Pro Sportsman Association
Whiteley Completes Perfect Season in TAFC, Martin wins TAD
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Las Vegas, NV – At the 24th and final regional event of the year, the husband-and-wife team of Jim and Annie Whiteley locked up West 
Region championships at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Jim in Top Alcohol Dragster and rookie Annie in Top Alcohol Funny Car. Jim clinched the title when yearlong rival Chris Demke hit the wall in the first round, and Annie completed a perfect five-win regional season, putting away Tony Bartone in the final just as she had at this same track eight months ago for her first win anywhere. Ray Martin of Anchorage persevered in Top Alcohol Dragster, where there were a lot more good runs in qualifying than in eliminations, for his third final-round appearance of the year and first win.
It was a huge upset when Whiteley beat Bartone here this spring in just her fourth start in a Funny Car, and Bartone again was the favorite after qualifying No. 1, but Whiteley left first with a .048 light and made her best run of the weekend, 5.57. “The car didn’t shake at all,” she said. “Absolutely no issues. He shook, and that was it.” Bartone slowed to a 5.76, almost the same e.t. he ran against her in their first head-to-head final.
Reichert Wins Fourth Straight North Central TAD Title
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Photo by Steve Fuhrman
In what would be a career year for most, Bill Reichert clinched a fourth straight North Central championship and at least third place in 
the national standings. If he stays second, it will be for a Greg Anderson-like seven years in a row, but when you’re easily the driver of the decade and still not far removed from five consecutive national championships, nothing less than another one is ever enough.
“Not winning it is definitely a disappointment, but we really wanted this regional championship too,” said Reichert, who now has 10 in 20 years driving a Top Alcohol Dragster. “There was a time when this one wasn’t looking too likely.”
With back-to-back losses in his first two regional starts, Indianapolis and Norwalk, the season got off to a wobbly start. Already out of mulligans under the new points format – best three of five regionals for national points, best five of seven for regional points – Reichert then swept the next three regionals, Maple Grove, Chicago, and Columbus, defeating Duane Shields at Maple Grove, 5.45 to 5.45, upstart Dave Heitzman at Chicago, and veteran Robin Samsel at Columbus.
Eastern TAD Championship Caps McPhillips’ Career Year
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Photo by David Smith
With a national event victory, four final-round appearances in regional competition, and his first regional/divisional championship in 
20 years, Rich McPhillips had the best season of his career in 2012. “I don’t even want to think how many times I came in second – a half-dozen, at least,” said McPhillips, who won the East Region Top Alcohol Dragster title over Dan Mercier, Duane Shields, Richard Bourke, and John Finke after a yearlong battle in which each driver won just once. McPhillips was runner-up at three of his first four regionals – Gainesville, Richmond, and Lebanon Valley – and pulled ahead with a win in his final regional start of the season, in Bowling Green, Ky., where he hadn’t raced since 1991.
“We were pretty confident that if we rolled out of there with a win, we could close the door on a lot of people,” he said. “The semifinals against the Canadian [Mercier] was crucial. He had us covered early, and that was probably the whole championship right there.”
Ferro Wins North Central TAFC Championship
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Photo by David Smith
He’s still looking for that elusive first Top Alcohol Funny Car national championship, but Mickey Ferro is number 1 in one of the 
toughest regions in the country, the North Central, where there are enough 5.50 cars to fill up entire eight-car fields. In five regional starts this year, Ferro reached the final every time, winning two – both on holeshots – and taking runner-up at the other three.
The Stamford, Conn., veteran opened the season with a final-round loss to Kris Hool in February at Gainesville, then won Chicago over yearlong rival Chris Foster and Columbus over upstart Tony Bogolo and wrapped up the title with back-to-back runner-ups on consecutive weekends in August.
Pro Sportsman Association Profile – Todd Robertson
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Photo by Dave Smith
Todd Robertson, who lined up against championship contender Tony Bartone in the first round of the U.S. Nationals, has to be the only
Top Alcohol Funny Car driver in the field who, just a couple of years ago, hadn’t even heard of Bartone.
Until this year, Robertson operated far from the world of NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car racing but drove a car just about as fast, a Pro Mod that he raced in Milan Dragway’s eighth-mile Run What Ya Brung series. “That door car would make a lot of fast, crazy moves,” said Robertson, who works on hot rods and other race cars and has built and tuned a seven-second, 650-horsepower snowmobile. “I wasn’t racing on ADRL surfaces – they were Friday night surfaces – and the groove was always narrow.”
Robertson enjoyed his best season in 2010, qualifying No. 1 nine times in 11 races, reaching the final round at seven, and winning four. “I drove that blown Pro Mod for four years, and the first two years, if it the car did anything stupid, I’d lift and people would call me a [sissy],” he said. “By the third year, after some runs they’d tell me they couldn’t believe I stayed with it that long, and by the fourth year, my crew would get mad at me sometimes because I wouldn’t lift no matter what the car was doing.”
