Whiteley Begins Title Defense With Victory

Whiteley Begins Title Defense With Victory

With a final-round victory over arch-rival Chris Demke at the season-opening Winternationals in Pomona, Calif., Jim Whiteley opened his Top Alcohol Dragster championship defense by assuming the early 2013 lead. In a fitting final between the top two blown-alcohol racers of the past five years, Whiteley and Demke each made his best run of the long weekend when it mattered most.

Whiteley gained an imperceptible early lead with a .036 reaction time and drove the YNot Racing dragster to low e.t. of the meet, 5.24. Demke, who qualified No. 2 at Pomona and finished second to Whiteley in the 2012 standings, also had a good light and wasn't far behind with a 5.27 in a match decided by less than a car length.

"That was a great race," said Whiteley, whose head-to-head record against Demke now stands at 11-4. "For a while there, I wasn't sure if they were going to make it because they tore up some stuff in the semifinals, but they did and Chris really made a race of it. We ran each other in qualifying too, and a guy like him really brings out the racer in you."

The victory was Whiteley's 20th in national competition and came in just his 58th start, meaning that he's won more than a third of all the national events in his career, the highest percentage in Top Alcohol Dragster history for a driver with that many starts. "If you ask me, I'm still behind the motor a little bit right now," he said. "I'm not as quick on the lights as I was, and I'm still not shifting it right every time. If you short-shift, it kills the e.t., and if you hit the rev-limiter, that hurts the e.t., too. [Crew chief] Norm [Grimes]

wants me to keep the rpm up there because if you don't, the clutch doesn't lock up, and that really hurts performance."

You'd never know it by looking at the numbers: Whiteley qualified No. 1 with a 5.25 and had low e.t. of all four rounds, with a 5.28 against 1993 Winternationals winner Brooks Brown, a 5.31 against last year's runner-up, Larry Miersch, another 5.28 opposite Joey Severance in the semi's, and the 5.24 against Demke in the final.

"This new combination really shows a lot of potential, and I just have to get used to driving this way," Whiteley said. "I've been on the chip on both the 1-2 and 2-3 shifts, and I'm still struggling a little at this point. The window is pretty narrow – 10,000 is too low, and 10,800 is too high – and there's not much difference between them. After about 9,000, the rpm comes up really fast."

Wife Annie, who won the 2012 West Region championship as a rookie, was upset in the first round of Top Alcohol Funny Car eliminations. She qualified a strong third, but, like seven of the top eight qualifiers, didn't make it out of round one. Tire-shake in low gear cost the YNot Mustang a tenth and a half, and Whiteley slowed from her 5.58 qualifying pace to a 5.73, which left her just short of two-time Winternationals runner-up Bret Williamson's 5.70.

"I had to short-shift," she said. "I didn't want to because that always costs you at least a tenth, but if I hadn't, the car never would have made it to the finish line. It's just one race, though. The important thing is that Jim won."