Bienfait's Ashley Wilson captured her first Magic City International Dragway Junior Dragster Points Championship last month in Minot, North Dakota, but she needed a comeback win in her final race to do it.
Wilson trailed eventual second-place finisher AJ Seddon by 100 points, or one round, heading into the last junior dragster points race on Sept. 18. The Grade 11 student at Estevan Comprehensive School made sure she would get it winning the final race of the season to finish with 2,200 points, which coupled with a poor showing by Seddon propelled her to a 200-point win for the title.
“I missed the first race (of the season), the first points race, but then I got two firsts and a second,” said Wilson, 16. “I just tried my best and won some rounds some days, didn't other days, but somehow got it in the end.”
The six-year drag racing veteran said there are about 16 drivers who regularly compete in the junior dragster races, which include two or three time trails and usually four rounds of competition including the final. She said their season runs from mid-May to mid-September with a six-week break in the summer to accommodate the North Dakota State Fair.
Wilson, who is a member of Dean and Daughters' Racing with her dad Dean and sisters Megan and Amanda, runs a Briggs and Stratton four-stroke engine in her junior dragster, which reaches speeds of 80-85 miles per hour on an eighth-mile drag racing strip.
“When we start ours, we have to hold our foot on the brakes so it doesn't go anywhere,” she said. “As soon as you let off the brake it's rolling. Then you do your burnout, your pre-stage and stage and when the lights come down then hit the gas and you're gone.”
Wilson had finished in the runner-up position in the junior dragster points race the past two summers placing behind her younger sister Megan last year. Her older sister Amanda accomplished the feat in 2013 before advancing to the Top Elapsed Time bracket. She said it was watching Amanda win the title that really made it a goal for her, but hoisting up a trophy at the end of the season is not the reason why she competes.
It's “just to have some fun with my family and maybe do some winning once in a while,” said Wilson. “And I hope my family does well in racing (too).”
