“This has got to be the best win ever,” Veney said. “I never saw Mickey, and he said he never saw me, so we must have been side by side the whole way down the track.”

Veney qualified fourth with a 5.74 at 251 mph and beat Marie Ferriolo in the first round, 5.67 to 5.69, and incoming points leader John Anderika in the semifinals, 5.67 to 6.04. The win over Anderika drew the Permatex/Follow A Dream team to within a single point of the top spot, and the final-round victory has the team 20 points in the lead.

“It was a total team effort,” Blake said. “I told everybody before we left for Cecil County that if we won that race we were really going to go after this championship, and we are. Now, we’re going to Bowling Green.”

Marstons Mills, MA -July 25, 2012-Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team
was eliminated by Frank Manzo at the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event at
New England Dragway – just like last year. Only this time, it wasn’t in the
Top Alcohol Funny Car final but rather in the first round of eliminations.

The recent spate of bad fortune followed the team to the crew’s home track,
where driver Todd Veney and tuner Tom Howell were scheduled to arrive early
on Thursday for a full day of testing. Bad weather cancelled all early
flights to Boston, and both Veney, who flew in from Indianapolis, and
Howell, who flew in from Florida, where he was attending his father’s
funeral, didn’t arrive until Thursday night.

“We really could have used that day,” Veney said. “Tom had a bunch of ideas
he wanted to try, the whole crew would have been there, and some of the
things that went wrong it qualifying would have happened in testing, when it
wouldn’t have mattered as much.”

A bad spark plug kept the car on seven cylinders in the first qualifying
session and Veney ran just a 5.92 – a full three-tenths of a second from the
track-record 5.62 the team established there in 2010. Violent shake in the
only other qualifying session set off the fire bottles and relegated Veney
to the No. 7 qualifying spot, which set up the first-round match with No. 2
qualifier Manzo, who eventually won the event.

Marstons Mills, MA -June 27, 2012-Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream Top
Alcohol Funny Car team set top speed at the Lebanon Valley Dragway regional
despite going out early in eliminations. Driver Todd Veney fell to eventual
winner Eric Lourie in the first round by 21-thousandths of a second, 5.77 to
5.80, but set top speed of the meet on the run at 252.89 mph.

“It was tough because when it’s that close at the finish line, you can’t see
the other guy even though you’re a few feet behind him,” Veney said. “I
never saw him the whole way down the track and couldn’t believe it when the
win-light didn’t come on in my lane, but I guess it’s a payback from
Richmond, where we beat him by the exact same margin – 21-thousandths of a
second.”

Veney qualified in the fast half of the field with a 5.83 at 251 mph before
dropping the close first-round decision. “This is part of the sport – the
bad part – and everybody goes through it,” Blake said. “It’s disappointing
and frustrating, but everyone on this team is determined to turn it around,
and we will.”

Off the track, the weekend was a huge success as the team hosted students
from the Porter and Chester Institute. The pit area was swarmed with people
all day on Saturday, and six students with perfect attendance were chosen to
join the crew on the starting line for the first-round match against Lourie.

A large turnout from one of the team’s valued associate sponsors, the Porter and Chester Institute, will join the Follow A Dream crew at Lebanon Valley. “We’re very excited to have them,” Blake said. “I made 15 presentations for Porter and Chester last week – three a day every day of the week – and the whole team is really looking forward to seeing hundreds of students from Porter and Chester in our pit this weekend.

“I had the best day of my drag racing life two years ago at Lebanon Valley,” Veney said. “I’ll never forget that day – winning the first round in the first pair after the National Anthem, racing Frank Manzo in the semifinals, and racing Eric Lourie in a really close final – and the whole team is ready to do it again.”

Qualifying gets underway at 2 p.m. Friday and concludes with a final session that evening at 6. Eliminations are set to go off at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, with the semifinals scheduled for 2 p.m. and the final at 4 p.m. From Lebanon Valley, the team heads straight to Chicago for the Route 66 Nationals and from there to Norwalk, Ohio for the Summit Racing Equipment Nationals.

