TAFC Title Decided But Top 10 Still Wide Open

Courtesy of Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Photo courtesy of David Smith

With a Manzo-like late-season charge, Steve Harker clinched the 2014 Top Alcohol Funny Car championship with a month left in the season and became the first driver from outside North American ever to win an NHRA championship in any category.

The Australian veteran, who barely raced last year, didn't race at all the two years before that, and insisted all along that 2014 was just a "test year," got faster and faster as the year wore on and claimed a championship that once seemed destined to go to Dale Brand. A Top 5 driver in each of his last three full seasons (2008-10), and the number 2 driver of 2008 and 2009, Harker reached the final at six of his last seven starts (all but the U.S. Nationals) and won all six – Norwalk, St. Louis, Bowling Green, Dallas, Charlotte, and Reading.

Brand topped the rankings almost all year but dropped crucial head-to-head showdowns with Harker at Reading on the last weekend of his season. Both came in semifinal matchups, and Brand drilled the Tree both times with clutch .022 and .019 reaction times, but both times – in the rescheduled Charlotte race held in conjunction with Reading and in the Reading event itself – he had to fight just to keep his car in his lane while Harker streaked to near-perfect runs. Brand's once insurmountable lead was down to a single point by the time they staged in the Reading semi's, and Harker, for the third of four times that weekend, established a new career best (5.51, 5.48, 5.45). His amazing Speed City Monte Carlo then picked up another three-hundredths to a 5.42 in the final, the third-quickest run of all time behind only Manzo's consecutive 5.41s in the last two rounds of his title-clinching win at this race in 2011.

Brand's title bid began to unravel when he dropped final-round decisions he was favored to win on back-to-back days last month – both against upstart Scott McVey, who won his first national event title at the rain-delayed Brainerd race that was completed at Earlville then at the Earlville regional itself. Brand reached at least the semifinals in 13 of 15 starts this year, claimed his first national event victory in Topeka, and lost two other winnable finals – in Gainesville, where he narrowly red-lighted against Dan Pomponio, and in the rescheduled Brainerd final against McVey. He didn't lose in the first round all year, won four events in eight final-round appearances overall, and amassed a 35-11 win-loss mark.

Brand might have a stranglehold on the number 2 spot, but the battle for position throughout the rest of the Top 10 remains wide-open; drivers not even in the Top 10 can still end up as high as third place, which is currently held by all-time great Jay Payne. 2014 was another solid season for Payne, highlighted by a second career U.S. Nationals title. Out of races to claim, he'll finish no better than third but is guaranteed to make the Top 10 for the 15th year in a row – every year except his rookie year in Top Alcohol Funny Car, 1999 – and likely to make the Top 5.

Four rounds behind Payne is Shane Westerfield, who was third last year. He's fourth now, with a national event victory (Houston) and a regional victory (Las Vegas), and one round ahead of a four-way logjam of drivers separated by just two points: Lombardo, Pomponio, Kris Hool, and Clint Thompson.

Lombardo, runner-up for the 2013 championship and a Top 5 driver the past two years, currently is fifth with 498 points but is out of races to claim and can only go down from there. Pomponio, who backed up his 2013 Gainesville and Charlotte victories by repeating at both, is sixth, and though he still has two more national events to claim, the New Jersey driver won't be making the cross-country trek to Las Vegas and Pomona to lock down another Top 5 finish.

Hool, a two-time winner on the regional tour this year, including at his most recent stop, in Noble, Okla., will pass both Pomponio and Lombardo if he wins a single round at either of the two remaining national events. Thompson, tied with Hool at 496 and a three-time finalist this year in regional competition, also will pass Pomponio and Lombardo with a round-win at either Las Vegas or Pomona.

Doug Gordon, who swept the national and regional events at Seattle this year, might be in a better position than anyone but Harker and Brand. With 466 points in just nine starts, he'll almost certainly make the Top 5 and probably the top three. Perennial Top 10 driver Chris Foster, who won the Norwalk regional for the third year in a row, is one point behind Gordon but, because he's not heading west next month, is in danger of missing out on what would be his fourth appearance in the Top 10.

