News & Updates

Hartleys making the most of their first full season

Saturday, May 09, 2009
by Steve Waldron, National DRAGSTER

After competing part time for the last nine seasons, Top Fuel racer Joe Hartley is seven races into his first full season. The 32-year-old second-generation racer plans to compete at all 24 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series events this year, and so far he’s holding his own. But with no sponsor and limited resources, how far he gets will depend a lot on how well he does.

"We’re not putting down the big e.t.s like some of the other teams, though I think we’re capable of doing that, but we’re getting down the track, and I feel like we’ve done a pretty good job," said Hartley, who has qualified for all seven events and gone rounds at the last four, highlighted by a semifinal finish in Houston. "Looking at the performance of some of the other cars, we’re not too far off."

A former Top Alcohol Dragster racer, Hartley made his Top Fuel debut in 2000. In their first seven seasons, he and his father Allen, the team’s crew chief and principal backer, had qualified for 23 of 64 races and won just four rounds. In 2007, he qualified for six of 11 events, won a career-high five rounds, and reached the final in Houston. He also qualified No. 1 in Topeka that year and finished 17th in points, his best finish since 2000. Hartley ran just three races last season, but he qualified for all three and won a round.

"In our nine seasons of racing in the Top Fuel category, one thing that we’ve learned is that it’s difficult to race part time and expect to perform consistently against the fully budgeted teams," said Hartley. "In 2007, we ran 11 races and we were able to get more of that consistency, and that’s kind of what drove us to do [this]."

Running only three races last season helped the Hartleys put together the budget to run the full schedule this season, but with no back-up car and few spare parts, the team can’t afford to push too hard.

Joe Hartley, left, and father Allen are making their first full-season attack on the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series this season.

"We try to take a conservative approach and do our best to learn from every run that we make," said Hartley. "We do our best to analyze the data and make the best call for our budget. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not afraid to turn the knobs up when the time is right. If we could just get a little extra funding, we’d be more likely to try things to improve our performance. It would take a lot of the pressure off. We wouldn’t have to worry about hurting a motor or two and not having the inventory to go to the next race. We have five spare blocks and a lot of these teams have 10 or more, and that’s what makes it difficult."

Difficult and, at times, frustrating.

"In Houston we had to sit out a qualifier, and that’s one thing we really don’t like to do," said Hartley. "We want to take advantage of every opportunity to get to know that racetrack so that we have the best shot of winning on Sunday. We came into that race with four motors and we were looking pretty good, but we took two out right away. We had Las Vegas the next weekend, and we knew there wasn’t enough time to get those repaired and back into the inventory, so that was a decision we had to make."

After first-round losses at the season’s first three races, Hartley has gone rounds at the last four and is hopeful that he can get through the season without missing a race.

The team's best outing so far this season is a semifinal finish in Houston.

"If we continue to qualify, go a few rounds here and there, and limit our parts damage, we should be able to," he said. "But without any financial support, it may become tight as the season progresses. ProData [Computer Services, a leading provider of IBM utilities] is my dad’s company, and that’s where we get the funding to do this. Everything is going OK there, and if things continue that way, we should be OK. But for us to feel more comfortable −to be able to step it up and not worry about hurting parts − a little backing would definitely go a long way. Obviously, the more parts you have, the harder you can step on it, but, right now, all we can do is take the budget that we have and try to spread it out over the whole season."

Though he and his father have traveled extensively, running as many as 27 races in one season with their A/Fuel Dragster, which they campaigned for eight seasons, there are several tracks on the circuit that they’ve never been to with the Top Fuel car.

The Hartley team is gunning for a Top 10 finish and their first win this season.

"Most of the tracks are really good, and NHRA does a good job of preparing them, so, for the most part, it’s just a matter of adjusting for the atmospheric conditions and track temperature," said Hartley. "In Gainesville, the air was phenomenal. We’d never run in air like that, and we couldn’t take enough power or clutch out of it to make it work. We made one decent run all weekend, and that was it. The nice thing about a lot of the guys in NHRA is that they’re willing to help put you in the ballpark. Nobody wants you blowing your stuff up, and most of the guys out here are willing to give you something safe to get you going."

As for goals, Hartley would love to win his first Wally and finish in the top 10, but, considering what he’s up against, he’d be happy just to qualify for every race and occasionally outrun somebody.

"I think it would be quite an accomplishment just to qualify for all 24 races," said Hartley, who is currently 10th in points. "I think this is our longest streak, which isn’t saying much because we haven’t been to that many races in a season, but if we can keep it going, that would be pretty big for us. I don’t care how many cars there are or how good they are, it’s easy to not qualify; just look at Doug Kalitta in Houston. And we’d like to get our performance back up there, where we’re winning rounds by outrunning the other guy and not because he smoked the tires. If we can win some rounds on performance, that would feel pretty good."

This story is copyright 2009 National Hot Rod Association. It may not be reprinted or retransmitted in any form without the express written permission of NHRA.com.