TAN Driver Blog - Marie Ferriolo - TAFC

When you complete a speech therapy evaluation you provide the family with a prognosis for treatment; occasionally you have to provide a diagnosis of “guarded” when you have reservations about the success of treatment.  My dad has always believed in guarded optimism when racing.  “You can high five on the starting line but don’t celebrate until you drop the pan.”

I packed my suitcase for Charlotte with “guarded optimism” floating in my head.  We have had such a stellar season thus far, continuously making steps forward.  ETs and mile per hour are steadily increasing; 60 foot times are steadily decreasing; team performance and cohesion continues to get better.  My reaction times are even ever-so-slightly improving!!

It’s hard to keep your feet on the ground sometimes.  We got into the 5.6’s for the first time ever at Cecil and we just keep getting compliments.  I’ll never have to worry about my head getting too big because it has to fit into my helmet ;-) However, in the theme of being “guarded” I have to remember obstacles are everywhere.  We don’t have a lot of money so we can’t push the car beyond the point of small repairs, and it’s important for us to be consistent but considering the registered field we’ll still have to be competitive.  *sigh* (Anyone want to sponsor our amazing team?!?!)

I wonder what Charlotte has to hold for us?  Here’s hoping I don’t trip while running, I keep the car straight, we get another 5.6 second pass and we win first round!!

Marie Ferriolo is the driver of the Central Metals/Ferriolo Motorsports Top Alcohol Funny Car. Follow her on Twitter: @MarieFerriolo. Tune in to Marie's segment on The Sam Auxier Jr. Show this Monday, September 17th! 7 PM ET

TAN Driver Blog-Marie Ferriolo-TAFC

Happy new year!! I hope everyone is enjoying their 2012 and sticking to their resolutions. I successfully gave up caffeinated coffee and I am flossing my teeth regularly. I'm also going to give P90 a try...some extra arm muscles wouldn't with my ability to steer the car. This is also the time of year I start watching football -- playoffs are more exciting for me than regular season games. Do I root for a team? Nope...I just root for  competitive games, not those high-scoring-one-team-gets-stomped-on-46 to 3 games.

We're getting everything ready for Gainesville. My Dad has been busy fabricating new front engine mounts and putting the motor back together. My Mom and I have our travel plans booked...I can't miss too much work so I'll have to fly down. Not going to lie, I'd probably enjoy the trip with my Dad -- he's the perfect long-distance travel partner because he doesn't talk too much, he doesnt smell and he always picks up the fuel tab :-) But my Mom is fun to fly with -- she's always got that one thing you never thought to put in your carry-on and I'll never have to worry about getting to my gate too late.

We fired up the car on Sunday for the first time. I had all of my gear on from head to toe and let me tell you, I didn't mind!! It was barely 30 degrees outside. Bottom line: the car started. (It's all about appreciating the little things these days). Just a few more weeks of work to fly through and then I'll be back on the track.

Enough sitting at my computer...I need to get myself onto the treadmill and burn off some of the peanut M&M's I ate at work today. I seriously need some good running/staging-lane music...Any recommendations are appreciated!! You can let me know on Twitter @MarieFerriolo.

Enjoy the rest of the week!


Marie Ferriolo is the driver of the Ferriolo Motorsports Top Alcohol Funny Car. Follow her on Twitter at @MarieFerriolo.

TAN Driver Blog-Marie Ferriolo-TAFC

First off I would like to extend my congratulations to all of the Top Alcohol and A-Fuel winners in each division and at the national level, especially Frank Manzo and Karen Stalba (go Division 1 woo!!). I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and ate every piece of pumpkin pie because wasting tasty dessert should be a felony. I'm a huge fan of jellied cranberry sauce -- if it doesn't look like an aluminum can when served it shouldn't be on the table, that's my opinion. I would also like to give a shout out to Brad Littlefield and thank him for the opportunity to write something for National Dragster --I was totally honored!

2011 was a season of firsts for me -- lots of things learned for the first time, lots of things put on the car for the first time, and it was the first season we didn't cause severe damage to a motor (YAAAAY!!). There are a few things I'd like to repeat next year: qualifying, good burnouts, and having fun with friends. My performance at the Maple Grove national can willingly go unrepeated, thank you very much. The only cones I wish to see that closely next summer will be topped with two scoops of ice cream haha. Ah the learning continues!

I'm gearing up for the winter holidays at work -- lots of Christmas and Hanukkah themes to get my patients ready which includes holiday scrub top and matching festive footwear!! It's interesting to see how children evolve during the holidays, with everything from the songs they want to sing to the books they want to read, to what motivates them in conversation and what foods they want to eat. My patients continue to amaze me every day and I can't help but love going to work just to be inspired by them...even when they are repeating what their parents have said the night before -- sometimes the message is jumbled or they'll use jargon language, but you still get the, may it be embarrassing, point (Santa is not the only one with a red nose then haha!!).

I did a small photoshoot a few weekends ago and when I put on my firesuit it smelled like sweaty feet, probably because it was stuffed in a bag with my driving shoes. I aired it out and now it's safely stored away with my helmet and other driving equipment. I spent so much time this season mentally preparing myself for the next race there's a part of my brain which, I'm assuming, has gone into off-season hibernation.

The only things I'm focusing on right now are keeping up with an exercise routine, not going overboard on the holiday sales and catching up on gossip. There have certainly been a lot of rumors flying around about the changes in Top Fuel and some of them have actually come true.