Just outside the Top 10 loom several drivers with an excellent shot at passing Foster, particularly Brian Hough, Sean Bellemeur, and Annie Whiteley. All three should be at the last three races of the year – the national events at Pomona and Las Vegas and the always brutal Vegas regional.

Hough, the early points leader with victories at the Winternationals and the Phoenix regional, will overtake Foster by just qualifying for either national event and he, like Gordon, can finish as high as third. Bellemeur, probably the most overdue driver in Top Alcohol Funny Car, will be at the wheel of Spiro Kontos' car at the Vegas regional and his own car at both national events. Whiteley, who won nine races in 12 final-round appearances and made not just the Top 10 but the Top 5 in each of her first two years in Top Alcohol Funny Car, surprisingly has been shut out this year. She has three runner-ups, including one at a national event, but has been upset in the first round in five of her last six outings despite qualifying in the top half every time.

Brand Holds the Edge in 2014 TAFC Championship Race

Courtesy of 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.

Brand, who once terrorized IHRA Alcohol Funny Car racing, heads for the Allstars race and the Route 66 Nationals in Chicago as the defending Allstars champ. He's as quick – and as quick on the Tree – as anyone. He won the Chicago regional last month, broke through for a long overdue first national event title in Topeka, scored again last weekend at Tulsa, and is second in the standings, just 10 points behind Payne.

Brand has a better win-loss record (16-3, .842) than anyone in either alcohol class and is riding a three-race win streak. Only a red-light in the final kept him from winning in Gainesville; a broken throttle linkage stopped him in the second round in Charlotte after he'd opened a car-length lead; and in Houston, he fell to Annie Whiteley in the semifinals by just 11-thousandths of a second.

Annie Whiteley
 

Payne won the rain-delayed Houston regional final over Shane Westerfield by just eight-thousandths of a second, was runner-up at the regional event in Phoenix and the national event in Las Vegas, and just won again last weekend at the regional in Acton, Montana.

Early season leader Brian Hough stands third, 74 points behind Brand. He's 11-4 for the year and won his first two starts of the season, the Winternationals and the Phoenix regional. Westerfield, who moved into the Top 10 for the first time in 2012 and shot all the way up to third in the national standings last year, is one point behind Hough. He's also a two-time winner this season, at the Spring Nationals in Houston and the Las Vegas regional.

Hot off back-to-back final-round appearances in regional competition, Clint Thompson anchors the Top 5. He won Denver on a slight holeshot over Whiteley, 5.78 to 5.78, and lost the Acton final to Payne the same way, 5.72 to 5.69.

With two wins and three final-round appearances in five starts, Dan Pomponio, who finished a career-high fifth in the national standings in his breakthrough 2013 campaign, is sixth in the standings despite running fewer races than anyone in the Top 10. He's won two national events already this season (Gainesville and Charlotte – same as last year) and came within inches of winning the Lebanon Valley regional.

Kris Hool, Whiteley, Nick Januik and Todd Veney round out the Top 10. Whiteley, who has yet to finish outside the Top 5 in her young Top Alcohol Funny Car career, is the only current Top 10 driver without a win, but she has three final-round appearances in her last four outings, qualified No. 1 at all four, set low e.t. at three of the four, and just missed winning each time.

Under the radar and just outside the Top 10 are perennial Top 10 drivers Steve Harker, Chris Foster, Steve Gasparrelli, John Lombardo, and Doug Gordon, all past national event champs. Foster is 12th and has a win and a runner-up in just four starts. Gasparrelli and Lombardo have finished as high as second in the standings, Lombardo just last year. Gordon is 19th, but he's raced just three times this season and has advanced to at least the semifinals at all three.

The dark horse is Tony Bartone, the only active Top Alcohol Funny Car driver ever to have won a championship. He makes his 2014 debut this weekend with a new Murf McKinney-built Camaro tuned by Steve Boggs, and with a late-season push could still win it all. It would take a winning streak of epic proportions, but if he pulls it off, it won't be the first time: the year he won the championship, 1996, he won 37 rounds in a row.

