All Wins Much-Needed For Hungry White

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From the surface, it hardly seemed like a must-win situation for Extreme 10.5 points leader Gary White.Thanks to a red-hot late spring and early summer, White had bolted to the top of the points standings, where he appeared comfortable enough that nothing could unseat him.Behind the scenes, though, White’s win at the completion of the Hardee’s Independence Drags at Gateway International Raceway in early August came at just the right time to start the Titan Motorsports’ late-season push.White and his Scion went through a three-month stretch where nothing appeared to go wrong as he won two races and seemed untouchable in a fast-rising class.But trouble hit at the end of July in Houston when White had his first hiccup in a nearly flawless 2010.A first-round loss at UTI Dragpalooza presented by Safety-Kleen coupled with a double-win weekend by driver Billy Glidden didn’t shake up the top of the standings, but it did give momentum a new home and it no longer had a White (pictured) mailing address.So, yes, upon further review, White was indeed pleased with picking up his third win of the year considering the circumstances.“We needed this,” White said. “That makeup race in Houston, we went out in the first round and blew our motor. That hurt, so we absolutely needed this.”The blown motor was the second part of the must-win equation, which made coming back and winning in St. Louis that much sweeter.It also gave White and his team some piece of mind heading into the final two months of the season.“That was tough to recover from,” White said. “It took a little doing to get it back and going to where we wanted.”There were still some minor issues to be corrected at Gateway thanks to some fuel issues with the car.White’s team had to back up on the tuneup because of that, but White still delivered a 4.00 at 185 miles per hour in the finals to beat Jeff Naiser.White gladly took that after the troubles in Houston. After the motor blowup on the first day - which led to the surprising first-round exit - White red-lighted in the finals of the UTI Texas Drags the next night, handing the victory to Glidden, who managed two wins in two nights.He immediately shot to second in the points race behind White, which added yet another layer to the importance of the win at Gateway.“This are the top of top guys,” White said. “It isn’t like this is a class that’s not well known and bringing good guys in here. Every win you get in this class is a quality win.“There’s a lot of guys doing an awesome job, but our guys have been doing an awesome job, too.”White fell to Chuck Ulsch at the Hardee’s Gateway Drags the night after his Independence Drags win, the latest sign in how fickle the class is becoming down the stretch of the 2010 season.Ulsch ended up winning the race, jumping right back into the mix in XTF.But White could see this coming. Even as he was dominating in picking up wins at the Speedtech U.S. Drags in May and the Ford Drive One Summer Drags in June, he predicted everyone else would have their say at some point.White rode out that hot string for as long as he could, but he made need one more to put the finishing touches on what has been an incredible year thus far.“There’s a lot of fast cars,” White said. “It’s going to take 3.90 to win these races the rest of the year.”(Photos by ADRL/Richards)

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