Drag Illustrated Issue 152, January 2020 | Page 22

Dirt
Back in
Black
Doug Foley, Foley Lewis
Racing planning eight-race
2020 Top Fuel schedule
By Nate Van Wagnen
provide value to the companies who decide to
partner with us.”
Along with the Arizona Nationals, Foley plans
to attend the races in Gainesville, Richmond,
Bristol, Indianapolis, and Reading, as well as
both Charlotte races near their Mooresville, North
Carolina-based shop.
Foley admits he and racing partner Tim Lewis
didn’t always have intentions of going back to
Top Fuel after they stopped fielding a car in the
class together in 2009. But the stars aligned, and
Foley and Lewis are prepared to go all in on a
competitive partial schedule.
“I think it’s an opportunity for me and Tim
to go out and show that a small team can still
be competitive,” Foley said. “I think the field
lends to that. We don’t have the fields we used
to. Yeah, the NHRA at the top is really, really
good cars, but that’s the way it always was. So
for us, we feel like if we run our race and focus
on our guys and what we have to offer, I think
we can be competitive.”
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I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com
Issue 152
W
ith the start of 2020 pre-
season testing just over a month
away, Doug Foley and his Foley
Lewis Racing team recently an-
nounced their plans for the 2020 NHRA Mello
Yello Series season. The Top Fuel team will com-
pete at eight races, starting with the NHRA Ari-
zona Nationals near Phoenix in February.
First, Foley will make his licensing runs in pre-
season testing. It will be Foley’s first time back in
a Top Fuel seat since 2011, though he raced Top
Alcohol Dragster in 2018.
Foley Lewis Racing returned to Top Fuel with
Todd Paton driving at the NTK NHRA Carolina
Nationals near Charlotte in October.
“Back in June, all we had to go Top Fuel racing
was a bucket of sockets,” Foley said. “We put ev-
erything together over the course of a few months,
and we didn’t leave [the Charlotte race] with a list
of a million things that we needed to do. It was
an accomplishment in that sense. In our opinion,
we were only a couple runs away from starting to
build some momentum.”
Foley and crew chief Scott Gaddy spent the
last couple months focusing on refining their
part inventory and building a crew for the 2020
season. Foley is also working with longtime friend
and business development advisor Guy Pierce to
develop a robust sponsorship program to present
to potential partners, specifically in the construc-
tion and property management industries.
“We hope to add more than eight races,” Foley
said. “To us, the difference between eight and
10 races means nothing. It’s how did we do at
those eight races? It’s the quality of the pro-
gram. We’re also going to be working on the
financial partnerships. It’s important to us to