The Permatex/Follow A Dream team won the 2012 Eastern Regional opener last month in Richmond Va., qualifying No. 1 and setting low e.t. and top speed of the meet, and Manzo did the same at the North Central Regional opener a week later in Indianapolis.

“It would be great to break the tie with Frank by winning this weekend,” Veney said. “He’s hard to beat anywhere, and he’s won more at Maple Grove than he’s won at any other track, but we almost got him there last year, and we’ve made our
best run of the year at Maple Grove for two years in a row.”

PORTER AND CHESTER ANNOUNCES SPONSORSHIP WITH JAY BLAKE AND HIS “FOLLOW A DREAM” RACING TEAM FOR 2012

For Immediate Release                                                                                            May 2012

ROCKY HILL, CT – Porter and Chester Institute, Inc. (PCI) announced today a product sponsorship with Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream Top Alcohol Funny Car racing team, competitors on the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) tour.

In May 1997 Blake suffered an industrial accident that resulted in his blindness while serving as the head mechanic for a transportation company.  While enrolled in an intensive rehabilitation program, Blake began to follow his dream of owning his own professional auto racing team.  Turning his dream into a reality, Jay combined his renewed participation in drag racing with his desire to spread his true-life success by inspiring others to accomplish their goals through the power of positive thinking, self-determination, and teamwork.  Jay leads his team of racing professionals in NHRA competition, where they finished the 2010 and 2011 season ranked seventh in the national standings.

“Follow A Dream” and Jay’s “Dare to Dream” are perfect complements to how PCI inspires students and help guide their dreams of a career and turn them into a reality,” Said Eddie Bonnell, Campus Director for Porter and Chester’s Woburn campus. 

“We’re extremely excited that Porter and Chester has decided to support our efforts,” said Blake.  “PCI provides its students a great educational experience, and we’re just happy to be part of that.”

The PCI backed Follow A Dream/Permatex Funny Car is a 2008 Chevrolet Impala SS powered by a 526-cubic-inch Hemi engine that produces more than 3,000 horsepower.  Todd Veney is the driver.  For more information about “Follow A Dream”, log on to www.followadream.org.

“We are partnering with Jay and “Follow A Dream” for several reasons,” said John Goldbeck, Campus Director for Porter and Chester’s Stratford campus.  “Back in 2006 when I first met Jay and heard his story, I was incredibly inspired and wanted to bring his story to our students.  I invited him to an event where he met with many students and again was an amazing inspiration, sharing his example of the desire, drive and determination we try to inspire in all of our students.  Porter and Chester Institute’s Automotive program has worked with Jay’s Follow a Dream organization and with his sponsor Permatex doing training clinics for our students and staff, we felt it would be a perfect relationship to build on.”

“Running back-to-back-to-back races made it impossible for a couple of guys
on the team to make it to this one, but everybody else stepped up and we got
the job done,” Blake said. “Everyone did his job perfectly, and it was a
great team effort. This is the first time NHRA has been in Virginia in a few
years, and it was awesome to get the win in our first trip back.”

Veney defeated Melinda Green-King in the first round, 5.65 to 5.80, veteran
Eric Lourie in the semifinals, 5.71 to 5.74, and second-generation driver
D.J. Cox in the final, 5.66 to 5.69. “This is my best win ever,” he said.
“It’s the first time I’ve qualified No. 1, and the guys were able to parlay
it into a win. We really needed that kind of performance, too – the
semifinals against Lourie and the final against Cox were great races decided
by just a couple hundredths of a second.”

