Follow A Dream–Success at Lebanon Dragway

Marstons Mills, MA -June 19, 2014-For the second year in a row and the third time in five years, Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team won Top Alcohol Funny Car at the Lebanon Valley Dragway regional. After setting low e.t. of the semifinals with a 5.69 and low e.t. of the entire event with a 5.58 in the first round, driver Todd Veney survived a wild final against Dan Pomponio that had both cars all over the track.
Pomponio lost traction right off the line and Veney opened a two-car lead in low gear, but the race soon devolved into a free-for-all. “Right at the 1-2 shift, way after the point where you’d usually shake or smoke the tires, the car turned left,” Veney said. “Lifting is the last thing you’d ever want to do – especially in the final round – but the car was about to get over the centerline. Every time I’d get back on the throttle, it would get sideways again. I never saw him so I kept getting back in the throttle, and right when I started to think we had it, he blew by me and I thought we lost.”
Pomponio actually did cross the finish line first, 6.11 to 6.33, but a post-race inspection of the track revealed that he’d crossed the outer boundary line and disqualified himself. It was an hour later, well after Pomponio had the trophy in his hands and gathered with his crew for winner’s circle pictures, when the call finally was made.
“Dan came over to hand us the trophy in person, and that shows a lot of class,” Blake said. “He and that whole team have always been a class operation, but that was really something special.”
After a weekend off, the Permatex/Follow A Dream heads west for three races in two weekends – the Jegs Allstars race and the Route 66 Nationals in Chicago and the Summit Racing Equipment Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio.