Pro Sportsman Association
Brand Holds the Edge in 2014 TAFC Championship Race
by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
It was a foregone conclusion that 2014 would be wide-open when all-time Alcohol Funny Car king Frank Manzo abdicated his throne late last year, and halfway through it, it absolutely is – the number 1 driver at this point probably isn’t going to win the championship. 1995 Top Alcohol Dragster champ and four-time Alcohol Funny Car runner-up Jay Payne has won more rounds than any driver in either alcohol class this year (16) but he’s also lost more (9).
It’s another sure Top 5 or Top 10 finish for Payne, who has more career victories than any active driver in either Top Alcohol Dragster or Funny Car, but the favorite at midseason is a driver who’s never even finished in the Top 10: Dale Brand, who had never run enough races to contend for a title until this year. He’s been in the late rounds everywhere he’s raced all year and with a little luck could have won all six.
Whiteley Reaches 3rd Final of 2014 and 3rd in a Row at Tulsa
Defending event champ Annie Whiteley, who had never lost a round at Tulsa Raceway Park in her Top Alcohol Funny Car career, 
dropped a close final to fellow championship contender Dale Brand, 5.61 to 5.62. Whiteley, who wheeled the YNot Racing/J&A Service Mustang to victory at the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series regional here in both 2012 and 2013, ran quicker than anyone had to that point, but Brand outran her by a scant hundredth of a second with low e.t. of the meet, 5.61. Both hit the finish line at 255 mph.
“Dale’s always good on the lights,” Whiteley said. “He got ahead early, and we stayed pretty much the same distance apart all the way to the finish line.”
Whiteley Reaches First Final of 2014 in Houston
Under gray, threatening skies at Houston’s Royal Purple Raceway, Annie Whiteley lost traction not far off the line in the Spring 
Nationals Top Alcohol Funny Car final and fell to Shane Westerfield. “It was spitting rain as we were staging,” she said. “I could see drops all over the windshield. They’d wipe ’em off, but then more drops would be right back on there. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen when we left, and I was kind of thinking they were going to shut us off. I didn’t make it very far before the car started shaking, but I got farther than Shane did.”
Westerfield, who, like Whiteley, broke through for his first national event victory last season, went up in smoke immediately, but he was able to recover and run a 6.31 for his second career title. Whiteley had no such opportunity when her kill switch vibrated into the “off” position during tire shake between the 1.0- and 1.5-second mark, silencing her engine and bringing a premature end to what had been a storybook weekend.
Pierce Back in the Game With Gene Snow’s A/FD
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Brandon Pierce still can’t believe he got the call. Drag racing legend Gene Snow could have picked anyone to drive his A/Fuel Dragster, but he called Pierce, who had been on the sidelines for a year and a half and was starting to think he might be stuck there forever.
“I was driving home from work one day and the phone rang,” Pierce said. “Gene said he wanted me to drive for him, and I said, ‘Are you sure you know who you’re talking to?’ I guess he thought I could cut the kind of lights he wants, and he sure has had some good people driving for him – Spencer [Massey] and Chase [Copeland.] I hadn’t run my car in a year and half, and I figured everybody had already forgotten all about me.”
Whiteley Completes Comeback With Quarterfinal Finish in Gainesville
After an enormous thrash that most teams wouldn’t even have attempted, Annie Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing Top Alcohol Funny Car team was right back at the top at the Amalie Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., Whiteley’s first national event appearance of the season. Just days before Whiteley and crew pulled into Gainesville, the entire left rear of her Mustang body was obliterated by a tire explosion at the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series regional event in Houston.
The YNot team, led by veteran crew chief Roger Bateman, got Whiteley’s old car from Topeka to the East Coast, where the body from her 2012 car was grafted onto her current chassis. Right out of the box, the car showed its potential when Whiteley stormed to a 5.59 in the first qualifying session, followed by a 5.54 in last-shot qualifying that positioned her No. 4 in the 16-car field. “I still can’t believe they got all that work done in such a short amount of time,” she said. “It was as good as new, right from the start.”
