Crowning the 2014 Champions

TAN Original Content
Photos courtesy of David Smith


TAD National Champion - Chris Demke
Three times a runner-up in the last four seasons, Chris Demke was determined to lock down his first NHRA Lucas Oil Series National Championship with team owner Jerry Maddern and the Peen Rite team. A "rollercoaster season" as the California driver described it, started with a powerful win at the season-opening Winternationals at Pomona then fell into a rough patch with early losses and hurt parts. The team regrouped and returned with a vengeance in late spring, picking up a win at the Billings regional. Regional wins at Columbus, Topeka, and Seattle followed, as well as victories at the Route 66 Nationals and 60th U.S. Nationals. Demke's highlight of the year was a rare three-win weekend at the NHRA Nationals in Reading, PA, where Maddern Racing locked up the national championship on Friday, the delayed Carolina Nationals event win on Saturday, and the actual event title on Sunday. Another notable 2014 accomplishment - Demke clocked the fastest blown alcohol speed at Reading, 277.94 MPH.

TAFC National Champion - Steve Harker
All eyes were on the Top Alcohol Funny Car class in 2014, watching to see who would replace 17-time champ Frank Manzo as the class champion at the end of the year. Australian Steve Harker filled the role fittingly, running a season that rivaled the dominating ways of "The Ace". Harker displayed deadly consistency, starting with consecutive wins at the Norwalk national and St. Louis and Bowling Green regionals. He fell in the second round at the U.S. Nationals, but won his next five national events - Charlotte, Dallas, Reading, Las Vegas, and Pomona. As if those wins weren't impressive enough, Harker ran seven 5.4s during late-season eliminations, including a 5.429 in the Reading final. The first non-North American driver to win an NHRA national championship, Harker also swept the potential three-win weekend at Maple Grove.

TAD East Region Champion - Jackie Fricke
Driving the JC Auto Glass/Accelerated Travel A/Fuel dragster, Jackie scored a runner-up at Virginia and regional event wins at Lebanon Valley and Epping to clinch her first TAD regional championship. Fricke's pedalfest win in the Epping final gave her the tie-breaker win over Rich McPhillips, who finished the season with an equal amount of points.

TAFC East Region Champion - Mickey Ferro
The Ryco driver bowed out in the second round of his first four regional events before winning Epping and claiming runner-up at Atco. Ferro clinched the championship by just one point over rookie Matt Gill.

TAD North Central Region Champion - Marty Thacker
While the now four-time regional/divisional champion didn't reach the winner's circle in 2014, Thacker consistently reached the final round, doing so at the Norwalk, Chicago, St. Louis, and Bowling Green regional races.

TAFC North Central Region Champion - Steve Harker

Speed City photo

TAD Central Region Champion - Randy Meyer
Meyer had his hands full this season, between racing his own car, tuning it to two national event wins with driver Shayne Lawson, and fielding a second Randy Meyer Racing entry with Chase Copeland driving. Meyer runnered-up at the Topeka event and won the Earlville regional, resetting the track record in the process. The accomplished driver/tuner/owner also fared well in national competition, winning the Spring Nationals at Houston and the Lucas Oil Nationals completed at the U.S. Nationals for a third place finish in national points.

Megan Meyer photo

TAFC Central Regional Champion - Dale Brand
A favorite to win the national championship for most of the season, Brand locked up the Central Region title with an impressive lead of over 100 points. The former IHRA Alcohol Funny Car standout won three of his five regional events, taking runner-up at the other two. Dale finished No. 2 in national standings with one win, a runner-up and five semifinal appearances.

TAN photo

TAD West Region Champion - Chris Demke

TAFC West Region Champion - Jay Payne
The PEAK-sponsored driver was victorious at the Houston and Billings regional events, also adding a runner-up at Phoenix. On the national level, Payne debuted the second Camaro TAFC body at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals with a win and finished the season third in points.

