GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME: JACKIE FRICKE IS A SERIOUS CONTENDER

by John DiBartolomeo; Photos by Roger Richards, Auto Imagery    Thu, 2021-05-13 16:14

Growing up in a family of bracket racers with a father, Rich Rogge who still races today, it may have seemed odd that at seven years old, Jackie Fricke drew a picture of an alcohol dragster, stating, “I’m going to drive one of those someday.”

But that day is here and now and has been for a number of years.

Wheeling an A/Fuel Dragster owned by John Finke, Fricke has been in the final round of every national and regional event so far this year. With a team that begins with Finke, John Ausherman, Al Blake, sister Amy Iacono, and nieces Taylor and Tori; the entire group is very much family oriented. “We all get along so well,” said Fricke, “and that has been a big reason as to why we have run so good. Every one on our team is just as much into racing as I am.

“John [Finke] is an incredible person, says Fricke. “He is extremely mechanical and definitely the person you want in your corner, sparing no expense or time investment to make our team excel.

“We’ve gotten progressively better as the years have gone by,” she adds, “but I really feel as though a test session early in 2020 set the tone for us. I don’t know if I was all that interested in how they worked, I just wanted to drive the car. But I’ve now become obsessed with their inner workings. John and I will talk about things we’d like to try, some which may be odd, but John never discounts my obsessiveness. I constantly bug him with “What if we did this or that?’ Even when some of my ideas are out there, he never shoots me down.”

The 2020 record speaks for itself. Six final round showings at NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series regional events led to an East Coast Regional championship that also included a fourth-place finish in the year-long national championship. Couple that with what she considers her biggest win as the JEGS All Star champion at the U.S. Nationals in Indy, and 2020 has just added to an impressive resume.

“Prior to us getting back to racing last year when the pandemic hit, we had changed a bunch of things on the car, just some ideas not really any one thing, but just a bunch of small changes. We went testing and immediately were running 5.15s as if they were giving them away. We also decided this year that we were maybe being a bit too conservative in our approach. We broke an engine at the Vegas regional this year which was the first engine we hurt in three seasons. But this class has gotten so competitive though that we had to not be bashful and run the best we could on every run. We’ve been in the final round every race this year, some we’ve won, but each one has been close, tight racing.

“After the success we had in Gainesville earlier this year, I suggested to John that we go to Las Vegas for the regional and national event there,” said Fricke. “He was against it for the obvious reason of the travel and expense necessary. But as he would say, all it took was six beers and he was on-board with the plan.”

A win at the regional event and a runner-up at the national event made the long trip out west from the team’s home in New York along with Fricke’s home in New Jersey a little more palatable. 

Coming from her bracket racing background; a background further supported by maybe her husband biggest supporter and fan Shawn Fricke, a former NHRA division champion as well as a celebrated racer himself; Jackie still considers herself a bracket racer, one who knows how to “get up on the wheel” when the time comes.

“With the alcohol cars, you have to be totally amped up,” she says. “We leave the starting line at 1,900 rpm and it’s tough to get a good reaction time. In bracket racing/top bulb, you could pull a hundredth out of your delay box and just go up there relaxed and hit the ‘Tree. You can’t do that in the alcohol car. I’ll shoot to be .040 or so on the ‘Tree, but if I just miss it a little, I’m .060 and that’s not good enough today to win.”

Evidence of this is her final round appearance this past April at the Denso Spark Plugs Four-Wide Nationals in Vegas. With a final round reaction time of a .045 and a 5.229 elapsed time; certainly beyond stellar; Fricke’s run was eclipsed by Shawn Cowie’s .028 and a 5.218 for the win. “That was a killer race but giving up the winner’s points like that is hard to swallow,” she says. 

A perennial top ten finisher in the Top Alcohol Dragster national championship for the past four years, is 2021 her year to carry the No. 1 at the end of the year?

John Finke lost his wife Janet to a long illness in January so there may be a little more incentive or desire for him to finish on top this year. 

With additional help and support coming from all the employees at Finke Equipment, Fricke’s company Accelerated Travel, Lucas Oil, NGK Spark Plugs, Sparco, JE Pistons, VP Race Fuels, ISC Racers Tape, Boninfante Friction, Goodyear, and C2 Competition Convertors & Machine, this could be the year Jackie Fricke hoists the championship trophy after the final race of 2021. 
  

 

 

 

 
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