A young Drumheller drag racing driver has won the most prestigious trophy available for dragsters.
Brad Adie, 15, has been participating in drag racing for about three years. Almost every weekend, Adie participates in various events for drag racing.
The opportunity to win the Wally, named in honour of the late National Hod Rod Association founder Wally Parks, is only available to Adie a few times a year. He is only given the opportunity to win it when the NHRA, or the governing body of drag racing, is at the track he is participating at.
On the weekend of August 1 and 2 Adie participated in the National Open at the Medicine Hat Drag Racing Association drag strip.
Adie drives a junior dragster, which is a carthat is a half-scale version of a top fuel dragster. The junior dragsters use a five-horsepower, single-cylinder engine. There are two classes for the drivers, the thunder, for younger drivers, and the category Adie is in, which is called lightning.
To receive the trophy, Adie went through several rounds of racing a competitor to at the end be the final winner.
“One day, I came home from a friend’s house and my dad had (a car) in the shop so that is how I got started,” Adie said.
Adie competes in the 8 mile and as part of the rules that are set out by the NHRA, he cannot complete the race any faster than 7.9 seconds and go no faster than 85 miles per hour.
