Severance a Slight Favorite for TAD Title at Midseason

Courtesy of Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association

Joey Severance is the leader at the clubhouse in Top Alcohol Dragster this year, the top-ranked driver halfway through the season. Severance, who was in the title hunt right down to the final day of the 2011 season, has three wins in just six starts – back to back to back at the Phoenix regional, Las Vegas regional, and Las Vegas national. The three times he has lost – at the Winternationals, Kansas Nationals, and last week's Acton, Montana regional – he was off the starting line first, twice with reaction times in the teens.

With his nemesis, 2012 and 2013 world champ Jim Whiteley, now retired, this might finally be the year for Chris Demke, who has finished second in the standings in three of the past four seasons. Demke grabbed the early points lead with perhaps the best performance of his career at the Winternationals, where he dominated with a barrage of 5.20s. He stumbled to a first-round loss and four second-round losses in his next five starts but rebounded with a final-round win over Severance last weekend in a battle of the class' top two drivers this year.

Chris Demke - TAN/NVW photo

Right behind them in third place is Duane Shields, who led the standings until last weekend, when Severance appeared in his fourth final of the season and took over the top spot. Shields, who has finished in the Top 5 six times, including 2011, when he won the championship, has two wins but also six first-and second-round losses that could come back to haunt him. He won the rain-delayed Houston regional final and the Gatornationals on the same weekend, but he's been out after the second round in his last four races.

Hovering in fourth place is Bill Reichert, who has finished not just in the Top 10 but in the Top 5 for 10 years in a row and almost certainly will again in 2014. By his lofty standards, it's been a quiet season so far (no national event victories yet), but he's amassed an enviable 11-4 record, back-to-back national event semifinals to open the season, and a pair of regional wins. He reached the semifinals at the Gatornationals and 4-Wide Nationals and won the regionals at Indianapolis and Chicago.

Without attracting much attention, Mike Strasburg has put together a solid season, his first in an alcohol car in more than a dozen years. Driving the dragster Whiteley wheeled to the championship last year, the part-time Top Fuel racer has put up a 9-4 win-loss mark, reached two regional event finals, and won one, two weeks ago in Denver. He's yet to be beaten in the first round and despite not running as many races as other title contenders, still has a solid shot at the title.

Back east, Jackie Fricke is having the finest season of her career. She's a career-high sixth in the national rankings, has two final-round appearances to her credit, and broke through at Lebanon Valley Dragway for her first NHRA win.

Jackie Fricke - David Smith/PSA photo

Seventh-place Mark Taliaferro surprisingly has yet to win a race with championship-winning crew chief Norm Grimes, but it's hardly been a disaster. In just five starts so far in 2014, he's been to the final round three times – at the Las Vegas regional, where he fell to Severance; at the Houston national, where he lost to Randy Meyer; and at the Denver regional, where he lost a close one to Strasburg.

Meyer is in eighth place, but his car is in first. If you add the points from Shayne Lawson's back-to-back wins at the wheel of Meyer's A/Fueler at the Kansas Nationals and the Tulsa regional to Meyer's total of 265, it comes to 435, enough for what would be a 32-point "lead" over Severance. The car is on a three-race win streak, including Meyer's Spring Nationals victory, and Lawson's recent Tulsa win came in an all-Randy Meyer Racing final over Chase Copeland.

Tied for ninth and rounding out the Top 10 are Brandon Booher and Canadian Jeff Veale, who each have a win in five starts this year. Booher, who won four races and the North Central Region championship in his breakout 2013 season, took the Norwalk regional this year and was runner-up at the 4-Wide Nationals. Veale earned his first career NHRA title at the Richmond regional and was runner-up to Fricke at Lebanon Valley.

 

Brandon Booher - TAN/NVW photo