Along with that, and more importantly I might add ;-) are the changes in Alcohol. It's hard to accept some of these changes and imagine what life in Alcohol will be, but part of that is due to the fact that I still call the national event at Maple Grove "The Keystones". Regionals vs. Divisionals...everyone has expressed their opinion and I'm not going to lie -- I'll probably always state "I'm in Division 1" first because it's a habit. I'll adapt I guess.

I'm very grateful to still be racing out of New Jersey because our team is still centrally located for most of our regions races. It was shocking for me to see Atco and Englishtown had withdrawn from our schedule in 2012. I'm sure the track owners had a justifiable reason to exclude our classes from the regionals and national next year but I can't help but wonder....in 2012, where's this New Jersey girl to call a home (track)?


Marie Ferriolo is the driver of the Division 1-based Ferriolo Motorsports Top Alcohol Funny Car. You can follow her on Twitter at @MarieFerriolo.

Driver Blog-Marie Ferriolo-TAFC

At the ripe old age of 27 I finally started my TAFC career.  I was supposed to start racing when I was 7 but when my Dad introduced me to junior dragsters I was more interested in ballet and all things pink.  An opportunity was presented later to start after I graduated college, clearly too big for juniors so looking towards the super comp, but I came home my junior year telling my parents I wanted my Masters so I could be an awesome Speech-Language Pathologist which meant an additional two-year delay.  Supportive as my parents always have been, my driving career was again pushed back.  Well… sort of.  (You see I grew up around race cars.  I was washing wheels of my Dad’s Formula V when I was in diapers.  After that he had a rear-engine dragster, which led to an NHRA TAFC.  The summers of my adolescence in the ‘90s bounced between the shore and Division 1 drag strips for over a decade.  While I wasn’t the bottom-end guy and never actually touched the fuel system I did everything I could to learn and get my hands dirty on occasion.)  Impatient as they sometimes can be, my parents decided it was my turn to drive in 2007 and came home one sunny afternoon with the frame of a rear-engine dragster.  It didn’t have a motor in it, but we stacked a couple of parts boxes so I could have a big-box Chevy for a few weeks… get it?  Big-box, big-block haha!!

Anywho, we started slow… just a few light passes down the quarter mile at Atco or Maple Grove on test-and-tune nights.  It quickly evolved into “Please please PLEASE can I go faster?!?!”  I was entered into a few bracket races, won a round here and there, but my math calculations were always off and my reactions times were never consistent.  Onward and upward!!  I always knew the original intent of this process was to take baby steps, not rush me into driving a funny car which was the ultimate goal.  (I’m so not a dragster girl.  I give Karen Stalba, Hillary Will and Jackie Fricke a lot of credit for what they do – it’s just totally not my style.)

So we moved onto Nostalgia Funny Car racing, the perfect idea for my funny car driving entrance.  Ferriolo Motorsports (aka my parents and family friends who could help out) launched forward with a Littlefield blower and a ’71 Mustang body with a fantastic paint job compliments of Bruce Mullins.  It’s important to note another obstacle on my journey to TAFC is that I’ve never driven a car with a manual transmission, so the concept of swapping feet was extremely foreign to me.  Enter the Crower Glide and all of the glories of a centrifugal clutch.  License passes started--yaaaay!!  Oh wait… We had a rough start.  While we had spent ample time practicing the entire procedure for driving a funny car, things work quite differently when actually strapped into the driver’s seat moving over 175 miles per hour.  Bottom line is my 3^rd licensing pass ended up in the net at the end of Atco raceway.  It was a hard hit to take, primarily emotionally because of all the time and effort my racing family had invested up until that point.  I walked away with a bruised ego but my body was perfectly intact thanks to Simpson.  Just a few short months later all was repaired and my license was obtained.  We went to a few match races in the next season and a half.  I got to be a part of some awesome moments – Atco’s 50^th anniversary show, winning Geezers at the Grove in 2010, and meeting some really great people throughout the whole trip.  But I wanted more.

As I said before the ultimate goal was TAFC… I missed my Division 1 family, I missed Safety Safari and I really wanted to know what it was like to make a 5 second pass.  So we journeyed back to NHRA.

My 2011 season is about to come full circle – I started at Maple Grove for my first divisional and I’m ending at Maple Grove for my second national.  This season has been a whirlwind of career best ETs and speeds, fuel line disasters, learning the rules of appropriate burn-out-ing, an interview with Kristin Moeser on the Sam Auxier Jr Show, getting over a terrible case of pre-run jitters, and spending wonderful times with my parents.  While I can’t tell you the assembly for a clutch or the flow of the fuel pump, I can tell you what it’s like to stage a car at 7000 RMP and get shoved back into your seat when the car launches, waiting for that shift light to flash.  I lined up next to the champ TWICE and had him sign my time slip because, no matter where he finishes in the championship this year I will always believe Frank Manzo is The King.  My reaction times are getting better and my speeds are getting faster with a load of thanks to my crew chief Jimmy Dunn, his wife Pattie, Chris Raab, Alex Keegan, Fernando Gonzalez and of course, Wes Gumb. 

As I pack my bags tonight I have to remember a few things: socks, a toothbrush, an umbrella, the photo of my boyfriend that comes to every race (he’s my number one fan in life), a picture my godson drew, my ticket, and the cables for the laptop.  I’m leaving my nerves at home.  I’m a part of one of the most competitive 23-car fields and I will feel incredibly honored to qualify among my TAFC family as I close out my rookie season.  But even if I don’t qualify I will still smile because it’s been one heck of a ride so far :-)  Wish me luck and follow me on twitter @marieferriolo !!