TODD VENEY
SWITCHING GEARS
A tempting pit producer position on
the new NHRA on FOX production
crew lured Todd Veney away from
the seat of Jay Blake’s successful
Permatex/Follow A Dream Top
Alcohol Funny Car. Veney was fresh
off a strong 2015 campaign, including
a home-track win that he was able to
share with his parents, Ken and Rona.
went into running my own car. I was broke all the
time and never cared one bit. That’s what I had
to do, to try to get somewhere as a driver. And
it’s not like I’m anybody, but it turned out better
than I thought it would. Now I’m 50. I don’t want
to do that anymore. I’ve got a full-time job on
top of this. I can’t do all three – race, work, and
do this on the weekends, and this is the greatest
side job in world history. It just felt right from the
beginning, like the day I met my wife, or when I
went out to California to work for NHRA when
I was 22-years-old and didn’t know one person.
I knew it’s what I should do.
Do you think you’ll get the itch to drive again,
or have you moved on?
I’d love to race right now, but I don’t want to
quit doing what I’m doing. It was too hard to get
here. It took me until I was 30-years-old to save
up enough for my first race car, and then when
I got it I couldn’t afford to run it. I didn’t run an
NHRA event till I was 35 and didn’t win jack shit
till I was 40. Jay asked me to be his driver again
when I was 44, and whatever was the worst year
we had in the last six years was way better than
any year I ever had with my car. Hell yes I want
to race again. That’s never going away.
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96 | D r a g
I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
Issue 112
PHOTOS: DAVID SMITH, FOX SPORTS
other screen is live.’
How hard was it for you to make the
decision to retire from driving to take
the job with FOX?
I never said I ‘retired.’ I just try not to
think about it. The first race Jay ran without me driving – Gainesville – I went down
to the starting line to watch first round,
saw that car come around the corner and
turned right back around and walked out
to the parking lot and left. I still go see Jay
and all the guys every race, but I definitely
haven’t been back down on the starting
line when that car fires up. If my wife sees
something on Facebook, she knows not
to tell me. And if there’s a Division 1 race
or a national event Jay’s at – I don’t look.
You earned your first national event
Wally at Norwalk last year. How rewarding was that, especially with it being a
home race?
That was the best thing that ever happened to me on a drag strip. We won a
couple other races last year that meant
more to me personally because we outran
everybody instead of lucking out in the final
– but they weren’t national events. We qualified
No. 3, which I think was my highest ever, but I
got a single in the final when DJ Cox shut off on
the burnout. It was like a dream. I’ve had that
exact dream … you’re in the final, so close, then
you wake up. I was like, ‘Wait a minute. He really is climbing out of that car, isn’t he? This is
really happening. Just stage before something
breaks.’ Never have I been that glad to have a
car go back into forward after the burnout. And
damn if I didn’t break two pushrods right off the
starting line.
Now a little over halfway into the season, do
you have any second thoughts about the move?
Especially when the Alcohol Funny Cars come
to the line?
Wanting to drive a race car will never go away –
everybody told me that – but if I wanted to race, I
guess I’d still be racing. When I told Jay, he asked
if I could drive one more time, the Gainesville
points meet right before the Gatornationals. I
called my dad, and he said, ‘What’s the best thing
that could happen? You won 11 points meets instead of 10? Who cares? You know what’ll happen
if you get in that thing one more time thinking
someone else will be driving it five days later.
You’ll never want to get back out.’
I doubt anything is ever going to be a bigger
thrill than driving, and nothing will ever replace
that feeling when you’re going across the finish
line in the final round, you never saw the other guy, and the chutes hit right as the win light
comes on. I had to fight back tears every time.
It’s like my dad said: There’s a million reasons
people quit racing, but it’s never because they
didn’t want to drive the car anymore. It was for a
reason, and this is a damn good reason. Ten years
ago I was 40, still lived in a crummy one-bedroom
apartment and drove a piece-of-crap pickup with
200,000 miles on it because every dollar I made