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Foley's Folio
Nothing makes for a long journey like back-to-back trips. We had just returned from a long trip to the Gators on March 17th and turned around for another trip the next week to San Antonio. We did fairly well in Gainesville and when I say fairly well, I mean that we qualified. It was a tough field to get into because of these new tires. Out of 4 qualifying passes I only made it down the track once, but thankfully that was enough.
We headed out to San Antonio on Monday night, what a long ride. We finally got there at 1:30 AM on Wednesday only to find out they were not parking until Thursday so we sat in a truck stop all day Wednesday – oh the glamorous life of a professional race car driver. Thursday we parked and set up shop. It is a lot of work to get two cars prepared for the weekend, but we managed. Our first qualifying shot on Friday was pretty nice and we qualified #1 with a 4.61, which I never thought would hold. After two more qualifying sessions we still sat in the #1 spot. It was nice going into Sunday knowing you were the fastest car there this weekend, but I must say I am not a fan of this new reverse ladder. You are usually pretty confident going in as the #1 guy and running the #8 guy but that is not the case anymore. I had Louie Allison first round, which is no easy draw.
I have seen Jack tune that think to plenty of 4.60 runs, Rick’s car qualified #3 and had Mitch King first round. Myself and Rick were both fairly fortunate, both of our opponents smoked the tires advancing us to the next round, but as fate would have it, we ended up running against each other. It is hard enough to even qualify at these races no less plan the ladder out so we don’t meet until the final but I guess we will have to work on that a little harder. This time it was mine and Rick’s turn to smoke the tires. I was just a little more fortunate since mine went a couple of hundred feet prior to getting loose. Clay had a good run in the semis running a 4.66 and giving him lane choice over me in the final. They did it in the right lane, which was not the lane of choice and I assumed they were going to stay there for the final, but they went back into the left lane. We felt fairly confident since we ran our #1 qualifying pass in that right lane but that was two days ago. It was not unusual to see myself and Clay in the final it happen almost a half dozen times last year so we are pretty used to running each other, unfortunately last year he got the upper hand. We definitely did not want to start the season 0-1 against him. It was kind of nice for a change – IHRA had tried some new marketing strategies and it turned out to be a very good crowd on Sunday. It is always cool to race in front of a packed house. Fortunately for us, I got Doug Kuch, he is a guy who has made me look like I know what I am doing inside that cockpit. I could count on one hand how many bad runs we have had since he has come on board. I am not sure he can say the same about me. But any driver knows between the crew chief and the crew we are out numbered so drivers usually take the blame. Sorry, I got side tracked but you have to give credit where credit is due. We went a 4.58 at 321 mph setting the track mph record and taking the win – even more importantly taking the points lead. You have to look pretty far back in the IHRA records to see where Clay Millican wasn’t leading the Top Fuel points. Good Job to my entire team, I couldn’t do it without you or even more importantly to Tim Lewis who gave me the opportunity to sit in one of these cars and I sure don’t want to forget my wife Shelagh and my kids Douglas and Joseph, who have given me unconditional support. I don’t know if you have noticed from the press releases lately but the Foley and Lewis camp has been literally pulling their hair since we have been back from San Antonio trying to get everything completed for this new promotional program we are doing for Torco. Evan Knoll the owner of Torco has switched our cars over to the Mach Series Accelerator product line. I am extremely excited that he has the confidence in us to promote this product line. Evan has been a huge supporter of our program for a little over a year now and for anybody that has been following us, they can see the difference in our team since he has been on board. But because of that I have put the additional pressure on myself to make sure that everything is perfect by the time we get to Rockingham. I never really knew what was involved in redoing two tractor trailers; two race cars; uniforms; etc. but I give a lot of credit to the teams that can do it between races. Well, I won’t take anymore of your time, Shelagh wants to go shopping and she gets to do all the typing of these blogs. Hope to see you all in Rockingham.
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We planned on testing our second car driven by Rick Cooper on Monday but unfortunately every other pro team decided to do the same so it was pretty crowded and then we found a few minor problems with the car so we never ended up running it, which wasn’t that big a deal since it is my car from last year so we know what it is capable of doing, we just wanted to get Rick comfortable in it prior to our first IHRA race. 
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