Whiteley Overcomes Houston Explosion to Race in Gainesville
Annie Whiteley will be in Gainesville this weekend for the Amalie Gatornationals after her team completed a massive rebuild following a tire explosion at the Lucas Oil Series regional event last weekend in Houston. In the first round of eliminations against eventual finalist Jay Payne, severe tire shake caused part of Whiteley’s wheelie bar to break off and puncture the left rear tire, setting off a massive explosion that blasted a hole in the entire left rear of her J&A Service/YNot Racing Mustang body.
“I’ve never been through anything like that,” said Whiteley, who has finished in the Top 5 in the NHRA national standings in each of her two seasons in Top Alcohol Funny Car. “It was shaking when I left and I was just trying to make it through low gear, and all of a sudden … BOOM. I didn’t know what was happening. Then stuff started raining down on me. It felt like the whole car was coming apart.”
2014 Top Alcohol Preview
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
When 2013 world champs Jim Whiteley and Frank Manzo peeled off their firesuits for the last time late last year at Pomona, the 
clouds parted for other Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car racers. Whiteley walked away from Top Alcohol Dragster racing after winning back-to-back championships in 2012 and 2013, and Manzo retired from Top Alcohol Funny Car competition as the hands-down greatest driver in class history with eight straight championships and 17 in all, a record for any driver in any category.
So who’ll win it all in 2014, the most wide-open season in years? The consensus picks are Chris Demke in Top Alcohol Dragster and Annie Whiteley in Top Alcohol Funny Car.
Ahten Back at Pomona, Looking For More
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Off the radar just a year ago, alcohol racing’s newest champion, Johnny Ahten, is one of the favorites to win Top Alcohol Dragster 
at the Winternationals after putting his name in the record books forever with an emotional victory at the 2013 World Finals, his first NHRA win anywhere.
“I got to savor that longer than anybody who won last year, and we’re right back at the same track,” says Ahten, a 42-year-old fireman from Santa Clarita, Calif. “I would have been thrilled to win even if there was an asterisk next to it, if all four guys red-lighted against me, but the way it happened really made it special.”
All Ahten did was trailer some of the biggest names ever: many-time national event winners Shawn Cowie and Joey Severance in the early rounds, Mark Taliaferro in the semifinals, and the man himself, outgoing world champ Jim Whiteley, in the final. “Cowie’s a pretty tough draw for a first-round race, and everybody knows Severance is one of the best drivers out there,” Ahten says. “Norm Grimes was already tuning Taliaferro’s car by then, and they’re probably the favorites to win the championship this year. And Whiteley … what can you say? We were in the lanes before the final, and there’s Whiteley standing at my tailgate, there’s Manzo, and there I was, part of the conversation. I was in awe. I told Jim I was about to have the best seat in the house when he ran another 5-teen, but by the time I got belted in the car, I was thinking, ‘This is it. I’m gonna do it.’ ”
Manzo Wins Final Race, Ahten Stops Whiteley
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Frank Manzo went out on top, winning his final race in Top Alcohol Funny Car, the AAA Finals at Pomona, with low e.t. and top speed, 
and Jim Whiteley narrowly missed doing the same in Top Alcohol Dragster, uncharacteristically faltering in the final against first-time winner Johnny Ahten after dominating all weekend.
Manzo, who has said all year that he would retire after the season, ran the only 5.4 all weekend and parlayed consistent low .50s, including a 5.53 in the final against Clint Thompson, into his 105th and last national event victory. “You don’t know you’re going to win 220-some races – however many it is – when you start racing,” said Manzo, 61, who also has 125 divisional/regional wins in his unparalleled career. “You just start, you keep going, and this is where you end up.”
Page Wins East Title in Just 3rd Season in TA/D
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
In just his third year in Top Alcohol Dragster, Dan Page topped the wide-open East Region, where six different drivers have won the 
championship in the past six years (including the Division 1 era) and everybody was in it to the end again.
“People race for years and never win a championship, and we got one,” said Page, who built the chassis, the same A/Fueler team owner Arthur Gallant drove to the national championship in 2002. “A lot of people would love to drive this car. Arthur knows what he’s doing, and the potential is there to win any race you go to. It’s unbelievable to get into something that’s run this good for this long with a team that’s this good at what they’re doing.”
