We hate that our friends are having a rough time.  It’s pretty admirable of them to continue sending out the releases and keeping us informed. 

We hate that our friends are having a rough time.  It’s pretty admirable of them to continue sending out the releases and keeping us informed. 

At the Cecil County Lucas Oil Series
event, Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team endured a second straight
subpar outing. Driver Todd Veney qualified on the bubble and smoked the tires
in the first round against number 1 qualifier Frank Manzo.

“It was one
thing after another this weekend,” Veney said. “The car ran great in
testing, an easy 5.75. But starting in the first qualifying session, nothing
went right.”

A broken blower
belt in the opening session turned what would have been about a 5.74 that would
have qualified the team number 2 into a coasting 6.17 at just 182 mph. In the
only other qualifying session, a broken rocker arm caused the boost in the
other cylinders to skyrocket, setting off a chain reaction of mechanical
mayhem. It torched the block and head on the right rear of the engine and
started a brief flash fire, forcing Veney to set off the fire extinguishers.

The team, led by
Blake and tuner Tom Howell, went into thrash mode, swapped a fresh engine into
the car, and made it to the staging lanes just in time to face Manzo. Veney
smoked the tires off the line, and Manzo advanced with a 5.66.

“Not a good
weekend,” Blake said. “One good thing is that we all came together to
repair the damage and we made it up there in time for first round. A lot of
other teams might not have made it.”

After a two-week
break, the Follow A Dream team heads to the Division 1 Lucas Oil Series event
at Old Bridge
Township Raceway
Park in Englishtown, N.J.,
where last year Veney ran in the 5.50s and reached the final round.

Still third in the national standings after the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event two weeks ago in Atco, N.J., Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team heads to venerable Cecil County Dragway in Rising Sun, Md., for the fourth of five Division 1 races this season. Last year, driver Todd Veney reached the Top Alcohol Funny Car final at this event, his second of five final-round appearances in a row in divisional competition.

Still third in the national standings after the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event two weeks ago in Atco, N.J., Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team heads to venerable Cecil County Dragway in Rising Sun, Md., for the fourth of five Division 1 races this season. Last year, driver Todd Veney reached the Top Alcohol Funny Car final at this event, his second of five final-round appearances in a row in divisional competition.

In a complete reversal of fortune from the 2010 Division 1 Lucas Oil Series event at Atco Raceway, Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team missed the cut. Last year, driver Todd Veney won the race with low e.t. of all three rounds of eliminations and top speed of the meet, a career-best 261.17 mph.

Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream Top
Alcohol Funny Car team heads to Atco, N.J. for this weekend’s Lucas Oil
Series event at Atco Raceway, where last year driver Todd Veney set low e.t.
of all three rounds of eliminations en route to victory. The team also won
the event in 2007 over current nitro Funny Car racer Bob Tasca III.

“We had a great weekend at Atco last year,” Blake said. “We beat Frank
Manzo, which is never easy to do, and made our fastest run ever [261.17
mph]. Everybody who works on this car deserves another win – they’ve been
busting their tails all year long.”

Qualifying sessions are set for 3 and 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 5, and
eliminations are scheduled for 2, 4, and 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 6. Heading
into the race, Veney is a career-high third in the national standings
following a final-round appearance two weeks ago at the Lucas Oil Series
event at New England Dragway.

“We can’t catch Manzo or Tony Bartone this weekend, but another good showing
will definitely help us solidify third place,” Veney said. “The race is in
August and not October this year, so we’re not likely to run another
all-time best, but it’s time to win again.”

With its fourth final-round appearance of the season, Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team climbed to third in the national Top Alcohol Funny Car rankings, behind only yearlong leader Tony Bartone and perennial champ Frank Manzo.

At the Division 1 Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event at New England Dragway, the team’s home track, Veney tied his career-best by qualifying in the No. 2 spot, behind only Manzo, with a 5.69. Following a close 5.80 to 5.88 win over Wayne Morris and an easy 5.69 win when semifinal opponent Fred Tigges broke, Veney lost the final to Manzo, 5.60 to 5.71. Manzo’s run took the track record from the Permatex/Follow A Dream team, which ran a 5.62 at New England Dragway last year.