Demke Locks Up TAD Title, Battle Now is for 2nd Place

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

Like 2014 Top Alcohol Funny Car world champ Steve Harker, Top Alcohol Dragster champion Chris Demke was a multi-time championship runner-up who finally won it all with an unbelievable second-half run. Like Harker, he swept Charlotte and Reading in one unforgettable weekend, walking away with three Wallys and turning the 2014 points race into a race for second place.

Demke, who finished second to Bill Reichert in the 2010 standings and to nemesis Jim Whiteley in 2012 and 2013, won a career-high nine races in 2014 – five national events and four regionals. He began the season with a barrage of 5.20s in a Winternationals rout, was gone by the second round at the next five in a row, then raced just once in a three-month span from March to June as rival Joey Severance took control of the class.

Everything changed June 22 at the West regional at Yellowstone Dragstrip in Acton, Mont., when Demke outran Severance, who had lane choice, in the final. Over the next 11 races, Demke's Adam Rhoades-tuned dragster reached nine finals, won eight (including the big one, the U.S. Nationals), and went four-for-four in regional competition, scoring at Acton, Columbus, Seattle, and Topeka to win the West Region championship in a landslide. He won 35 of 38 rounds aboard Jerry Maddern's Peen Rite dragster and his overall season win-loss record was 43-8 after the Reading double, which included the quickest run of his career (5.217) and the fastest run of any blown-alcohol driver's career (277.94 mph).

Severance, son of '70s Pro Comp great Joe Severance, enjoyed an otherwise outstanding season, winning two regional events in three finals and two national events in three finals, including one over Demke at Seattle that seemed crucial at the time. He took the early season lead and was the midseason title favorite after scoring back to back to back at the Phoenix regional, Las Vegas regional, and Las Vegas national.

Severance's championship hopes were dashed by two disastrous DNQs – one at Norwalk, a race Demke skipped, and another at the Topeka regional that Demke eventually won. His focus now turns to locking down second place and fighting off a determined group of challengers led by Kansas veteran Randy Meyer, the top-ranked A/Fuel driver of 2014.

Meyer's team has excelled with three different drivers at the controls this year. Meyer himself has won three times in five finals, including twice at the national level – Houston and Brainerd. In four starts in Meyer's car, Shayne Lawson won three of them, including two national events (Topeka and Dallas) and the Tulsa regional, where he topped teammate Chase Copeland in an all-Randy Meyer Racing final.

Fourth-ranked Rich McPhillips is on pace to tie his highest finish ever in the national standings and a lock for his third Top 10 in a row. The Gatornationals and U.S. Nationals runner-up scored twice on the regional level (at his home tracks, Maple Grove and Atco) and narrowly missed a second East Region championship in three years when he came out on the wrong end of a tiebreaker with Jackie Fricke.

If Reichert hangs onto fifth place, and he probably will, it'll be his 11th Top 5 in a row, unprecedented in Top Alcohol Dragster history. The retiring five-time national champ didn't claim a national event win for the first time in a decade but did rack up a pair of North Central regional victories (Indy and Chicago) and winds up his distinguished career tied with Rick Santos (1997-2001) for the most championships in class history.

2011 national champ Duane Shields emerged victorious three times this year – all in Gainesville, despite the fact that that track hosts only two races, the Gatornationals and an East Regional. He won the rain-delayed Houston regional that was completed at Gainesville, swept that weekend by doubling up at the Gatornationals, and completed his points-earning season earlier this month with a win at the regularly scheduled Gainesville regional. Seventh in the standings with no more races to claim, he'll finish in the Top 10 for the eighth time in nine years.

Fricke, currently ranked number 7, truly had a breakout year in 2014. Runner-up at the East Region opener in Richmond, she drove Joe Cantrell's Tom Conway-tuned A/Fueler to her first NHRA title at the Lebanon Valley regional and scored again at the very next East Region race, at New England Dragway, to open a sizable lead in the East standings that she never relinquished. The many-time IHRA Super Comp national event winner also earned her first semifinal finish in national competition at the 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte.