Westerfield Wins First, Whiteley Continues Roll

Courtesy of Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association
Photo courtesy of David Smith

At the AAA Texas FallNationals in Dallas, Shane Westerfield handed Frank Manzo his first final-round loss in nearly eight years to earn his first major Top Alcohol Funny Car victory and Jim Whiteley put the Top Alcohol Dragster championship almost out of reach with his sixth overall win this season.

With increasingly quicker reaction times, Westerfield left on everybody he faced and reeled off one low-5.50 after another, highlighted by a 5.55 to 5.58 final-round decision over Manzo, whose last runner-up was 43 finals ago at the 2006 Winternationals. "That's about the best weekend anybody could have – not because I won but because I ended his streak," Westerfield said. "That's all anybody wanted to talk about."

Manzo had a solid .059 reaction time, but Westerfield, who is getting married next weekend, was even quicker with a .051 and fought his car off the centerline in low gear. "It went right almost immediately," he said. "I thought, 'I might end up hitting something, but no way am I lifting or short-shifting this one.' Just as I was getting really close to the centerline, the shift light finally came on, and I got it back in the groove. I actually thought I lost – I never saw my win-light come on. He wasn't too happy. He was loaded up and out of there in no time."

With the victory, Westerfield, who broke into the Top 10 for the first time last year, is up to second in the national standings, one point ahead of John Lombardo. He qualified his CP-Carrillo entry No. 3 behind Manzo and Annie Whiteley with a 5.54 and ran a career-best 5.52 in the first round to take out Texan Steve Burck, who slowed to a 5.93. From there, it was nothing but Top 5 drivers and side-by-side 5.50s the rest of the way: Lombardo fell in the second round, 5.53 to 5.56; Whiteley lost on a slight holeshot in the semi's, 5.54 to 5.52; and Manzo slipped to a 5.58 to fall short of his 5.55 in the final.

Racing at Dallas for the first time since the 1990s and just the fourth time in his career, Manzo ruled until the semifinals, where he lost lane choice for the final in a 5.55 win over Jay Payne. After qualifying No. 1 with a 5.50 that held up all weekend for low e.t., his 5.60 in the first round took out Ro Yale, who cut a .004 light and anchored the field with a career-best 6-flat – quicker than surprise non-qualifiers Tony Bartone and Brian Hough ran. Manzo then ran a 5.51 in a second-round win over Bryan Brown's engine-blowing 5.98 and edged Payne in a great semifinal race, 5.55 to 5.58.

The rare final-round loss may have ended Manzo's streak, but in just a month he's rocketed from the lower rungs of the Top 10 to a huge lead. With 15 consecutive round-wins and victories at Brainerd, Indy, and Charlotte, he now tops the standings by 85 points and almost certainly will close his incredible career with yet another championship

Jim Whiteley, like Manzo, is the defending national champ, just won Indy, recently announced that this will be his final season, has a commanding points lead, has won an overwhelming percentage of his career finals, and was part of a side-by-side final in Dallas. Unlike Manzo, he won.

Whiteley and Bill Reichert, who have combined to win six of the past seven Top Alcohol Dragster championships, both ran 5.32s in the final. Whiteley got off the mark first, .075 to .089, and ran slightly quicker, 5.322 to 5.327, to persevere by 19-thousandths of a second.

"I can always hear those A/Fuel cars, so I knew he was there somewhere, but I had no idea it was that close," Whiteley said. "We had to take it easy on the motor. The number two main cap was broken completely in two, and we're real fortunate that it survived the run. The crank probably should have come out of it."

Whiteley qualified his YNot Racing Dragster No. 1 with a 5.24 at 274.50 mph (top speed) and made his best run of the season, a 5.23 (low e.t.) in a first-round win over Michael Manners, who was unable to appear. A steady 5.28 took out Monroe Guest in the second round and the first of back-to-back 5.32s was enough against Joey Severance in a semifinal match both were lucky to survive.

