somebody doesn’t qualify and emo-
tions run high.
Ashley just stepped in Pro Jr. Drag-
ster. We took her out testing a couple
weeks ago for her birthday. Watch-
ing her get in the car and be excited
and be ready and focused is also
rewarding. It’s a whole new ball-
game when you’re going from Top
Jr. to Pro Jr. with the Pro tree. People
don’t think that one second makes
much difference, but the way the
car reacts is a lot different and a
second is a lot in drag racing.
Being able to be there and watch
my kids love the sport so much and
do well and listen and adapt to new
things is just awesome as a parent.
The PDRA’s Jr. Dragster program is
very competitive. How important do
you think that is that Amber and
Ashley are growing up racing in this
series and learning the lessons that
come with that?
In my personal opinion, our PDRA
Jr. Dragsters are so competitive.
They’re like the best of the best.
I’m not taking away from any other
Jrs. in the country, but our PDRA
Jrs. are pretty awesome drag
racers, and they have to be because
it’s a very competitive class. It’s
one of our most competitive
classes in the PDRA.
There were times last year that
Ashley didn’t qualify. Yes, it’s upset-
ting when they don’t qualify, but it’s
also rewarding to watch them be up
there cheering on their fellow com-
petitors and getting excited for their
friends when they’re winning. past. We made some changes in 2019
and had Tyler Crossnoe come on with
us full-time. Everybody knows Tyler
is a young, energetic person who is
going to go above and beyond, some-
times a little bit too much above and
beyond. He never stops. of qualifying Friday night, was a
success. Most people work on
Fridays, so they don’t have time to
be taking off work and getting to
the racetrack at 12 o’clock. With us
pushing two pro qualifiers on Friday
night, I think that was a big hit.
You and Tommy and the PDRA team
have taken various steps over the
last few years to improve the PDRA
program. What would you say is the
biggest success to come out of the
PDRA over the last few years? I think one of the biggest changes was
the way we do testing on Thursday.
We now have scheduled testing on
Thursday, as opposed to everybody
coming up whenever. That seemed
to work out really well last year. We’re very grateful for everybody
who’s worked for the PDRA in the I think the change in the qualifying
format, giving the pros two rounds Last year, we had a couple people
go out and be our “street team”
towards the end of the season,
going out to the different areas
where we were going to be racing
and passing out flyers and just
making sure everybody knew about
the event that was coming up. I
think that helped with attendance,
and we plan to step that up even
more this season.
You recently made your first pass
down the track in quite some time.
Is that a sign of what’s to come?
It’s been probably 17 years since I’ve
been down the track racing myself,
so I made a pass the other day. I’m
thinking that once we start racing
again, I might actually start racing
Street E.T. nights at Virginia Motor-
sports Park. Not only will I be a cheer-
leader for Tommy, Amber and Ashley
this year, I’m thinking about getting
back into racing myself. We’ll see.
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