Without attracting much attention, transplanted Englishman and former World Finals winner Michael Manners quietly holds down eighth place. For him, it's been all or nothing all year. Manners opened his 2014 campaign with seven first-round losses in a row and nine in the first 10 races, but went all the way to the final at the other two, finishing second to Demke at the Route 66 Nationals in Chicago and winning two weeks ago at Noble, Okla.

Mike Strasburg and Mark Taliaferro are still in the Top 10 despite running just seven races this year and being sidelined for months. In an odd twist, neither will compete again in the cars that carried them to Top 10 status. Strasburg, who now is Top Alcohol Funny Car star Annie Whiteley's crew chief, hasn't competed since earning his first national event win at Norwalk in Jim Whiteley's 2013 championship car that has since been sold. Taliaferro, who reached three finals in seven starts with crew chief Norm Grimes, has been out of action since a violent crash in the second round of the Northwest Nationals in Seattle.

Canadian Jeff Veale, rookie Mia Tedesco, and veteran Shawn Cowie sit just outside the current Top 10. Veale, 11th in the standings, completed the finest season of his nine-year driving career in 2014, running in excess of 280 mph numerous times, winning his first NHRA title at Richmond, and becoming the last driver ever to race his friend, Reichert. Tedesco, a heavy hitter in the Super classes completing her first year in an A/Fueler, collected her first alcohol win at the Bowling Green regional at the wheel of Dave Hirata's car and backed it up a week later with a strong semifinal showing at the U.S. Nationals. Cowie, always at his best at Las Vegas, where he's earned three of his career four national event victories, will crack the Top 10 if he qualifies at either Las Vegas or Pomona and will overtake Strasburg for ninth place if he wins a round at either one.

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

 

Driver Profile - Jackie Fricke

Fricke, right, with teammate John Finke

 

Driver: Jackie Fricke

Car: JC Auto Glass/Accelerated Travel A/Fuel Dragster

Age: 39

Hometown: Flemington, NJ

Occupation: Travel agent

Family: Husband - Shawn

Accomplishments: 2x IHRA national event winner, $10k & $5k bracket race wins, 2x Lucas Oil Series runner-up in A/FD

First race car: '32 Bantam Roadster

Favorite movies: Big Daddy and The Hangover

Favorite music: Country

Favorite TV shows: NHRA Sportsman show

Favorite sports teams: Philadelphia Eagles

When I'm away from the racetrack I: spend time with my nieces and nephews, often racing.

Favorite racing memory: Racing my teammate, John Finke, in the final of the Lebanon Valley regional race.

Top accomplishment in racing: $10k bracket race win at Atco

Toughest opponent: Arthur Gallant. My family still teases me because he beat me so many times.

Favorite opponent: My teammate, John Finke

Favorite drivers outside TAD: My dad, Taylor and Tori Iacono, Chase and Cory Ream

Personal heroes: Shawn Fricke

I race because: of the competition; I love a challenge.

I race TAD because: I dreamed about doing it since I was 7 years old.

Pre-race rituals or superstitions: Left glove goes on first

Nobody knows that I: sing funny songs when I'm in my race car.

If I didn't race I would: drive my family crazy.

 

Twitter username: @JackieFricke

Website: www.acceleratedtravel.net

 

 

Photos courtesy of David Smith/Pro Sportsman Association



Fricke Makes the Move to TAD

Courtesy of the Pro Sportsman Association/Todd Veney
Photos Courtesy of David Smith

To most drag racing fans, there are two kinds of cars: fuel cars...and all others.

Top Alcohol Dragster driver Jackie Fricke was a fan way before she ever became a driver, and to her, Top Alcohol Dragsters are the kings of the sport. "I remember Steve Cantrell, Bruce Horner, Ken Winward, John Rose Jr., Jeff Rapp, Babette Zavor, everyone," she says. "I could probably name everybody who ever drove an Alcohol Dragster in Division 1 if I sat here and thought about it long enough. I'm a fan of the class first and foremost. To be driving one...it's just a dream come true. I was always that kid at the fence who never, ever missed an alcohol session."

