TAD/TAFC coverage from Denver, Mission, and Lebanon Valley
Finke, Veney Score at Lebanon Valley
Written by Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
At the East Regional at Lebanon Valley Dragway in the mountains of upstate New York, John Finke won Top Alcohol Dragster from the No. 1 spot and Todd Veney did likewise in Top Alcohol Funny Car.
Competing at his home track, Finke completed a storybook weekend with a final-round decision over teammate Jackie Fricke, who was appearing in her first regional final. They left almost.050 lights and Finke earned the title with a consistent 5.48 when Fricke, driving Joe Cantrell’s car, went up in smoke.
“I knew I was on another good one when the car hiked up the front end around half-track,” Finke said. “I was already getting over by the centerline and couldn’t do anything to bring it back because the front tires weren’t on the ground but I didn’t want to lift because I didn’t know where she was.”
Fricke had low e.t. of the first round (5.44) and Finke had low e.t. of the semi’s (5.43), so it figured to be anybody’s race. “I actually had a feeling that this was going to be her weekend,” said Finke, who attributed much of the credit for the victory to a productive test session at the track a week earlier.
Finke won the first round with a 5.48 over defending event champ Dan Mercier, who had appeared in the last two finals at Lebanon Valley. Fricke’s 5.44 in that round came against Jeff Veale, who red-lighted by just a thousandth of a second on a losing 5.66. Also in that round, Rich McPhillips nipped Karen Stalba, 5.53 to 5.54, and Frank Schuster knocked off early season East Region points leader Richard Bourke, 5.57 to 5.71.
Finke stopped McPhillips in one semifinal match, 5.43 to 5.51, and Fricke won the other one over Schuster, 5.48 to 5.58, to set up the all-team final. “It went the way it should have gone,” Fricke said. “I really want to win one of these, but I want somebody other than John to be in the other lane.”
In Top Alcohol Funny Car, Veney won the final over Top Alcohol Funny Car’s most overdue driver, John Anderika, who shook so hard his parachutes fell out, with a 5.637, low e.t. Veney qualified No. 1 with a 5.639 and ran a 5.638 to defeat John Headley in round one and a 5.65 to eliminate Eric Lourie, who had won here in each of the last two years, in the semifinals.
“The crew won this race,” Veney said. “To run consistent low .60s at Lebanon Valley is unbelievable. I’ve never had a car like that and just tried not to screw it up.”
Anderika qualified No. 2 with a 5.66 and put away second-generation driver Matt Gill in the first round with a 5.72 and Dan Pomponio, who won the Gainesville and Richmond regionals, in the semifinals with a 5.70 to reach his third final already this season. The team had to swap engines before the final, which was run the next day, and had electrical problems in the pits.
“I was going to leave in 2nd gear, run a 6.0, and hope he red-lighted because we were afraid we couldn’t take any ignition out of it in low gear,” Anderika said. “The car left hard but it started shaking and I could feel the parachutes hit and shut off.”
“Well, that does it,” said his brother, car owner and crew chief Chuck Anderika. “We’re now a ‘Perfect 10’ in final rounds: 0-10.”
David Smith photos
Finke, Veney Score at Lebanon Valley
At the East Regional at Lebanon Valley Dragway in the mountains of upstate New York, John Finke won Top Alcohol Dragster from the No. 1 spot and Todd Veney did likewise in Top Alcohol Funny Car.
Competing at his home track, Finke completed a storybook weekend with a final-round decision over teammate Jackie Fricke, who was appearing in her first regional final. They left almost.050 lights and Finke earned the title with a consistent 5.48 when Fricke, driving Joe Cantrell’s car, went up in smoke.
“I knew I was on another good one when the car hiked up the front end around half-track,” Finke said. “I was already getting over by the centerline and couldn’t do anything to bring it back because the front tires weren’t on the ground but I didn’t want to lift because I didn’t know where she was.”
Fricke had low e.t. of the first round (5.44) and Finke had low e.t. of the semi’s (5.43), so it figured to be anybody’s race. “I actually had a feeling that this was going to be her weekend,” said Finke, who attributed much of the credit for the victory to a productive test session at the track a week earlier.
Finke won the first round with a 5.48 over defending event champ Dan Mercier, who had appeared in the last two finals at Lebanon Valley. Fricke’s 5.44 in that round came against Jeff Veale, who red-lighted by just a thousandth of a second on a losing 5.66. Also in that round, Rich McPhillips nipped Karen Stalba, 5.53 to 5.54, and Frank Schuster knocked off early season East Region points leader Richard Bourke, 5.57 to 5.71.
Finke stopped McPhillips in one semifinal match, 5.43 to 5.51, and Fricke won the other one over Schuster, 5.48 to 5.58, to set up the all-team final. “It went the way it should have gone,” Fricke said. “I really want to win one of these, but I want somebody other than John to be in the other lane.”