The event was the second of three events on consecutive weekends for the
Permatex/Follow A Dream crew, including the 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte,
where the team made its two quickest (5.52 and 5.53) and two fastest (262.64
and 261.98 mph) runs ever. The tour winds up this weekend 1,200 miles from
Richmond at the NHRA Spring Nationals in Houston, where the team will have
two qualifying attempts Friday and a final qualifying session Saturday
morning. The first of four rounds of eliminations is scheduled for Saturday
afternoon.

Marstons Mills, MA –April 18, 2012-At the 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team made not just its quickest and fastest run of all time but the two quickest and two fastest.

Driver Todd Veney ran a 5.52 at 262.64 mph off the trailer in the first session and a 5.53 at 261.98 mph Saturday afternoon in the final session and the eventually settled into the No. 2 qualifying position, equaling a career high established last year at this race. After an easy win over first-round opponent Bill Naves, who broke, Veney lost to perennial championship contender Mickey Ferro in the quarterfinals, 5.57/260 to 5.69/258.

“It was still a good weekend for our team,” Veney said. “Tuner Tommy Howell made some great calls and had this car running better than it’s ever run before. I hated losing to Mickey, but he’s one of the top drivers in the country for a reason, and we out-qualified a lot of great teams.”

“We had 20 kids from a local shelter in the pit with us this weekend, and it was great for our team to be around them and, hopefully, great for them to be around us,” Blake said. “Losing in the second round was a huge disappointment after the performance we had earlier in the weekend, but we’re expecting really big things this year. I spoke at the New York International Auto Show in New York City right before this race, and it’s like I told those students: Everybody wants to win every time, but only one team is going to.”

Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team heads to Charlotte, N.C., for the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals, the first race of back-to-back-to-back events. Last year, driver Todd Veney made his fastest run of the year – 260.66 mph – on the way to a semifinal finish in Charlotte.

“zMax Dragway in Charlotte is one of the nicest racetracks in the world – maybe the nicest,” Blake said. “We ran a bunch of 5.50s there last year and hit 260 mph a couple of times, so we’ve got big plans for this year. We tested in Gainesville the day after the Gatornationals, and the car responded to what tuner Tom Howell was trying, so it should be a good race.”

“I qualified higher than I ever have in my life here last year – No. 2 – so hopefully, we can run that well again,” Veney said. “I like these back-to-back-to-back races. When we got to Gainesville, I hadn’t been in the car in five months. That’s not impossible, but it really helps a driver get in a groove when you can race three weekends in a row.”

Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team makes its 2012 debut this weekend at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., where the team won the Top Alcohol Funny Car title in 2006.

 “The first race of the year is always exciting,” said Blake. “Tuner Tommy Howell is back from working overseas all winter, and every single member of the team is back with us for another season. Permatex returns as our major sponsor, and that kind of continuity really strengthens a team. It’s a little nerve-racking because it’s the first race of the season, and we all need to knock the cobwebs off, but we’re ready to get back to the racetrack.”

 “Jay and the team did a lot of work over the winter to make the car lighter, which should make it faster,” said driver Todd Veney. “They went from one end of the car to the other preparing everything, and the car should be about 40 pounds lighter than it was last year. The air in Gainesville is always good this time of the year, and the track is one of the best in the country and one of my favorites. Even though it’s the first race of the year, we’re shooting for a career best right out of the gate.”

Following the Gatornationals, the Permatex/Follow A Dream crew will stay in Gainesville for a full day of testing. From there, the team will hit the national events in Charlotte, Houston, Chicago, Norwalk, Indy, and Reading.

“I love this race and this track. It’s where I made the decision about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life,” said Blake, who committed himself to forming his own race team while attending the 1998 event. “We’ve been to the semifinals there a few times, and it’s time for another win for the Follow A Dream team.”

“I made my quickest run ever [5.54] there last year, and the conditions usually are perfect for Alcohol Funny Cars,” Veney said. “Our test session at New England Dragway after the Englishtown divisional race was productive. We didn’t run in the .50s, but that wasn’t really the point. I think [tuner] Tom [Howell] learned what he wanted to know.”