“I’m getting a little tired of running Frank Manzo in all these finals, but to be that high in the standings, ahead of all those great teams, is unbelievable,” said driver Todd Veney. “We got as high as fifth at one point last year, and we were fifth earlier this year, but third is the highest this team and I have ever been. Now we just need to turn some of these final-round appearances into wins.”

“Frank’s always tough – there’s a reason he’s won all those championships – but it was a great weekend for our team,” Blake said. “We had friends and family from all over the New England area in our pit, especially Saturday night for eliminations, and it was great to get to the final for them.”

Marstons Mills, MA – June 28, 2011- At the NHRA Summit Racing Equipment Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team reached its first national event final of the season. Driver Todd Veney ran three consecutive 5.67s in the preliminary rounds of eliminations and a 5.69 in the final against second-generation driver Fred Hagen Jr., who got the win with a 5.57.

“It was another solid weekend for our team,” Blake said. “Everybody worked well together to overcome a few obstacles, and it was great to be back in the final round at a national event.” With the runner-up finish, Veney moved back into seventh place in the national Top Alcohol Funny Car standings.

Veney got around old rival John Anderika in the first round of eliminations, Canadian Paul Noakes in the quarterfinals, and, in the semifinals, John Bojec, settling a score from a close loss to Bojec in the Charlotte semifinals earlier this season. “It was disappointing to get to a final and not win it, but we did well to make it that far,” he said. “This was the first of three races in a row, and I’m really looking forward to heading back to Lebanon Valley this weekend.”

Last year, the Permatex/Follow A Dream team won the Lebanon Valley, N.Y., Lucas Oil Series race with low e.t. of all three rounds of eliminations. Following that event, Blake and the team will turn right back around to head west to Chicago for the JEGS Allstars race and the Route 66 Nationals.

Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team heads to Summit Raceway Park in Norwalk, Ohio this weekend for the Summit Racing Equipment Nationals, the first event in a back-to-back-to-back stretch of races that kicks off the second half of the season.

“It’s a home track for me and one of my favorite races of the season,” said driver Todd Veney, who reached the semifinals of this race last year before being knocked out by an ignition glitch. “We ran pretty good at Norwalk last year, and it really got us started on a great second half of our season.”

“We’ll be on the road for three straight weeks,” said Blake, the team owner and crew chief, who, with Eddie Parker driving the rig, will head straight from Ohio to a Lucas Oil Series Divisional event Lebanon Valley, N.Y., where last year the team won, and from there back to Route 66 Raceway just outside Chicago for the Route 66 Nationals and the JEGS Allstars race. “These back-to-back-to-back races take a lot of dedication from the crew, but racing so much in such a short period of time is a great way for all of us to stay in the groove.”

At the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Spring Nationals in Houston, Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream Top Alcohol Funny Car team reached the semifinals for the second time in three national event appearances this season. Driver Todd Veney, who qualified a career-high No. 2 last month at the 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, was No. 4 in Houston, ahead of some of the biggest names in the business, including 2010 championship runner-up and defending champ Mickey Ferro and current points leader and eventual winner Tony Bartone.

Veney eliminated one of the most prolific drivers in Top Alcohol Funny Car history, veteran Vern Moats, in round one and Texan Bryan Brown in the quarterfinals before crossing the centerline in the semifinals for an automatic disqualification against Steve Burck, who reached his first career final with the round-win. It was the only shut-off run all weekend for the Follow A Dream team, the only Top Alcohol Funny Car team all weekend to get down the track with a five-second pass in all three qualifying sessions.

“The track wasn’t the Houston we’ve come to know in years past,” Veney said. “Last year, everybody was in the 5.50s or low 5.60s, but this year, everybody had trouble figuring it out all weekend, even Bartone’s team. “We had a pretty consistent string of runs going for a while [5.70-5.69-5.70], but when we tried to step it up a notch for the semifinals, the track wouldn’t take it.”

After a three-week layoff, the team heads for historic Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pa., for the first race of the five-race Division 1 Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, May 27-29. With the semifinal finish, Veney is just outside the top 10 in the NHRA national points standings.

