BRISTOL, Tenn. — Top Fuel driver Doug Foley is rolling into this weekend’s NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway with a pair of new partners on his Foley Lewis Racing dragster.
Teligent Solutions, a premier security consulting firm, has signed on as the team’s primary sponsor for Foley’s seventh appearance on the NHRA Camping World Series tour.
Torino Incorporated, a construction management firm, will take the major associate sponsor role.
“We’re proud to bring on two new sponsors and to introduce them to NHRA drag racing,” said Foley, who races with longtime racing partner Tim Lewis. “Guy Pierce [president of marketing] and I have been working for the last couple years to develop new partnerships, and we’re starting to see the benefits.
“It means a lot to have companies of this size start to give us a chance with the possibility of growing these partnerships into next year. It makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something when you have people that believe in what you’re doing.”
Teligent Solutions is committed to providing state-of-the-art security solutions for clients, while Torino Incorporated offers construction management services for all phases of construction.
“These partnerships are all about networking and connecting companies that can work together, whether that’s on the national or regional level,” said Pierce. “We’re looking forward to working with Ray Carr [president of Teligent Solutions] and Peter Torino [president and CEO of Torino Incorporated] to provide value and introduce their brands to potential customers through the powerful platform that is NHRA Top Fuel racing.”
Teligent Solutions and Torino Incorporated are joining Foley’s full-time partners like Red Line Synthetic Oil, PROTECS Inc., Atlantic Bay Mortgage and Leavitt Group.
The Thunder Valley Nationals is Foley’s first in almost a month since the Virginia NHRA Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park. Foley qualified ninth at Virginia before a broken coil shaft in the supercharger shut the car off on the starting line during the first round of eliminations.
“We feel like we’re starting to qualify better, which is what sets the tone for the whole weekend,” Foley said. “That was our best qualifying start of the year. We’re starting to get to the point where we can maybe secure lane choice for Sunday. We’re hoping to continue that at Bristol.”
After Bristol, the Foley Lewis Racing team will take almost two months off before rejoining the tour at the Menards NHRA Nationals at Heartland Motorsports Park on Aug. 12-14.
The team will use that break to continue refining their program for their planned races during the second half of the season.
“Every weekend is almost like a job interview,” Foley said. “We’re trying hard to make sure that our partners and the fans see the effort that we put into this. We’re always trying to take it to the next level where we can be competitive with those top teams.”