PERMATEX/FOLLOW A DREAM TEAM QUALIFIES NO. 1, SETS TOP SPEED

Marstons Mills, MA-May 28, 2015-Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team qualified No. 1, set top speed, and reached the semifinals at the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series East Regional at Maple Grove Raceway. Driver Todd Veney qualified in the top spot with a 5.53 – just one-hundredth of a second from the team’s all-time best e.t. – and ran the fastest speed of his career, 265.53 mph.

After a first-round win over John Headley, 5.75 to 7.03, Veney lost to D.J. Cox in the semifinals by 21-thousandths of a second, 5.55 to 5.54. “He must have been ahead the whole way, but I never saw him,” Veney said. “Losing is never acceptable – no matter how close it was or how well the car ran – but it’s running better right now than it ever has. We’ve set top speed at more than half the races we’ve run this year.”

“It was a good weekend,” said Blake. “You’re not going to win every time, and the car was fast all weekend, the crew did a perfect job, and we didn’t hurt a part.”

The next race is June 26-27 at Lebanon Valley Dragway, where the Follow A Dream team has won two years in a row and three times in the past five years. It will be the start of the team’s busiest stretch ever – four races in four weeks: Lebanon Valley, N.Y.; Norwalk, Ohio; Chicago; and Epping, N.H.