Severance got into his own oil, veered into Whiteley's lane, corrected, and slid down the centerline for hundreds of feet on the left tires before miraculously steering back into his lane unscathed. "I saw him coming at me and wondered what was going to happen," Whiteley said. "Then I saw him turn and knew I was OK, but somebody was definitely watching out for him that time."

Running conservatively in the final, Whiteley managed another 5.32 to all but lock up his second straight championship. "I heard some rumors that I need to just qualify in Las Vegas to clinch this, but I'm not sure," he said. "I've been told that if I quit right now, [Chris] Demke would have to win every race for the rest of the year to pass me. [Brandon] Booher has come on here lately, and if he does well at Reading, Vegas, and Pomona, maybe he could take us, so we'll just have to wait and see. I'll miss racing this car next year, but I've done what I wanted to do. We set out to win a championship, and it looks like we might get two."

Demke Pads TAD Lead, Gasparrelli Wins TAFC

Courtesy of Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association

At the West Regional at Pacific Raceways, Chris Demke picked up his second win of the season to strengthen his tenuous lead in the most wide-open Top Alcohol Dragster points race in years, and in Alcohol Funny Car, Steve Gasparrelli conquered a deep and talented field for his latest win at Seattle, where he does better than at any other track.

In the most consistent performance of his career, Demke qualified No. 1 with a 5.32 at 267 mph and ran three straight 5.32s at 268 in eliminations for his second win in eight 2013 finals. "Over the years we've been pretty consistent, but not that consistent," he said. "No way have I ever run the same e.t. in every single round of a race until this weekend."

Demke's 5.321 covered Megan McKernan's 5.55 in the first round, and a 5.325 in the semifinals eliminated Ray Martin, who red-lighted by just one-thousandth of a second en route to a 5.39. Johnny Ahten came up with low e.t. of the meet, 5.313, in the other semifinal to take out Shawn Cowie, who had won the Northwest Nationals at this track two weeks earlier. Ahten ended a streak of 12 consecutive round-wins for Cowie, who won the 2011 SummitRacing.com Nationals in his last start before the horrific motorcycle accident that sidelined him for two years, then the Woodburn regional last month, and then the Northwest Nationals.

"Ahten ran right ahead of me, and I was plenty concerned about him after that 5.31," Demke said. "Those guys have really stepped up their program this year, and more people than I even want to think about have gotten their first win over me, so I was plenty nervous going into the final. I figured I might have to leave on him to win." He did, with a .049, and leaped ahead in the mid-range when Ahten's A/Fueler rattled the tires for a 5.320 to 5.56 win that opened his lead on reigning national champ Jim Whiteley in the national standings.

"We should have been able to run a high 5.20-something here – we just did at the national event – but we never veered to far from our original tune-up," Demke said. "It was consistent and pretty fast the way it was, and it worked – we won. We'll have the points lead going into Indy, but the championship is still a long shot if you ask me. We've left too many points on the table with runner-ups, and I still consider Whiteley the favorite."

Gasparrelli was nearly as consistent in Top Alcohol Funny Car as Demke was in Top Alcohol Dragster. The many-time Division 7 champ, who has been in five national event finals and four divisional finals at Seattle, won this one going away when Shane Westerfield struck the tires right off the starting line after cutting the best light of the entire event, .022. Gasparrelli won with a third straight .070 light and 5.6 pass, a 5.64 at 258 mph.

Westerfield, who got his first win earlier this season in Houston, paced the field in qualifying and reached the final with wins over the last two Seattle national event champs, John Evanchuk (2012) and Clint Thompson (2013). A 5.76 erased Evanchuk's close 5.79 in the first round, and only a 9.77 was necessary in the semi's when Thompson red-lighted.

Gasparrelli duplicated his 5.61 qualifying time in a first-round win over 2008 Division 7 champ Terry Ruckman, who slowed to a 6.11. In the semifinals, Gasparrelli's 5.66 was more than enough when friend Doug Gordon, who'd nipped Sean Bellemeur in the opening round, smoked the tires off the starting line.