Now she's one of the drivers kids peering over the fence are waiting to see. Her family and friends just don't quite understand why.

"My friends all have a different mentality," Fricke says. "They're like, 'Why would you want to work on a greasy car till 2 in the morning? What's wrong with Super Comp? What's wrong with trying to win a 10-grander?' My father is a bracket racer through and through. He knows nothing else. He'd say, 'What are you doing? Why would you even want to do this?'"

Even Fricke's husband, Shawn, who won the first NHRA national event he ever entered with a perfect 10.90 in the 2007 Englishtown Super Street final, didn't see the logic at first. And her mom never wanted her to race anything, much less a 270-mph car.

"When I was a kid, my mom said that we girls would only race over her dead body," Fricke says. "I pretty much had to work on her my whole life. One of my sisters has a license, but kids came along. Another one made one pass and told me I was crazy - and she's probably the most daring of all of us."

Fricke is one of veteran racer Rich Rogge's four daughters, born after Barb and Sandy, and before Amy. Growing up at the track, the other girls at least saw the sport's appeal, but neither they nor Jackie's many racing friends could fathom why she'd ever want to do anything but bracket race or Super-class race - especially when she was so good at it. Fricke is an IHRA national event champion and has won plenty of big-money bracket events, including $30,000 worth the last year she did it.

"This is so different," says Fricke, who drove for Top Alcohol Dragster veteran Tom Jones in 2008 and 2011 and moved to Joe Cantrell's JC Auto Glass team this year for an opportunity to run more events. "A blown-alcohol car is just a lot harder to drive. You don't have to drive the finish line, but you're not just letting your finger off a button to leave.

"I haven't been able to apply the same focus yet because I'm still getting used to everything about driving an alcohol car. The Tree is the same, but the brakes, the chutes, the throttle - everything, really - is just so different. The biggest adjustment, other than getting used to the speed, is tire shake. These cars shake every time, and you really have to know when to shift out of it, when to drive through it, when to pedal, when you've let it go too long. I don't think I've ever missed the 2-3 shift - you're already hauling by that point and you ought to have that figured out - but in low gear, you have to decide, Should I short-shift? How bad is this? Is this just normal, moving-around-the-lane shake, or do I have to short-shift? That's been the biggest challenge?"

At one point, Fricke wondered if she'd made the right choice. "If it wasn't for Tom Jones, I never would have had a chance in this class," she says. "And if it wasn't for John Finke, I already would have quit on myself 100 times by now. Between testing and racing at the Gatornationals last year, I never made it down the track once. I thought maybe I just wasn't cut out for this stuff because everything kept going wrong. I just always think things are my fault. Then John decided to test his A/Fuel car the next day and asked me if I would drive. I asked him why he'd ever let me, and he said he wanted to get a different perspective on things, but really he was just being a good friend."

That day, Fricke became one of the quickest and fastest drivers in class history with a 5.29 at 275 mph, and things have taken off from there.

"Joe is an awesome person to drive for," Fricke says. "I feel like he's behind me 100 percent. Tom Jones was the same way, and so was John. You couldn't ask for three better people to drive for. Sometimes, I still can't believe how much they trusted me."

Fricke qualified at one of the toughest regional events in history last month in Richmond, where 17 cars showed up and notables Chase Copeland, Dan Page, and Karen Stalba missed the cut. "I was so thrilled to qualify for that field," she says. "I don't have that many round-wins, but all three have been over a pretty big name." The list: multiple national event winner John Finke, reigning world champ Duane Shields (in his championship), and Tom Bayer the year he finished second in the world.

"At this point, I don't worry about round-wins," Fricke says. "I never get upset if we don't run great. My barometer for success has nothing to do with the tune-up or whether we win or lose. It's about making sure I see both shift lights and get the car to the finish line. I've always wanted to run this class. Not Top Fuel. Top Alcohol Dragster. And now I am. If they'd let me, I'd drive Joe's car 365 days a year."