Words by Todd Veney - Photos by James Drew

People think they'd love to be in Annie Whiteley's position, but would they really? Do they really want the pressure that comes with climbing into one of the top five Alcohol Funny Cars in the country, or the inevitable comparisons to Roger Bateman, the driver she's replacing, or to husband Jim Whiteley, one of the leading Alcohol Dragster drivers of this century?

"Call me weird, but I really don't feel any pressure," she says. "Others might hold themselves to a higher standard, but I don't let what Jim or Roger have accomplished affect what I'm doing. I'm just not going to do that to myself."

"I told Jim that I wanted to make a lot of runs before I ever entered an event," Whiteley says. "I didn't want to just get my license and go race people – that's not enough experience, and I'd never want to jeopardize the driver in the other lane. When we first started talking about me driving an Alcohol Funny Car four years ago, Jim thought I'd really enjoy it, and I said I'd try it under one condition: If I didn't like it, I could back out."

The closest Whiteley had been to an Alcohol Funny Car before last year was the six-second altered she still sometimes races in Top Dragster. "It has the same short wheelbase," she says. "It isn't as fast as a Funny Car, but it's similar because it shakes the tires and moves around a lot as you go down the track. It's not the same, though. When a Funny Car shakes, it does it a lot harder; there's no doubt what's happening. You finesse a dragster, but this thing, you really have to steer. I was a little surprised. For it to respond to what you're doing, you really have to turn the wheel. The hardest part is staging – that and leaving on time.