Marstons Mills, MA –March 20, 2013-Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team reached the final round of the NHRA Gatornationals thanks to a heroic effort by the crew, which completed a mad thrash with just minutes to spare. Driver Todd Veney defeated Paul Noakes in the Top Alcohol Funny Car semi’s but the engine blew in a flash of fire a few hundred feet before the finish line, slowing the car to a 5.75 at just 212 mph and creating the very real possibility that Dan Pomponio would get a bye run in the final.

With help from mechanics from many other crews, the Follow A Dream team replaced the engine and got everything buttoned up just in time to race through the lanes and straight to the starting line to race Pomponio.  Tuner Tom Howell never had time to develop a tune-up, but the car, equipped with a new ignition, had more power and carried the front end all the way through low gear as it headed toward the centerline.

“I finally had to lift, or I would have gone over the center line,” Veney said. “It’s amazing that we made it up there at all. They strapped me in back in the pits, and I could hear people cheering as we went through the lanes and made it up to the line.”

“It was unbelievable how everybody came together to get the job done,” Blake said. “So many things could have gone wrong, but the engine ran great.”

After the race, Blake and teammate Ed Parker headed from Gainesville to the Florida panhandle, where Blake will speak to airmen at the Eglin Air Force Base near Valparaiso, Fla on Thursday, March 21. “It’s always an honor to be able to speak to our military, and I’m really looking forward to it,” he said.  The event will be live streamed beginning at approximately 3 pm ET and can be viewed by logging onto followadream.org.