Brounkowski, Lombardo Win Central Region Closer at Noble
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Noble OK – In Noble, Okla., at the second-to-last regional event anywhere this season, David Brounkowski collected his first Top Alcohol Dragster victory in two years in a thrilling final against Mark Taliaferro, and John Lombardo Jr. earned his second win of the
season in Top Alcohol Funny Car.
With an excellent .038 reaction time, Brounkowski got the jump on Taliaferro, who had a not-bad .062, and won by a few feet, 5.409 to 5.402. “I never saw him the whole way, but then I never look,” said Brounkowski. “The sides of the car are so high that you can’t see anybody unless they’re way out there ahead of you.” He never noticed his win-light, either. “I’m too busy driving the car to look,” he said.
Brounkowski’s semifinal match with Randy Meyer was nearly as close. Meyer was off the mark first in that race, Brounkowski came around him to win by two-hundredths of a second, 5.37 to 5.42, and both drivers got out of their cars not knowing if they’d won or lost. Even Brounkowski’s first-round match was a tight one; he edged two-time 2012 regional event winner and incoming Central Region points leader Gord Gingles, 5.40 to 5.45.
Demke, Whiteley Pad West Region Leads in Woodburn
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Woodburn, OR – Incoming West Region points leaders Chris Demke and Annie Whiteley swept the West Region event at Woodburn Dragstrip, Demke scoring for the second time this season in regional competition and Whiteley for the fourth.
Whiteley’s husband, Jim, was neck and neck with Demke in the Top Alcohol Dragster final until his car banged the blower near the 1,000-foot mark, slowing him to a 5.41 at just 217 mph. “I heard the boom,” Demke said. “I heard him right alongside me the whole way, and then I heard the bang. For a second, I thought it was my car and expected to slow and lose. It took a little bit to realize that I wasn’t slowing down.”
Points Leaders Gingles, Williams Take Earlville
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Earlville, IA – At all-concrete Tri State Raceway in Earlville, Iowa, Gord Gingles stomped the Top Alcohol Dragster field to strengthen his hold on the Central Region points lead, and Kirk Williams won Top Alcohol Funny Car to tie Kris Hool for the top spot in the region.
In the Top Alcohol Dragster final, Gingles left within a hundredth of Chase Copeland, .080 to .089, and made his strongest run of the weekend, 5.48, for his second regional victory in his last three outings. He also scored at Cordova. Copeland, who usually does his best at the end of the season, dropped cylinders a few hundred feet off the starting line and slowed to a 7.43 at 126 mph.
Frigo, Hool Take Rescheduled Topeka Wins in Earlville
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Earlville, IA – At the rescheduled “WIBW Thunder in the Heartland” Topeka regional, Sidnei Frigo picked up his first Top Alcohol Dragster win this year and Kris Hool his first in Top Alcohol Funny Car since he opened the regional era with a victory at Gainesville in
February.
Completing the last two rounds at Tri State Raceway in Earlville, Iowa, the day before qualifying began for the regularly scheduled regional event there, Frigo topped Randy Meyer in a great final, 5.40 to 5.43, after gaining a slight edge at the Tree, .067 to .078. It was the Brazilian driver’s second career win, including the Division 2 race last year at zMax Dragway in Charlotte.
“We backed it down because we hadn’t made a run in that lane,” said crew chief Tom Conway, who tuned the car to an early shutoff 5.34, 253 on the one time trial allotted all returning drivers. “The groove there is narrow, but if you can keep the car in the middle of it, you can really run hard.”
Frigo shut off to a 5.87 at 185 mph on a semifinal single when Texan James Thompson, who had won the Topeka event in each of the past two years, was unable to make the trip north to Iowa for the rain date. Meyer won the other semifinal over John Finke in a match crucial to Finke’s East Region championship hopes, 5.54 to 5.99.
McPhillips, Veney Strike Gold in Bowling Green
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Photo by Steve Furhman
Bowling Green, KY – At Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, Ky., incoming East Region points leader Rich McPhillips won Top Alcohol Dragster at the final North Central regional of 2012, and Todd Veney did likewise in Top Alcohol Funny Car.
McPhillips, who had three runner-up finishes but no wins in regional competition this season, got the best of a classic final against North Central points leader and five-time world champ Bill Reichert, 5.53 to 5.54. McPhillips got the jump at the starting line with a .056 reaction time and had it all the way.
“This still doesn’t guarantee anything,” said McPhillips, who also won the Summer Nationals at Topeka this year. “We did everything we could by winning this race, but [John] Finke is running good out in Topeka [at the Central Region event that eventually was postponed by rain], and [Duane] Shields and [Richard] Bourke still have multiple races left that they can claim.”
