Albany’s Ivey lands in Calif., on quest for NHRA championship

POMONA, Calif. — Jesse Ivey didn’t go to California this week to ride the waves.

“I can’t even swim,” the 22-year-old joked Thursday during an interview with The Herald from Pomona, Calif., where the 2011 NHRA Summit Racing Series National Championship will be held this weekend.

Ivey will represent the entire Southeast on the legendary drag strip in Pomona at the Auto Club NHRA Finals at Auto Club Raceway after winning the NHRA Division 2 Pro ET series championship more than a month ago. He beat out drag racers from Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Southern Virginia to earn a shot to compete against the nation’s best.

Ivey and the family’s long-time 1979 Dodge D-50 pickup will push 120 miles per hour on the quarter-mile drag strip against the seven other division winners from around the country in pursuit of a $5,000 purse.

“I’m out here to race, have fun, watch the big dogs and hopefully win,” said Ivey, who traveled with his father nearly 2,800 miles cross country to compete in the Pro ET finals.

Ivey will be timed Saturday and will run in the first elimination round Sunday. The key, he says, is consistency.

“Stay consistent, stay running my number,” Ivey said about hitting his dial-in time. “I’m going to try to knock that tree over every time (with good reaction time) and run my dial-in every time.”

The two things he noticed after spending several days in California: “We have no gnats and the view is amazing. The girls here ain’t as pretty as everybody makes them out be, (though).”

The scenery aside, Ivey couldn’t be happier. He never expected to dominate the Pro ET series like he did in 2011 at the U.S. 19 Dragway in Albany and other tracks across the region, despite growing up in a bracket racing family steeped in tradition.

His father, Jack Sr., has raced since the mid 1980s around the Southeast and came just one win short of going to Pomona in his heyday while driving the very same ’79 Dodge that his son will race this weekend.

“That vehicle has been in the family all this time,” Jesse Ivey said. “When I could reach the pedals I started driving it.”

Jesse’s brother, Jack Ivey Jr., has also made runs at the Southeast Division title, and both brothers have been bracket racing since they were youngsters.

“I expect to see him win,” Jack Ivey Sr. said Wednesday of Jesse’s chances. “He’s been bracket racing since he was nine years old. This is the first time I’ve ever been to a place like this. It’s really something to see all these guys.”

The finals for the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series are held in conjunction with the Summit ET championships, giving Jesse a chance to rub elbows with greats like Funny Car legend John Force and others, something he never expected when the year started. The Ivey crew has put in more than 60 hours of work on the truck this month alone in preparation for the finals.

“I didn’t imagine nothing,” Jesse Ivey said of his goals for this season. “I didn’t think I’d be here at all. I figured I’d be at work every night working and making a paycheck (at Jack Ivey Signs).

“It’s a dream come true.”

Weekend results can be found online at www.dragraceresults.com or www.dragcoverage.com.