Three weeks after and 60 miles south of the originally scheduled date, the final round of the Lucas Oil Series event that began in Englishtown, N.J., was completed in Atco, N.J. The race between reigning world champion Frank Manzo and Permatex/Follow A Dream driver Todd Veney ended abruptly when the output shaft on the Permatex Chevy broke about 100 feet off the starting line, sending Manzo to a 5.63 win.
“It was a lousy way to lose, but Frank’s hard to beat under any circumstances,” Veney said. “The car got into some tire shake in low gear and the output shaft took the brunt of it. Overall, it was still a good race for us. The final-round finish got us back up to sixth place in the national standings, and we just about have second place in the Division [behind Manzo] wrapped up.”
Eliminations for the Atco event were postponed by cold, wet weather that track officials felt was unsafe for racing. Veney landed in the top half of the field with a backpedaling 5.84 at 238 mph on his lone qualifying attempt. The team is number 4 on the grid and has a first-round matchup with Dan Pomponio of nearby Berlin, N.J.
The only race left on the Permatex/Follow A Dream team’s 2010 slate is the Toyo Tires Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pa., Blake’s favorite event of the year. “It’s the race where the whole dream began in 1998, the biggest race of the year to me,” Blake said. “I had two speaking engagements this week that went really well and spoke before 1,400 people.  The whole team and I are really looking forward to this weekend.”

Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team reached its second consecutive final in Division 1 competition and dropped a close race with perennial Top Alcohol Funny Car champ Frank Manzo, 5.65 to 5.67. Manzo had low e.t. of all three rounds, with times of 5.67, 5.67, and 5.65, but Follow A Dream driver Todd Veney was right there with a 5.70, 5.69, and 5.67.

“We didn’t win, but it was a great weekend anyway,” Blake said. “Anytime you can be that close to Mr. Manzo, you know you’re doing something right. The team is really starting to jell, working well together, and the results are starting to show. We have a great shot at finishing second in the Division this year, and we’re gearing up for a great finish to the season.”

Veney qualified No. 3 with a 5.69 and defeated Wayne Morris in the first round, 5.70 to 5.86. In the semifinals, Tom Carter, the No. 2 qualifier and recent runner-up at the Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., fell to the Follow A Dream crew, 5.69 to 6.00. No driver all weekend – even Manzo – ran better than a 5.84 in the tricky left lane until Follow A Dream tuner Tom Howell delivered a 5.67 in the final, but Manzo had just enough to win by a couple of hundredths.

“I can’t stand losing, even in the final round and even to someone like Frank, who wins all the time, but you can’t be that upset about a weekend like this,” Todd said. “At least we got to race him this time. The only other time I raced here [in 2003], we got to the final against Frank but had to let him take a single because the engine blew up in the semi’s.”

After two weekends off, the team finishes the 2010 season with four races in five weeks – two divisionals, and two nationals: Division 1 events in Englishtown (Sept. 11-12) and Atco, N.J. (Oct. 1-2), and nationals in Charlotte (Sept. 17-19) and Reading (Oct. 8-10).

 Fresh off of a win at Lebanon Valley Dragway, Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team heads to Cecil County Dragway in Rising Sun, Md., for the next race in the Division 1 Lucas Oil Series.  
            “It’s great to head to the track with a win still fresh in our minds,” driver Todd Veney said. “That weekend at Lebanon Valley was the best of my career, and I’m ready for another one just like it. Plus, I’ve got a little unfinished business at Cecil County.” In his only previous appearance at the Maryland track, in 2003, Todd reached the final against Frank Manzo was but unable to compete following an engine explosion in a semifinal win over Paul Gill.
            The team currently is one point from being in the national top 10 standings and has been as high as sixth this season. In Division 1, where Manzo has won the championship a record 19 times – more than any driver in any class and in any division in drag racing history – the Follow A Dream crew currently is second in the standings behind Manzo.
            In testing at New England Dragway at the start of the month, the car set both ends of the track record with a best of 5.62 at 257. In four runs, the car ran at least a 5.69 every time, and the speed on all four runs was 257.
            “It was a great test session,” Jay said. “I’m feeling better than I have in a couple of years about where we’re at and where we’re headed. One thing that’s really exciting about this event is that we’ll have a group of wounded soldiers from George G. Meade as our guests for the weekend. We really appreciate what they do for our country, and we really appreciate the support we’ve gotten from both the track and NHRA in making all this happen.”
 