 

Westerfield Having a Career Year in 2013

Courtesy of Todd Veney

Coming off a career-best season in 2012, when he finished in the Top 10 for the first time in his young career, Top Alcohol Funny Car racer Shane Westerfield has been even better this year, with a first career victory and already nearly as many round-wins at midseason as he had in all of 2012. 

Westerfield, who won the Houston Lucas Oil Series event with a string of 5.50s and a holeshot final-round win over John Lombardo, has a 13-6 win-loss mark so far this year. The 25-year-old is in the Top 5 in the national standings and his CP-Carrillo/Bullet Series Monte Carlo hasn't lost in the first round all year.

"After making the Top 10 last year, our goal for this season was to be in the top 7, and so far we're right on track," said Westerfield, of Lake Forest, Calif., who acknowledged sponsors CP-Carrillo, Fluid Sealing Products, Blake Bros. Racing, Lucas Oil, Coeste Design, Goodyear, and A1 Technologies. "Crew chief Bob DeVour and the entire team are doing a fantastic job, and we want to have a second half just like the first half."

Severance, Bartone Continue Vegas Dominance

Courtesy of Todd Veney/Pro Sportsman Association

Top Alcohol Dragster veteran Joey Severance, appearing in his sixth final in eight years at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and Tony Bartone, who was in his fifth Top Alcohol Funny Car final in a row there, scored again at the desert supertrack. Severance edged Chris Demke by about a foot, 5.45 to 5.44, for the SummitRacing.com Nationals title, and Bartone nipped emerging star Shane Westerfield, 5.66 to 5.69, for his 37^th career win.

"I don't know what it is about this place, but it's my second-favorite track in the world," said Severance, who is a co-owner of Woodburn Dragstrip. He and Demke actually made their worst runs of eliminations in a final decided by just three-thousandths of a second. Severance, who has countless .00 lights to his credit, got off the mark first with a .057 reaction time and ran a 5.45, and Demke cut a .070 and clocked a 5.44. Demke's Operational Solutions/Peen Rite/801 entry broke a lifter three seconds into the run and eventually kicked a rod.

Demke defeated Jegs Allstars West Region leader Ray Martin in one semifinal matchup, and Severance won the other over Megan McKernan, who had upset Jim Whiteley in round two. Whiteley went up in smoke after qualifying No. 1 for the 15^th time in his career.

Severance and father Joe Severance, a two-time national event winner in the late '70s, qualified No. 3 and took out Johnny Ahten in round one and Garrett Bateman in the HipLink A/Fueler in the quarterfinals. Demke qualified No. 5 on his only attempt and eliminated Ashley Sanford, who made her debut at this event, in round one and Aaron Olivarez in an odd second-round race in which both drivers were affected by Demke's flickering stage light.

Demke now has runner-ups in both national event starts this season, including one to nemesis Whiteley at the Winternationals, and until the final appeared to have his recent parts-attrition problems behind him. "We've blown up some stuff, trying to get better down the road," he said. "If we don't change something, we'll do no better than second place in the points like we did last year."

For the second time in three years, Top Alcohol Funny Car came down to Bartone versus Westerfield, who was in the third final of his young career – all against Bartone. "I'm getting a little tired of it," joked Westerfield, the new national points leader, who now stands 0-5 against Bartone overall.

Bartone, who swept both national events in Las Vegas in each of the past two years, qualified No. 1 and set low e.t. and top speed with a 5.58, 261.47 in the third and final session. He was on the bump until then. "I love this track," he said. "Why don't we run all the races here?" In eliminations, he dropped Hannes Wernhart and Winternationals runner-up Jason Rupert with consistent times of 5.65 and 5.64.

He was vulnerable in the semifinals with a .306 reaction time against Jirka Kaplan, who would have been long gone with a .009, but Kaplan's Bearspaw Petroleum car smoked the tires at the hit. "I haven't done that in years," Bartone said of his double-step. "That guy leaves off of a button [with a trans-brake] and I was trying to cut a light and got caught up in the heat of the moment. But I got the car down the track and we won – that's the important thing."

TAN