In Top Alcohol Funny Car, Veney won the final over Top Alcohol Funny Car’s most overdue driver, John Anderika, who shook so hard his parachutes fell out, with a 5.637, low e.t. Veney qualified No. 1 with a 5.639 and ran a 5.638 to defeat John Headley in round one and a 5.65 to eliminate Eric Lourie, who had won here in each of the last two years, in the semifinals.
“The crew won this race,” Veney said. “To run consistent low .60s at Lebanon Valley is unbelievable. I’ve never had a car like that and just tried not to screw it up.”
Anderika qualified No. 2 with a 5.66 and put away second-generation driver Matt Gill in the first round with a 5.72 and Dan Pomponio, who won the Gainesville and Richmond regionals, in the semifinals with a 5.70 to reach his third final already this season. The team had to swap engines before the final, which was run the next day, and had electrical problems in the pits.
“I was going to leave in 2nd gear, run a 6.0, and hope he red-lighted because we were afraid we couldn’t take any ignition out of it in low gear,” Anderika said. “The car left hard but it started shaking and I could feel the parachutes hit and shut off.”
“Well, that does it,” said his brother, car owner and crew chief Chuck Anderika. “We’re now a ‘Perfect 10’ in final rounds: 0-10.”
Whiteley and Bartone On Top On the Mountain
At the West Central regional at mile-high Bandimere Speedway, reigning national champion Jim Whiteley regained the lead in the national Top Alcohol Dragster standings, and Tony Bartone took over the top spot in Top Alcohol Funny Car with what surprisingly was his first divisional/regional victory in nearly two years.
Whiteley dominated Top Alcohol Dragster qualifying, running back-to-back-to-back 5.40s on a surface on which no other driver was able to get out of the 5.70s. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had that much of an advantage on the field before,” said Whiteley, whose J&A Service/YNot dragster led the pack with an aggregate best of 5.44, 265.06. “It’s almost more pressure than when a bunch of other people are running right with you.”
After the three flawless qualifying runs, Whiteley was up in smoke instantly on a first-round single when opponent Kevin Wayman was unable to appear and ran a backpedaling 5.69 in the semifinals when former Top Dragster racer Dean Dubbin narrowly red-lighted. “It didn’t go three inches in the first round,” said Whiteley, who coasted to a 12.02. “In the semi’s, I had it at half-throttle at one point and it was still spinning the tires. We took some gear ratio out and some timing of it for the final, and the car ran better than we really expected it to.”
Whiteley jumped all the way back to the 5.40s with a 5.47 to erase Greg Hunter, who was making his first career final-round appearance. Hunter qualified the Exact Air dragster No. 2 with a 5.70, defeated Denver’s Geno Tumbarello in the opening round with a 5.99, and returned to form with a another 5.70 in the semifinals against 2012 runner-up Edwin Schmeeckle and a 5.71 opposite Whiteley in the final. Schmeeckle got off the mark six-thousandths ahead of Hunter in the semifinals and nearly matched Hunter’s 5.70 with a 5.71 that left him just three-thousandths of a second short at the finish line.
For Whiteley, the win was his sixth in a row at his home track, a record for this event. “What can I say?” he asked. “I love racing here. I wish there still was a national event here.”
If there was, Bartone would probably win Alcohol Funny Car. With a string of final-round appearances – he’s been at least runner-up more than half the time – he has won more rounds at national events than anybody over the past year and a half, but that success has eluded him in regional competition.
“I think the last divisional I won was in Bowling Green, Ky., in about 1993,” he joked. (Actually it was there in August 2011.) “We do great at national events, which are supposed to be harder, and never get a break at these things.”
Bartone has two wins, a runner-up, and an 11-1 win-loss mark in his three most recent national event starts with Rick Jackson’s Centre Pointe Collision team. But he had won just a single round in 2013 regional competition until this race, which, for a few hours, was looking like his worst one yet. “We went 0-for-2 on the first two qualifying runs, couldn’t get down the track at all, and it was raining before the last session,” he said. “We were really starting to think that it wasn’t going to happen.”
When the skies eventually cleared, Bartone not only made the cut; he went all the way to the top spot with the only run all weekend in the 5.70s, a 5.76. That put more than a tenth on the tough field, which included early qualifying leader Jay Payne and defending West Region champion Annie Whiteley but not recent Topeka winner Jirka Kaplan or longtime crew chief Dave Allison, who ran a 6.09 in his driving debut.
Bartone ran a 5.96 in the opening round to erase veteran Lance Van Hauen but was outperformed by Payne, who advanced with a 5.89, and former Division 7 champ Terry Ruckman, who ran low e.t. of the round in a 5.87 win over Kris Hool. In the semi’s, Bartone stopped Scott McVey with a 5.89 and Payne shut off to a 7.29 to when Ruckman veered into his lane.
Payne had an excellent .049 reaction time in the final, but Bartone mowed down his 5.95 with a 5.80, low e.t. of eliminations by far. “You come to Denver, and it’s a whole different tune-up,” he said. “People were smoking the tires and driving all over the place. It’s always a tough place to race because it’s just so different with all the altitude, but [crew chief Steve] Boggs really has this place figured out.”