At the SummitRacing.com Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, Jay Blake’s
Permatex/Follow A Dream team shot back into the top 10 in the national
standings with a second straight semifinal finish in national competition.
As in Englishtown two weeks earlier, driver Todd Veney qualified in the top
five and advanced to the semifinals, where he fell to 13-time Top Alcohol
Funny Car world champion Frank Manzo, who has yet to lose a round all year.

The car ran flawlessly, with times of 5.72, 5.67, and 5.70 in qualifying and
equally consistent runs of 5.70 and 5.72 in the first two rounds of
eliminations. The 5.70 took out Canadian veteran Larry Dobbs, who ran a
5.87, and the 5.72 was just enough for another close win over John Anderika,
the second-ranked driver in Division 1 last season, who hit a 5.74.

“Norwalk is kind of a home race for me because I grew up just an hour from
the track,” Todd said. “I really wanted to do well there, and we did. It’s
always great to be in the late rounds at a national event, but my wife was
there, my mom and dad were there, and a bunch of my friends from high school
and college were there, too, which made it that much more special for me.”

Just as in Gainesville, where the team also reached the final four, the
other semifinalists were Manzo; Steve Harker, who finished second in the
national standings last year; and Mickey Ferro, who appears headed for a
second-place finish this year, having reached the final round in each of his
nine starts this year.

A possible final-round showing for the Permatex/Follow A Dream team
dissolved in the semi’s when the engine inexplicably fell silent just as
Todd was preparing to stage against Manzo, handing Manzo a free pass into
the finals.

“It’s disappointing to lose because of an electrical failure, but overall,
it was another good weekend,” Jay said. “We had some special guests at the
track, we got back in the semifinals, and we’re back in the top 10.”

The team’s next race is this week’s Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series meet at
Lebanon Valley Dragway in scenic upstate New York, just outside Albany.
Tuner Tom Howell has a history of success at the sometimes tricky track,
having guided the car to the number 1 qualifying spot there in 2006.

The Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals sportsman finals will be
broadcast July 4, 2010 @ 12:00PM ET on ESPN2.

Marstons Mills, MA-June 23, 2010- Hot off a semifinal finish at the SuperNationals June 11-13 in Englishtown, N.J., Jay Blake’s Permatex/Follow A Dream team heads to Norwalk, Ohio for the SummitRacing.com Nationals. It promises to be one of the toughest challenges of the season, with top-ranked cars from every corner of the country entered in the event.
 
“Norwalk is one of everybody’s favorite races every year, just because of the track itself,” Jay said. “The Bader family really knows how to run a racetrack. We’ve got some special things planned for the weekend, including a trip to the Permatex plant in Solon, Ohio, a pit visit by some of the folks from Travel Centers of America, a speech I’ll be giving at the Lion’s Club in Todd’s hometown, and a wedding reception Todd’s parents are throwing at their house Thursday night.”
 
Driver Todd Veney, who married Jacque Huntley two weeks earlier, on the Friday of the Englishtown race, grew up not far from Norwalk, in Wadsworth, Ohio. “It’s like another home race for me,” he said. “Everybody in the area is proud of the Norwalk track, and I’m really looking forward to hearing Jay speak for the first time ever when he gives his speech in Wadsworth. Plus, everybody on the team will be with us this weekend, just like they were when we got to the semi’s in Gainesville and Englishtown, so we’re looking to get back into the late rounds again at the very least.”
 
A giant crowd is expected at the northern Ohio facility, which drew a record 45,000 fans for the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series divisional event there last month. Two qualifying sessions are scheduled for Friday, with a last-shot session Saturday morning and the first round of eliminations that afternoon. Final eliminations are on Sunday, and the event will be televised the following Sunday, July 4, from 11 a.m. to noon (Eastern time) on ESPN2.