PERMATEX/FOLLOW A DREAM TEAM SETS TOP SPEED AT THE GAINESVILLE REGIONAL

Marstons Mills, MA-February 24, 2015-With a run within 0.06 mph of the team’s all-time best, Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream set top speed of the meet at the East Region season opener in Gainesville, Fla. Driver Todd Veney hit 262.79 mph in the final qualifying session for Top Alcohol Funny Car and just missed the team’s best-ever speed of 262.85, established at the last race of 2014, the NHRA Finals at Pomona, Calif.

Veney qualified No. 4 with a 5.77 but smoked the tires in a first-round loss to North Carolina’s Mark Rogers, who advanced with a 5.93. “The atmospheric conditions were unbelievable, and the car was making an ungodly amount of power all weekend,” he said. “You never want to lose early like that, but if we keep making this kind of power all year, good things are going to happen.”

“A first-round loss isn’t what any of us were looking for, but we’ll be back at Gainesville in a few weeks for one of the biggest races of the year, the Gatornationals,” Blake said. “The car is making a lot of power, and it’s a lot easier to back it down a little to keep it from going up in smoke than it is to come up with this kind of power in the first place.”