing the transmission but didn’t. We probably should have. Right after we ran, Mike said, ‘I knew we should’ve gone back to that other ratio.’ “

TAFC – GREAT BEND 2021

August 22, 2021 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley, who began 2021 the way she begins every season – by dominating the Belle Rose Regional – trounced Bryan Brown, whose only career win also came in Belle Rose, in the first round of the Mid-West Drag Racing Series’ Great Bend Nationals. At historic SRCA Drag Strip in Great Bend, Kan., home of drag racing’s first national event, the 1955 NHRA Nationals, she came up a round short of yet another final-round appearance, falling in the semi’s to incoming points leader Sean Bellemeur.

Racing on the Kansas prairie for the first time in her 10-year career, Whiteley qualified the J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro with a 3.71 – the exact same E.T. husband Jim recorded in his classic split-window Corvette for the top spot in Pro Mod, and, coincidentally, two-hundredths of a second from the 3.73 twin sister Anita ran to qualify No. 1 in Top Dragster. In Alcohol Funny Car, Annie’s 3.71 was good only for the No. 4 spot, behind Sean Bellemeur (No. 1, 3.64) eventual runner-up Chris Marshall (No. 2, 3.65), and Colorado’s Bill Bernard (No. 3, 3.69).

Separated by one qualifying spot and just eight-thousandths of a second – 3.713 to 3.721 – No. 4 Whiteley vs. No. 5 Brown should’ve been the closest matchup of the first round. It wasn’t. Whiteley won it in a landslide with the second-quickest, second-fastest run of the entire frame, a 3.68 at 206 mph that easily handled Brown’s distant 3.85 at 196.

Another 3.68 in the semifinals would have propelled Whiteley into another final – Bellemeur, the defending series champion, managed just a 3.84, coasting across the finish line at 189 mph. Unfortunately for Whiteley and crew chief Mike Strasburg, their powerful machine had already dropped back, rolling through with a 7.18 at 66 mph on the eighth-mile Great Bend course. Next up for the YNot team is the most prestigious event in drag racing, the NHRA U.S. Nationals, where Whiteley has made three finals and six semifinals in eight career starts.

TAFC – NORWALK 2021

June 28, 2021 / Todd Veney

You can’t cut a light when the clutch pedal doesn’t feel right and you definitely can’t win when your blower belt decides it’s had enough halfway through high gear. Thwarted by both, Annie Whiteley pulled out of the Summit Nationals with a disappointing quarterfinal finish despite never making a bad run all weekend.

The J&A Service/YNot Racing driver sped to a 5.60 at 267 mph Friday afternoon in the first of what turned out to be just two Top Alcohol Funny Car qualifying sessions, and followed with a 5.57 at 266, settling into the No. 5 position on the 15-car grid. In the first round, home-state veteran Tony Bogolo offered little resistance, running a polite 5.73/251 that she easily overpowered with a 5.57/267. Whiteley advanced, and on the surface all was good, but .115 reaction times weren’t going to carry her to victory.

“The car kept lurching when I’d go to roll in,” she said. “You’re bearing down as hard as you can on the clutch and the brake, and every time you’d rev it up, it was like, ‘Whoa,’ and you’d have to shove down harder on the clutch and pull harder on the brake, and how can you cut a light like that?”

Sunday afternoon in the rain-delayed quarterfinals, Whiteley was well on her way to another 5.50-something against eventual winner DJ Cox’s, 5.57/264 until the blower belt broke, slowing her to a 5.73 at just 213 mph and costing her any chance at winning. “I don’t want to jinx us, but that’s the first blower belt we’ve broke in probably six years,” she said.

But the problem right now isn’t blower belts – it’s the uneasy relationship between the clutch pedal and Whiteley’s left foot. “I need enough air gap so the car doesn’t go anywhere when I try to roll in,” she said. “Jim told me, ‘Annie, you should be able to roll that car into the beams with two fingers on the brake handle.’ It’s just so frustrating sometimes. Doug Gordon’s team was nice enough to give us a base setup with everything you need to get started with a Molinari clutch, and I really hope that works because we’ve got to get this figured out.”

TAFC – DENVER 2021

June 21, 2021 / Todd Veney

Perennial title contender Annie Whiteley has always excelled at her home track, winning the Central Regional in 2018, making three other final-round appearances (2014, 2015, and 2019), and qualifying No. 1 three years in a row (2014-16) and four times overall, including last year. But this year, picturesque Bandimere Speedway, on the easternmost ridge of the Rocky Mountains in suburban Denver, wasn’t kind to Top Alcohol Funny Car’s most successful female driver ever. As has happened all too often since her season-opening victory in Belle Rose, La., the weekend ended in a frustrating first-round loss, her fourth in a row in NHRA competition.

Though just hundredths of a second from the pole, Whiteley qualified mid-pack and was unceremoniously bounced first round of eliminations in the most infuriating possible manner: on a holeshot. Heading into last-shot qualifying with a best of 5.76 at 253 mph, she guided the J&A Service/YNot Racing Top Alcohol Funny Car to a straight-as-six-o’clock 5.75/254 to lock down the No. 4 spot.

All around her were other national event champions running in the 5.70s in the thin mountain air: incoming national points leader Doug Gordon (5.71), 2017 world champion Shane Westerfield (5.72), former national winner Kris Hool (5.79), and 2020’s third-ranked driver, Brian Hough, who just missed the .70s with a 5.80-flat. Upstart Kyle Smith also ran a 5.75, but he was four-thousandths of a second quicker than her 5.758 with a 5.754 that earned him the No. 2 position and a much more favorable first-round matchup with Steve Macklyn, who was about a tenth and a half slower than them.

Whiteley, as she always seems to do, got just the wrong opponent in the always nerve-wracking opening round – Hool, who sometimes red-lights, but, when he’s on his game, can cut a light with anybody. Against Whiteley, he did. And, naturally, he made his quickest and fastest run all weekend right then. After an excellent .037 reaction time, Hool had it all the way for a 5.78/249 win over her slightly quicker 5.75/256, which held up for top speed of the meet to the very end, when Gordon tied it in a 5.69 final-round win over Westerfield.

“I just can’t cut a light at this track,” Whiteley said. “Same thing at Belle Rose. At Belle Rose, it’s because they have to back everything down so much to make it down the track that the car won’t move off the staring line. Here … I don’t know what it is.”